Experiencing the moral emotions of gratitude and moral elevation are responses to witnessing virtuous deeds of others. Both emotions have been found to share similar features and behavioral consequences, including the stimulation of personal development. The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions indicates that gratitude and elevation…

Associations among moral judgments, neighborhood risk, and maternal discipline were examined in 118 socioeconomically diverse preschoolers (M[subscript age] = 41.84 months, SD = 1.42). Children rated the severity and punishment deserved for 6 prototypical moral transgressions entailing physical and psychological harm and unfairness. They also…

Student perceptions of the purposes of assessment have been shown to be significant predictors of self-regulated learning. Their relationship to achievement emotions is less well understood. This paper reports a survey study of Chinese middle and high school students (N = 1,393) self-reported conceptions of the purpose of assessment and their…

This study examined relationships between social perspective-taking (SPT) and the individual, group, and societal domains of socially responsible leadership. SPT is a higher-order cognitive skill linked to moral development and social coordination, but never empirically connected to leadership development. Analyses determined SPT has a strong…

The purposes of this study were to conceptualize moral identity as moral ideal self, to develop a measure of this construct, to test for age and gender differences, to examine links between moral ideal self and adolescent outcomes, and to assess purpose and social responsibility as mediators of the relations between moral ideal self and outcomes.…

Studies document that parents serve as children's primary socialization agents, particularly for moral development and prosocial behavior; however, less is known regarding parental influences on prosocial outcomes during the transition to adulthood. The purpose of this study was to investigate how mother-child relationship quality was related to…

Differing findings exist on how Defining Issues Test (DIT) scores relate to intelligence. Further study is needed in order to address aspects of intellect not previously considered and to address how these relationships rival studies that have compared indices of intellect with constructs similar to DIT scores. In the present study, a sample of…

This study evaluated the stage structure of several quasi-simplex and non-simplex models of moral development in two domains of moral development in a British and a Chinese sample. Analyses were based on data reported by Sachs (1992): the Chinese sample consisted of 1,005 students from grade 9 to post-college, and the British sample consisted of…

This article presents a longitudinal-sequential analysis of the developmental and reciprocal relationships between self-reported delinquency and moral reasoning (as measured with the Dutch version of the short form of the Defining Issues Test). Between 1991 and 1997 a large sample of 846 Dutch adolescents and young adults (15-23 years in 1991) was…