Moral stories are a means of communicating the consequences of our actions and emphasizing virtuous behaviour, such as honesty. However, the effect of these stories on children's lie-telling has yet to be thoroughly explored. The current study investigated the influence of moral stories on children's willingness to lie for another individual.…

Previous research has found that when children engage in social and moral transgressions, they take steps to either remedy or explain their behavior. However, no prior systematic investigation has examined the strategies children employ to 'correct' their behavior in future situations. The present study employed a domain theory lens to investigate…

Few studies so far have investigated whether abrupt social changes in a society affect the development of friendship and moral reasoning. In this study, 2 cohorts of 188 East German children and adolescents (aged 7, 9, 12, and 15 years) were interviewed in 1990 and 2005. Participants were asked about the importance of close friendship (friendship…

We investigated whether children's robust conscience, formed during early family socialization, promotes their future adaptive and competent functioning in expanded ecologies. We assessed two dimensions of conscience in young children (N = 100) at 25, 38, and 52 months in scripted laboratory contexts: internalization of their mothers' and fathers'…

In order to unify two major theories of moral judgment, a novel task is employed which combines elements of Kohlberg's stage theory and of the theory of information integration. In contrast to the format of Kohlberg's moral judgment interview, a nonverbal and quantitative response which makes low demands on verbal facility was used. Moral…

This study examined conceptions of the right to literacy in children, adolescents, and young adults living in rural Zulu villages in the mountains of KwaZulu Natal, South Africa, as one instantiation of the development of conceptions of human rights in a developing world setting. Of human rights, literacy was chosen because of its familiarity to…

Rural and city subjects ages 10 through 28 were individually interviewed on Kohlberg's moral dilemmas. Responses were analyzed according to a new manual, which calls for matching responses to criteria judgments. Results support the claim for structural universality in moral judgment. Differences between rural and urban subjects are discussed.…

Uses fables to study the moral orientation used in problem solving by 54 first, second, and fifth grade children. The following findings are reported: (1) all adopted a "care" orientation; (2) only fifth grade boys used solutions involving tricks; and (3) the ability to explain the logic of solutions was related to abstract reasoning…

Some researchers argue that males and females develop moral reasoning in the same manner, while others contend that males tend toward moral judgements based on the concept of "Justice" and women base their judgements on "Care." A third school argues that neither such cognitive elements as justice and care are as important as…