Psychological research has revealed that there is a strong tendency for people to believe that they have a 'true self', and to believe that this true self is inherently morally good. This would seemingly be very good news for virtue theorists, since this may help to promote virtue development. While there are some obvious benefits to people having…

In this article, we introduce the four component model (FCM), which describes both the internal processes that play distinct roles in the production of moral behavior and their associated sets of relevant, teachable skills. We use this model as an analytic framework to examine college students' moral character experiences reported in the Wabash…

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…

We conducted a qualitative analysis of 5 years of student writing data to understand learning and moral development on a field philosophy course in Isle Royale National Park. We were interested in the connection between physical experiences in the natural world and the way students care about or value nonhuman beings, natural systems, and place.…

Are athletics a positive or negative educational force? The viewpoint widely shared across academe is that participation in intercollegiate athletics has a positive impact on students and contributes to learning and moral development. Often, this notion is captured in the phrase "character development," a shorthand way to describe the individual…

The correlation between positive and negative group interactions and one or another of individuals' attitudes or characteristics--moral development, critical thinking, resilience, and self efficacy--has been examined previously. However, no systemic examination of individuals' development of patterns of these characteristics and those patterns'…