The study examined the links among maternal warmth and adolescents' empathic concern, moral conviction and prosocial behaviors. Participants were 311 adolescents from a low-income community (M age = 16.10 years; range = 14-19 years; 58.7% girls; 82.7% white; 13.6% Latinx). The results demonstrated that maternal warmth was positively associated…

We examined the links between perceived parental use of social and material rewards and prosocial behaviors across youth from two countries. Six hundred forty adolescents (297 girls; X-bar age = 15.32 years) from Valencia, Spain, and 552 adolescents (321 girls; X-bar age = 13.38 years) from the United States completed measures of their perceptions…

The article provides a brief review of theory and research on the roles of guilt, shame, and sympathy in predicting moral behaviors. Two models are presented and contrasted. The guilt-based model proposes that guilt and shame jointly predict prosocial and aggressive behaviors. In contrast, the sympathy-based model suggests that perspective taking…

The current study explored how parental inductions and punitiveness were related to the prosocial moral reasoning through perspective taking and sympathy. Data were collected from three ethnic groups: 106 European American, 202 Mexican American, and 196 Taiwanese fifth and sixth graders (approximately 50% girls). Using structural equation modeling…

Developmental scholars assert that parents are important in fostering prosocial behaviors in adolescents, but longitudinal investigations on this topic are limited. Participants consisted of 372 boys and 358 girls with a mean age of 10.84 years (SD = 1.57) at Wave 1 from a mostly middle class community in Spain. Across three successive years,…

The purpose of this study was to determine whether aspects of conscience cohere into broader dimensions and to examine how these broader dimensions of conscience relate to parenting, temperament, and social behavior. One hundred and thirteen adolescents (M age = 15.88 years, 51% female) completed measures of sympathy, guilt, empathic anger, shame,…

This study examined relations between parenting dimensions (involvement, autonomy support and structure) and adolescents' moral values internalisation. A sample of 101 adolescents (71% female; 76% white; M age = 16.10, SD = 1.17) reported on the parenting behaviour of one of their parents and on their own moral values. Four forms of values…

Theory and research regarding moral motivation has focused for decades on the roles of moral reasoning and, to some extent, moral emotion. Recently, however, several models of morality have positioned identity as an additional important source of moral motivation. An individual has a moral identity to the extent that he or she has constructed his…

Research suggests that adolescents' ratings of the appropriateness of parental reactions are influenced by several constructs, including adolescents' perceptions of the type of parental reaction, the emotions felt by the adolescent and parental intentions. However, little is known regarding how these constructs are differentially predictive of…

Adolescents and parents reported adolescents' antisocial and prosocial behaviors. Findings indicated that expected parental reactions to antisocial behavior predicted lower levels of delinquency and aggression (adolescent report). Expected parental reactions to prosocial behavior predicted higher levels of prosocial behavior (adolescent report)…

Examined prosocial moral reasoning in Brazilian institutionalized delinquent, orphaned, and noninstitutionalized adolescents. Found that compared to nondelinquent adolescents, delinquent adolescents were less likely to prefer higher level, internalized types of prosocial moral reasoning and more likely to prefer lower levels of prosocial moral…