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Adolescent Naturalistic Conceptions of Moral Maturity
Author(s) -
Hardy Sam A.,
Walker Lawrence J.,
Olsen Joseph A.,
Skalski Jonathan E.,
Basinger Jason C.
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
social development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.078
H-Index - 91
eISSN - 1467-9507
pISSN - 0961-205X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9507.2010.00590.x
Subject(s) - psychology , maturity (psychological) , moral development , morality , social cognitive theory of morality , developmental psychology , similarity (geometry) , moral disengagement , social psychology , set (abstract data type) , moral reasoning , moral psychology , epistemology , philosophy , artificial intelligence , computer science , image (mathematics) , programming language
Understanding lay conceptions of morality is important not only because they can guide moral psychology theory but also because they may play a role in everyday moral functioning. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine adolescent conceptions of moral maturity. Study 1 (200 adolescents 12–18 years) involved a free‐listing procedure to generate traits descriptive of a moral person. In Study 2, involving 100 early (11–14 years) and 99 late (15–18 years) adolescents, the moral person traits obtained in the first study were rated in terms of how well they described a moral person. Study 3, with 234 early (10–14 years) and 240 late (15–18 years) adolescents, entailed a similarity‐sorting task and a rating procedure similar to that from Study 2. This set of studies uncovered early and late adolescents' implicit typologies of moral maturity and pointed to possible age similarities and differences.