Synonyms
Definition
Morality involves a set of principles guiding interindividual treatment involving rights, welfare, fairness, and justice.
Introduction
Throughout history, scholars have examined the construct of morality. Early theories regarding the origins and nature of morality were developed by philosophers. For instance, Kant (1785/1959) focused on prescriptive norms regarding morality and distinguished between positive duties, which involve prosocial actions, generosity, or benevolence to others, and negative duties, which involve avoiding harm to others, unfair treatment, and inequality. More recently, the study of morality has been undertaken by psychologists. Developmental science research has demonstrated strong cross-cultural empirical support for social domain theory (Smetana et al. 2014), which emphasizes that moral judgments occur within a social context and that social interaction with peers, parents, family members, and other...
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
References
Arsenio, W. F., Adams, E., & Gold, J. (2009). Social information processing, moral reasoning, and emotion attributions: Relations with adolescents reactive and proactive aggression. Child Development, 80, 1739–1755. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.2009.01365.x.
Dahl, A., Sherlock, B. R., Campos, J. J., & Theunissen, F. E. (2014). Mothers’ tone of voice depends on the nature of infants’ transgressions. Emotion, 14, 651–665. doi:10.1037/a0036608.
Kant, I. (1785/1959). Foundations of the metaphysics of morals. New York: Bobbs-Merrill.
Killen, M., Mulvey, K. L., & Hitti, A. (2013). Social exclusion in childhood: A developmental intergroup perspective. Child Development, 84, 772–790. doi:10.1111/cdev.12012.
Killen, M., Mulvey, K. L., Richardson, C., Jampol, N., & Woodward, A. (2011). The accidental transgressor: Morally-relevant theory of mind. Cognition, 119, 197–215. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2011.01.006.
Lahat, A. (2015). The neurocognitive development of moral judgments: The role of executive function. In J. Decety, T. Wheatley, J. Decety, & T. Wheatley (Eds.), The moral brain: A multidisciplinary perspective (pp. 143–155). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Mulvey, K. L., Hitti, A., Smetana, J., & Killen, M. (2016). Morality, context and development. In L. Balter & C. Tamis-LeMonda (Eds.), Child psychology: A handbook of contemporary issues (3rd ed., pp. 285–304). New York: Psychology Press.
Smetana, J. G., Jambon, M., & Ball, C. (2014). The social domain approach to children’s moral and social judgments. In M. Killen & J. G. Smetana (Eds.), Handbook of moral development (2nd ed., pp. 23–45). New York: Psychology Press.
Turiel, E. (2008). Thought about actions in social domains: Morality, social conventions, and social interactions. Cognitive Development, 23, 136–154. doi:10.1016/j.cogdev.2007.04.001.
Wainryb, C., & Bourne, S. (2016). And i shot her: On war, and the creation of inequities in the development of youths’ moral capacities. Advances in Child Development and Behavior, 51, 257–287. doi:10.1016/bs.acdb.2016.05.003.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Section Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
Mulvey, K.L., McMillin, L., Fram, P. (2017). Morality. In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_1254-1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_1254-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-28099-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-28099-8
eBook Packages: Springer Reference Behavioral Science and PsychologyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences