About this session

Thursday, 10:00 AM - 11:30 AM

The Emergence of Moral Identity: Integrating Perspectives from Social, Emotional, and Cognitive Development

Morality constitutes an important part of identity, to the extent that children and adults report that if their moral characteristics changed, they would become an entirely different person (e.g., Strohminger et al., 2017). Currently, multiple traditions within developmental science investigate moral identity, but there is little integration across these traditions. The goal of this symposium is to integrate work on moral identity from different perspectives and thus obtain a more complete picture of moral development.

Starting with a socio-emotional perspective, Paper 1 presents data from two longitudinal studies investigating how differences in early parent-child relationships shape children’s subsequent identity. Paper 2 integrates moral psychology and experimental philosophy to show that 4- to 5-year-olds and 7- to 8-year-olds view changes to moral characteristics as disrupting identity, with 7- to 8-year-olds showing especially strong distinctions between morality and other domains (e.g., social convention). Paper 3 draws on approaches from social cognitive development and law to show that children are more likely than adults to perceive punishment as leading to changes in moral identity. Specifically, 6- to 8-year-olds viewed moral improvement as more likely to occur following incarceration than did adults, particularly when the incarcerated person put in effort to learn about morality.

Together, these papers demonstrate how clinical, cognitive, and social aspects of development work together to inform moral identity. Following the three papers, our discussant - an expert in moral identity who has conducted research across these areas - will highlight connections across research programs and facilitate discussion with the audience.

Paper #1
Title	Early Relational Origins of Young Children’s Moral Selves: Two Longitudinal Studies
Presenting author	Juyoung Kim, The University of Iowa, United States

Paper #2
Title	Morality and Self-Continuity: Further Evidence Supporting the Early-Onset View of Moral Identity Development
Presenting author	Tobias Krettenauer, Ph.D., Wilfred Laurier University, Canada

Paper #3
Title	Children Perceive Moral Identities as More Changeable for the Better than do Adults
Presenting author	Larisa Heiphetz Solomon, Ph.D., Columbia University, United States

View all paper details

Session chair
Larisa Heiphetz Solomon, Ph.D., Columbia University, United States

Discussant
Gustavo Carlo, Ph.D., University of California - Irvine, United States

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