The Development of Forgiveness

The psychology of forgiveness originated from the creative and important work on the development of justice initiated by Piaget in 1932 and extended by Kohlberg in 1969. The scientific study of forgiveness is quite new, having emerged in print in 1989, with an examination of the developmental progression in children’s, adolescents’, and adults’ thinking about the necessary conditions for them to offer forgiveness to another person. In this chapter, the authors first review the definition of forgiveness, followed by this early cognitive work. They then turn to a discussion of the measurement of forgiveness correlates of forgiveness. The practical application of this construct is seen in the development of forgiveness therapy and forgiveness education, which the authors discuss in light of the empirical findings. Future directions for forgiveness studies are considered.

The Interplay of Developing Morality and Gender Attitudes

Morality and gender are intersecting realms of human thought and behavior. Reasoning and action at their intersection (e.g., views of women’s rights legislation) carry important consequences for societies, communities, and individual lives. In this chapter, the authors argue that children’s developing views of morality and gender reciprocally shape one another in important and underexplored ways. The chapter begins with a brief history of psychological theory and research at the intersection of morality and gender and suggests reasons for the historical failure to view gender attitudes through moral lenses. The authors then describe reasons for expecting morality to play an important role in shaping children’s developing gender attitudes and, reciprocally, for gender attitudes to play an important role in shaping children’s developing moral values. The authors next illustrate the importance and relevance of these ideas by discussing two topics at the center of contentious debate in the United States concerning ethical policy and practice: treatment of gender nonconformity and gender-segregated schooling. The chapter concludes with suggestions for future research.

Moral Self-Identity and Character Development

Moral development is a kind of sociopersonality development that has as its aim the disposition to virtue. The developmental grounding of moral personality is in the first months of life and includes neurobiological foundations, the mutual responsive orientation, and dialogic socialization of the moral self. The authors argue that moral self-identity offers integrative possibilities for understanding the life span development of moral personality and for understanding the dispositional and motivational bases of moral behavior, and that social cognitive theory has resources for understanding how the moral self and conscience of infancy is canalized into individual and cultural differences in the schedule and priority of character strengths that are the targets of socialization. Moral self-identity and character are placed in the historical context of the moral stage theory paradigm.

Emotional Experiences in Moral Contexts

Moral deeds often require sacrificing time, effort, and resources, yet we are still motivated to engage in such behaviors. What drives us to enact these positive, prosocial behaviors and to leave our selfish desires behind? Developmental scientists consider emotions in contexts of morality (i.e., moral emotions) important drivers behind other-oriented, fair, and responsible behaviors. In this chapter, the authors outline the core moral emotions, how they develop, and how they link to prosocial and antisocial behaviors across development. They begin by discussing their integrative theoretical framework for conceptualizing moral emotions. Afterwards, they introduce a taxonomy that distinguishes four key moral emotions based on two dimensions: valence (positive and negative) and orientation (self and other). Next, current cross-cultural research on the development of these emotions is discussed, followed by a review of research on how the four emotions are associated with prosocial and antisocial behaviors from infancy to adolescence. The authors then outline the fundamental components that are involved in emotional experiences and conclude by highlighting promising future directions for developmental research.

Moral Development: From Paradigms to Plurality

This chapter introduces The Oxford Handbook of Moral Development: An Interdisciplinary Perspective. The handbook provides a comprehensive, international, and up-to-date review of research on moral development, including moral motives and behaviors, ontogeny and developmental pathways, and contexts that children, adolescents, and adults experience with respect to morality. Across more than 40 chapters, experts from disciplines such as anthropology, education, human development, psychology, and sociology address moral development through the entire life course among diverse groups within and across countries. This chapter addresses how the chapters provide literature reviews that are inclusive of highly diverse theoretical and research foci, as well as of diverse cultural, socioeconomic, and gender groups. The aim of the handbook is to contribute to the revitalization and flourishing of the field of moral development.

The Development of Moral Self-Presentation

Children come to recognize that the impressions one makes on other people can be controlled and managed. In this chapter, the authors situate the development of such “self-presentation” in the moral context, with attention to a range of relevant social, cultural, cognitive, motivational, and emotional processes. Children’s appreciation of self-presentational tactics such as self-promotion, modesty, and ingratiation is reviewed before turning specifically to the factors involved in deception and truth-telling. The authors analyze the emergence of children’s self-presentational competencies in shaping both their own individual reputations and the reputations of the social groups with which they identify, especially in contexts where moral and social-conventional rules have been transgressed. Key goals for future research that illuminates the nature and implications of children’s moral self-presentation are identified.

The Life Span Development of Generativity

This chapter addresses the development of generativity, Erikson’s conception of the midlife strength in his eight-stage model of personality development. Following Erikson, the authors define generativity as care for next generations and set it in the context of both personality theory and life span development. Specifically, the authors draw on the framework of McAdams that characterizes personality as composed of three sequentially developing levels: actions, goals/motives, and the narrative life story (a mature form of narrative that provides the self with a sense of meaning and identity). The authors then review research on generativity as expressed from adolescence to later adulthood, which indicates that it is a relevant construct across this entire period in a variety of life domains. They also consider factors influencing generativity levels, including family background and cultural variations. Throughout the chapter, the authors consider the connections of generativity to morality across different facets of personality and stages of the adult life span.

Secular Living as a Context for Moral Development

Despite widespread suspicion to the contrary, secular living can and does serve as an adequate, or even excellent, context for moral development. In this chapter, the authors present the contours of contemporary anti-atheist prejudice, with an emphasis on the United States. Next, they explore the empirical data showing that individual atheists and highly secularized societies, such as Sweden and Denmark, are often quite moral, which serves to counter and debunk anti-atheist prejudice. Then, the authors move to a philosophical discussion centering around secular morality itself, outlining general merits of atheistic morality specifically while simultaneously pointing out various problematic assumptions of theistic morality. Finally, the authors conclude and make recommendations for future research.

Childcare, Culture, and Child Development

This chapter concerns theory and research relevant to child development and early childhood education and care (ECEC), which is a key ecology for human development. In this chapter, the authors provide an overview of the organizational features and processes important to understanding these settings. The authors then focus on describing the Nordic welfare model as it relates to ECEC settings, with an exploration of how certain ethics are reflected in the design, goals, and practice of ECEC settings in Sweden. The chapter then moves to summarizing and reflecting on the empirical research literature on how Swedish ECEC settings may support aspects of children’s moral development; finally, the authors pose several questions that may prove important to advancing future research in this area.

The Development of Pro-Environmentalism in Context

Global warming has become an existential concern for our own and the planet’s future. As developmental psychologists, the authors are interested in pro-environmental behavior at the individual level, believing that the societal changes needed to address this issue require changes at the individual level. In this chapter, the authors frame environmental issues as moral issues to the extent that how people think about, react to, and interact in the environment reflect moral values such as caring. Consequently, the authors explore how people’s moral attitudes, thinking, emotions, and behavior around environmental issues form and change over the course of development. They also investigate how developing experiences with the natural environment can influence its importance to the self and in identity formation. Finally, the authors consider that cultural context matters; that attitudes and behaviors toward the environment and how they develop depend on the culture in which we are raised and that what we currently know about the development of environmentalism in not likely to extend much beyond mainstream cultures in Western, industrialized countries.