Judith G. Smetana

Preschool Children's Conceptions of Moral and Social Rules.

SMETANA, JUDITH G. Preschool Childrens Conceptions of Moral and Social Rules. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1981, 52, 13883-1336. This study examined preschool childrens conceptions of moral and social-conventional rules. 44 children between the ages of 2-6 and 4-9 were divided into 2 groups of 21 and 23 children according to age (X = 3-3, 4-2). Children made judgments concerning the seriousness, rule contingency, rule relativism, and amount of deserved punishment for 10 (depicted) moral and conventional preschool transgressions. Analyses of variance with age and sex as between-group factors and domain as the within-group factor indicated that, constant across both sexes and the ages studied, children evaluated moral transgressions as more serious offenses and as more deserving of punishment than conventional transgressions. Moreover, moral events were less likely than conventional events to be regarded as contingent on the presence of a rule and relative to the social context. Test-retest reliability of the ratings of the seriousness of transgressions was .66 over a 2-3 week period. The findings were discussed in relation to the developmental differentiation model and the distinct conceptual domain approach.

Handbook of Moral Development

Contents: Preface. Part I: Introduction. Part II: Structuralism and Moral Development Stages. E. Turiel, Thought, Emotions, and Social Interactional Processes in Moral Development. D.K. Lapsley, Moral Stage Theory. S.J. Thoma, Research on the Defining Issues Test. L.J. Walker, Gender and Morality. Part III: Social Domain Theory and Social Justice. J.G. Smetana, Social-Cognitive Domain Theory: Consistencies and Variations in Childrens Moral and Social Judgments. M. Killen, N.G. Margie, S. Sinno, Morality in the Context of Intergroup Relationships. C. Helwig, Rights, Civil Liberties, and Democracy Across Cultures. C. Wainryb, Moral Development in Culture: Diversity, Tolerance, and Justice. Part IV: Conscience and Internalization. J.E. Grusec, The Development of Moral Behavior and Conscience From a Socialization Perspective. R.A. Thompson, S. Meyer, M. McGinley, Understanding Values in Relationships: The Development of Conscience. L. Kuczynski, G.S. Navara, Sources of Innovation and Change in Socialization, Internalization, and Acculturation. Part V: Social Interactional, Sociocultural, and Comparative Approaches. J. Dunn, Moral Development in Early Childhood and Social Interaction in the Family. M.B. Tappan, Mediated Moralities: Sociocultural Approaches to Moral Development. J.G. Miller, Insights Into Moral Development From Cultural Psychology. D.P. Fry, Reciprocity: The Foundation Stone of Morality. P. Verbeek, Everyones Monkey: Primate Moral Roots. P.H. Kahn, Jr., Nature and Moral Development. Part VI: Empathy, Emotions, and Aggression. P.D. Hastings, C. Zahn-Waxler, K. McShane, We Are, by Nature, Moral Creatures: Biological Bases of Concern for Others. N. Eisenberg, T. Spinrad, A. Sadovsky, Empathy-Related Responding in Children. G. Carlo, Care-Based and Altruistically Based Morality. W.F. Arsenio, J. Gold, E. Adams, Childrens Conceptions and Displays of Moral Emotions. M.S. Tisak, J. Tisak, S.E. Goldstein, Aggression, Delinquency, and Morality: A Social-Cognitive Perspective. Part VII: Moral Education, Character Development, and Community Service. D. Hart, R. Atkins, T.M. Donnelly, Community Service and Moral Development. L. Nucci, Education for Moral Development. M.W. Berkowitz, S. Sherblom, M. Bier, V. Battistich, Educating for Positive Youth Development. D. Narvaez, Integrative Ethical Education.

Social-cognitive development: Domain distinctions and coordinations

Abstract Recent research on social-cognitive development has identified three conceptual domains which form the basis of the childs structuring of the social world: the moral, societal, and psychological domains. Research on distinct conceptual domains has thus far focused on events and actions that are clear examples of content for the domains. The issue of domain coordinations has not been addressed. This paper examines coordinations between conceptual domains in childrens social judgments through a discussion of the experiential origins of the domains and judgments about mixed, second-order, and ambiguously multifaceted events. The utility of the conceptual domain model for understanding social judgments and social development is discussed.

Conceptions of Moral, Social-Conventional, and Personal Events Among Chinese Preschoolers in Hong Kong

Sixty-one Chinese preschoolers from Hong Kong at 2 ages (Ms = 4.36 and 6.00 years) were interviewed about familiar moral, social-conventional, and personal events. Children treated personal events as distinct from moral obligations and conventional regulations. Children judged the child as deciding personal issues, based on personal choice justifications, whereas children judged parents as deciding moral and conventional issues. With age, children granted increased decision-making power to the child. In contrast, children viewed moral transgressions as more serious, generalizably wrong, and wrong independent of authority than other events, based on welfare and fairness. Punishment-avoidance justifications for conventional events decreased with age, whereas conventional justifications increased. Young Chinese preschool children make increasingly differentiated judgments about their social world.

Abused, neglected, and nonmaltreated children's conceptions of moral and social-conventional transgressions.

The effect of child maltreatment on childrens social-cognitive development was examined by investigating abused, neglected, and nonmaltreated childrens judgments regarding the permissibility of social-conventional and moral transgressions pertaining to physical harm, psychological distress, and the unfair distribution of resources. Abused and neglected children and a control group of nonmaltreated children matched on IQ, age, and social class judged the seriousness, deserved punishment, generalizability, and rule contingency of familiar transgressions for themselves and others. Abused subjects were more likely than neglected subjects to consider psychological distress to be universally wrong for others; neglected subjects were more likely than abused subjects to judge the unfair distribution of resources to be universally wrong for themselves. Abused and control children, but not neglected children, judged all transgressions to deserve more punishment when committed by others than when committed by the self. All children distinguished between morality and social convention and between different types of moral transgressions on all 4 criteria. Furthermore, all children were more egocentric in their judgments for the self than for others. These findings are discussed in relation to research on the effects of child maltreatment and on moral judgment.

Family Processes and Problem Behaviors in Middle‐Class African American Adolescents

This study examined the joint association between mothers’ and adolescents’ ratings of parental behavioral control and adolescents’ and observers’ ratings of mother – adolescent communication with adolescent problem behaviors in a sample of 86 middle-class African American early adolescent boys and girls (age: M= 13.08 years, SD= 1.32) and their mothers. Consistent with hypotheses, greater adolescent-rated parental behavioral control and better observer-rated mother – adolescent communication were associated with lower levels of adolescent problem behavior, as examined using structural equation modeling. Furthermore, interrelationships between age and adolescent problem behavior were partially mediated by adolescents’ reports of parental behavioral control and observers’ ratings of positive mother – adolescent communication, which both decreased with adolescents’ age. Although the sample was primarily middle class, higher socioeconomic status was associated with more positive mother – adolescent communication, as rated by observers. Problem behavior was greater among boys than girls, but the hypothesized indirect effect of gender on problem behavior through associations with parenting was not observed. The findings demonstrate the utility of conceptually distinguishing between parenting and parent – adolescent relationships, and suggest that both have unique influences on middle-class African American adolescents’ problem behavior.

Early and middle adolescents' disclosure to parents about activities in different domains.

Disclosure, disclosure strategies, and justifications for nondisclosure for prudential, peer, multifaceted, and personal acts were assessed using a sorting task with 118 lower-middle class early and middle adolescents (Ms=12.77 and 15.68 years). Adolescents were less involved in prudential than other behaviors, although prudential behavior was greater among middle than early adolescents; adolescents disclosed more about prudential and personal than multifaceted and peer behaviors. Nondisclosure was primarily due to concerns about parental disapproval (for prudential acts), claims that acts were personal or not harmful (for personal acts), and their mixture (for peer and multifaceted acts). When concerned about parental disapproval, older adolescents fully disclosed less (and lied somewhat more) than younger adolescents, whereas adolescents primarily avoided discussing the issue when they viewed acts as personal. Full disclosure was associated with better relationships with parents and less depressed mood; lying was associated with more parental behavioral control over personal issues and poorer relationships with fathers.

Adolescent-Parent Conflict in Married and Divorced Families.

This article examined adolescent-parent conflict in 28 divorced, unremarried mother-custody families and 66 two-parent, married families with 6th-1 1th graders. Married mothers of early adolescents generated more conflicts than did divorced mothers of early adolescents and married mothers of midadolescents, and adolescents from married families rated conflicts as more serious than did adolescents from divorded families. Early adolescents from married families appealed to maintaining personal jurisdiction more when justifying conflicts and were rated as having more positive communication than early adolescents from divorced families. However, affective constraining was greater among midadolescents from married families than from divorded families

Adolescent-Parent conflict in Hong Kong and Shenzhen: A comparison of youth in two cultural contexts

This study examined adolescent–parent conflict among 188 5th-, 7th-, 10th-, and 12th-grade Chinese adolescents, 93 from Hong Kong and 95 from Shenzhen, PRC. Individually interviewed Chinese adolescents reported disagreements with parents over everyday issues, primarily choice of activities, schoolwork, interpersonal relationships, and chores. Conflicts were relatively few in number, moderate in frequency, and mild in intensity, and across contexts, conflicts were more intense in early adolescence (5th and 7th grades) than in late adolescence (12th grade). There were more conflicts over chores and interpersonal relationships in Hong Kong than in Shenzhen and more conflicts over schoolwork in Shenzhen than in Hong Kong, particularly among 7th and 12th graders. As expected, adolescents primarily justified conflicts, particularly conflicts over choice of activities and homework, by appealing to personal jurisdiction, and across contexts, personal reasoning increased with age. Conflicts were resolved primarily by giving in to parents, although adolescents desired more autonomy in decision making than they reported having. Although adolescent–parent conflict among Chinese youth appears to reflect the development of adolescent autonomy, culturally specific processes influence its expression.

Disclosure to Parents About Everyday Activities Among American Adolescents From Mexican, Chinese, and European Backgrounds

Disclosure to parents and reasons for not disclosing different activities were examined in 489 Chinese, Mexican, and European American adolescents (M = 16.37 years, SD = 0.77). With generational status controlled, Chinese American adolescents disclosed less to mothers about personal and multifaceted activities than European Americans and less about personal feelings than other youth, primarily because these acts were considered personal, not harmful, or because parents would not listen or understand. Disclosure regarding prudential behavior was lower among Mexican American than among European American adolescents, primarily due to concerns with parental disapproval. Multigroup path analyses indicated that greater closeness to parents is associated with more disclosure for all youth and activities; associations between family obligation and disclosure varied by domain and ethnicity.