Prior research has outlined developmental changes within the conventional and personal domains. Research thus far has provided only limited understanding of age-related changes within the moral domain. That research indicates that there are continuities and discontinuities across ages in moral judgments. The aims of the research presented here were to examine moral judgments in childhood and adolescence, taking into account applications of moral judgments in contexts and the coordination of different considerations in evaluations and decisions. Participants were 167 children and adolescents drawn from two regions of the United States, from diverse ethnic and SES backgrounds, distributed across four age groups from 8 to 17 years. Moral judgments were assessed through interviews around issues of direct harm (hitting), indirect harm (returning dropped money), and helping. Each situation was presented within three conditions: unconflicted situations; situations of conflict with needs of self; and conflicts with needs of another. Situations varied in terms of characteristics of the person who was the object of moral decisions: a generic other, vulnerable other, or antagonistic other. Participants made two types of judgments: whether the action was right or wrong; and whether the actor would have a right to engage in the action if that was the actor's choice. Justifications were elicited for judgments. Cross-age continuities in moral judgments were observed in judgments of acts as wrong in the unconflicted contexts. In contrast, a U-shaped age-related pattern was revealed in judgments of acts as well as the right to engage in acts in the conflicted situations with 8- and 16-year-olds judging acts as wrong and 10- to 14-year-olds more likely to judge acts as right and the actor as having a right to engage in the action. This U-shaped pattern was accompanied by three age-related levels in the coordination of moral and nonmoral elements of situations.

This research examined adolescents' judgments about lying to avoid parental control over different types of activities. Participants (N = 66, M = 16.38, 73% European American) were interviewed about hypothetical situations describing adolescents who defied parental directives and lied about their defiance. Judgments about the legitimacy of parents' directives and protagonists' deception differed by types of parent relationship with adolescents (mutual or unilateral). Directives were least accepted, and deception was most accepted, in the context of unilateral relationships. Judgments also differed by domain of the action (personal, prudential, or conventional). Participants were least accepting of parental directives, and most accepting of deception about personal activities. Findings indicate that adolescents value honesty and parental authority, but sometimes give priority to concerns with autonomy and mutuality.

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This research examined judgments about parents lying to their adolescents. Ninety‐six participants from four primarily Caucasian groups (24 parents of 18‐year‐olds, 24 parents of 14‐year‐olds, 24 18‐year‐olds, and 24 14‐year‐olds) assessed hypothetical situations in which a parent lies to their adolescent about their past experience engaging in risky activities such as drug use and shoplifting. Evaluations and justifications for deception varied as a function of the domain of each act, the age of the adolescent being lied to, and consideration of parents’ duty to foster a protective and trusting relationship. Results are discussed in terms of parents’ and adolescents’ reasoning about deception to achieve and resist socialization goals in several (moral, personal, prudential, and multifaceted) social‐cognitive domains.