No abstract

Authors in the cognitive developmental tradition (e.g. Damon & Hart, 1988; Snyder & Feldman, 1984; Turiel, 1983) have created models to explain transition between stages of development. This study introduces consistency and inconsistency of moral reasoning as patterns of moral thinking and presents implications for moral education. Consistency and inconsistency are determined by the level of “stage mixture” scored on the Defining Issues Test. A 2 × 2 quasi-experimental design was created. Participants were 52, 15-year-old male high school students. Moral judgement was the dependent variable. Consistency, inconsistency, and the experimental procedures were independent variables. Results showed a significant interaction between levels of consistency and educational methods ( P < .014), a developmental progression for the condition inconsistent experimental ( P < .004), and a predicted pattern of change for the condition consistent experimental ( P < .001). The authors concluded that consistency and inconsistency of moral reasoning require different assumptions for the promotion of moral development.

The present study evaluated the recognition of facial expressions in different ages, using groups composed of: 1) 21 children with a mean age of 7.7 years; 2) 19 young adults with a mean age of 20.1 years; and 3) 9 elderly people with a mean age of 74.7 years. In the tests, participants were asked to identify facial expressions of happiness, sadness, fear and anger of different emotional intensities. The results indicated that the young adults performed better in recognizing facial expressions when compared to the children and elderly people. The children presented a performance similar to the elderly people, supporting the hypothesis that the ability to recognize facial expressions improves in adulthood and diminishes in old age.

This study aimed to further the understanding of the processes involved in activism, as a form of collective action, based on differences in the quality of moral judgment and political ideology. It began with the assumption that differences in the quality of moral judgment can lead individuals to engage in different forms of collective action: activism or radicalism. Therefore, the associations among the variables political ideology, social identity, perception of social justice, activist identity and commitment, personal political salience, perception of efficacy and life purpose were analyzed. Path modelling was used to construct two models of political action: one based on conventional moral judgment and conservative political ideology, and the other based on post-conventional moral judgment and egalitarian political ideology. These two models were tested on samples of Brazilian and Spanish youths. The results confirmed the validity of using developmental social psychology to understand activism as a form of political action. The results confirmed the central hypothesis that differences in the quality of moral judgment and in political ideology are related to willingness to engage in qualitatively different types of actions: young people with conventional moral judgment and conservative political ideology declared their intention to engage in activism, while young people with post-conventional moral judgment egalitarian political ideology reported the intention to engage in both activist and radical actions.

No abstract