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The relations of empathy with two measures of guilt were examined in a sample of 13- to 16-year-olds (N= 113). Empathy was measured using Davis's IRI and guilt by Tangney's TOSCA and Hoffman's semi-projective story completion method that includes two different scenarios, guilt over cheating and guilt over inaction. Empathy correlated more strongly with both measures of guilt than the two measures correlated with each other. For boys, cognitive perspective-taking was a stronger predictor for guilt than for girls. Hoffman's guilt over inaction was more strongly associated with empathy measures in girls than in boys, whereas for guilt over cheating the pattern was the opposite. The results indicate that boys and girls may emphasize different aspects of morality.

Using the Schwartz Value Model as a basis, the meaning of the value item, honor (sense of honor) was explored in eight samples in Finland (N = 1877) and in five comparable samples of 15- to 17-year-old adolescents in Estonia, Finland, Italy, Russia, and Switzerland (N = 1788). In Finland, honor was a self-enhancement value in all age and occupational groups, although its importance varied widely. An identical pattern was found for Estonian adolescents, but for Swiss adolescents honor was both a selfenhancement and a conservation value and for Italian and Russian adolescents, a pure conservation value. Male adolescents had higher regard for honor than female adolescents in Finland, Russia, and Switzerland, but no sex differences were found in Estonia, Italy or in the Finnish adult samples. In all adolescent samples, honor was associated with work-related values (e.g., hard work, conscientiousness)

Pathogens represent a significant threat to human health leading to the emergence of strategies designed to help manage their negative impact. We examined how spiritual beliefs developed to explain and predict the devastating effects of pathogens and spread of infectious disease. Analysis of existing data in studies 1 and 2 suggests that moral vitalism (beliefs about spiritual forces of evil) is higher in geographical regions characterized by historical higher levels of pathogens. Furthermore, drawing on a sample of 3140 participants from 28 countries in study 3, we found that historical higher levels of pathogens were associated with stronger endorsement of moral vitalistic beliefs. Furthermore, endorsement of moral vitalistic beliefs statistically mediated the previously reported relationship between pathogen prevalence and conservative ideologies, suggesting these beliefs reinforce behavioural strategies which function to prevent infection. We conclude that moral vitalism may be adaptive: by emphasizing concerns over contagion, it provided an explanatory model that enabled human groups to reduce rates of contagious disease.