Individual Differences in Moral Development: Does Intelligence Really Affect Children’s Moral Reasoning and Moral Emotions?

Abstract

This study investigates the relationship between intelligence and individual differences in children’s moral development across a range of different moral transgressions. Taking up prior research that showed morality and intelligence to be related in adolescents and adults, the current study wants to test if these findings can be extended to younger children. The study was designed to address some of the shortcomings in prior research by examining young children aged between 6 years; 4 months and 8 years; 10 months, using a broad concept of moral development including emotional aspects and applying an approach that is closely connected to children’s daily lives. Participants (N = 129) completed a standardized intelligence test and were presented four moral transgression stories to assess moral development. Results demonstrated that findings from prior research with adolescents or adults cannot simply be extended to younger participants. No significant correlations of moral development and intelligence were found for any of the presented stories. This provides first evidence that – at least in middle childhood – moral developmental status seems to be independent from children’s general intelligence assessed by figural inductive reasoning tests.

Callous-Unemotional Traits Moderate Anticipated Guilt and Wrongness Judgments to Everyday Moral Transgressions in Adolescents

“…Research findings on how intelligence interacts with psychopathy and antisocial behavior is diverse, with studies suggesting that IQ is likely a protective factor against antisocial behavior ( 76 ) whilst others indicate that enhanced verbal abilities potentiate the relation between callous-unemotional traits and violent juvenile offending ( 77 ). We have not included a measure of cognitive ability in the current study for a number of reasons: there is limited evidence of the role of IQ on processing of everyday moral transgressions in adolescents ( 78 ); our sample was comprised of typically developing adolescents from a regular high school and we did not expect to find adolescents outside the typical range of IQ; and we had limited testing time imposed by the school. Future work should investigate whether IQ does play a role on the processing of both cognitive and emotional aspects of everyday transgressions in a large adolescent sample with varying levels of IQ, and also address whether and how cognitive abilities modify the effect we found in the present work.…”

Uloga empatije u odnosu inteligencije i kriminalnog recidivizma

“…Kohlberg i istraživači iz neokohlbegovskog pristupa teorijski elaboriraju i empirijski provjeravaju ideju da su kognitivni i moralni razvoj isprepleteni, te da idu jedan s drugim (Beißert i Hasselhorn, 2016). Moralni razvoj zahtijeva raznolike sposobnosti koje su povezane s kognitivnim procesima i njihovom učinkovitošću: kompleksne situacije trebaju biti interpretirane, važne informacije trebaju biti odabrane i procesirane, informacije trebaju biti integrirane, različite perspektive trebaju biti koor-dinirane, posljedice određenih činova se trebaju anticipirati itd.…”

“…Razmatrajući puteve koji su uključeni u ispitivani neizravni učinak, vidljivo je da niža inteligencija objašnjava relativno velik udio varijance empatije (21% varijance). Dobiveni nalazi idu u prilog ideji o povezanosti kognitivnog i moralnog razvoja, odnosno empatije kao emocionalne facete moralnog razvoja (Beißert i Hasselhorn, 2016), a koju naglašava teorija moralnog razvoja.…”

The permissive non-parental childcare and moral intelligence: Indonesian setting

“…Furthermore, it is an act that represents universal principles and the truths of human behavior [7]. The development of moral intelligence is not only limited to reasoning (moral knowing) but also has to consider other aspects, such as feelings and action [8]- [10]. Moral intelligence refers to the knowledge of the universal goodness and values in the society, while moral feelings relate to loving attitudes and adhering to the values of kindness, which create an awareness for moral behavior [11].…”