This study examines the interactive roles of social, cultural, and cognitive developmental factors in determining children's moral and achievement judgments. A total of 1485 male and female Iranian children/students of diverse social background (ranging in age from 4-18) served as subjects. Subjects were asked to evaluate (reward/punishment) the moral and achievement behavior of a story protagonist under conditions which varied systematically in terms of the protagonist's ability to perform a moral or achievement act, his/her good intentions and the outcome. Results indicated that for moral judgments the sociocultural variables such as sex and socioeconomic status significantly modified the age-related patterns of responding, while for achievement judgments they were of little or no importance. For both moral and achievement judgments, the response variation attributed to sociocultural factors occurred by and large at the earliest age levels, converging toward similarity after age 9. For achievement judgments, the role of effort was highlighted and expectation that cognitive maturity should lead to an increasing focus on intent/effort was demonstrated. (Author/JMB)