ERIC Number: EJ941057
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2006-Sep
Pages: 18
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0261-510X
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: N/A
Adolescents' Self-Attributed Moral Emotions Following a Moral Transgression: Relations with Delinquency, Confidence in Moral Judgment and Age
Krettenauer, Tobias; Eichler, Dana
British Journal of Developmental Psychology, v24 n3 p489-506 Sep 2006
The study investigates adolescents' self-attributed moral emotions following a moral transgression by expanding research with children on the happy-victimizer phenomenon. In a sample of 200 German adolescents from Grades 7, 9, 11, and 13 (M=16.18 years, SD=2.41), participants were confronted with various scenarios describing different moral rule violations and asked to judge the behaviour from a moral point of view. Subsequently, participants' strength of self-evaluative emotional reactions was assessed as they were asked to imagine that they had committed the moral transgression by themselves. Results indicate that the intensity of self-attributed moral emotions predicted adolescents' self-reported delinquent behaviour even when social desirability response bias was controlled. Further, as adolescents' metacognitive understanding of moral beliefs developed, self-attributed moral emotions and confidence in moral judgment became more closely associated. No general age-related change in adolescents' self-attributed moral emotions was found. Overall, the study provides evidence for a coordination process of moral judgment and moral emotion attributions that continues well beyond childhood and that corresponds with the more general notion of the formation of a moral self in adolescence.
Descriptors: Social Desirability, Adolescents, Value Judgment, Moral Development, Moral Values, Emotional Response, Ethics, Correlation, Age Differences, Victims, Foreign Countries, Vignettes, Self Evaluation (Individuals), Predictor Variables, Developmental Psychology, Metacognition, Secondary School Students
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Grade 11; Grade 7; Grade 9; Secondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Germany
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A