ABSTRACT
There is a long tradition of debate regarding the universality of prosocial and moral development. Traditional theories (e.g., cognitive-developmental) emphasize the notion that moral development is universal across societies, whereas cultural theories assert differences in moral development across societies. There is a critical need to develop and validate culturally competent measures of prosocial and moral development in order to empirically examine this debate. However, to date, attention to this important matter is lacking. This chapter presents a brief overview of culture-related theories and measurement approaches in prosocial and moral development. Two measurement case studies are presented to exemplify distinct approaches to the development and validation of culturally sensitive measures of prosocial and moral development. Specifically, we summarize efforts to developing and validating using a measure of prosocial moral reasoning (the Prosocial Reasoning Objective Measure; PROM) and a measure of prosocial behaviors (the Prosocial Tendencies Measure; PTM). We conclude the chapter by delineating directions for future research and the importance of culturally competent measures of prosocial and moral development.
