ABSTRACT
According to social domain theory, morality (defined as prescriptive, obligatory, and generalizable issues of right and wrong that pertain to others’ welfare, fairness, and rights) constitutes a domain of social knowledge that is distinct from children’s understanding of society (arbitrary and consensually agreed-upon norms that facilitate group functioning), as well as psychological knowledge (including thinking about personal preferences and choices). Much research has focused on how these three domains are distinguished, coordinated, and applied in straightforward, contextualized, multifaceted, or controversial issues. In this chapter, we discuss the emergence of moral-conventional distinctions in children’s social interactions and judgments and review the results of a recent meta-analysis examining these effects. These analyses show that children treat morality as distinct from social conventions by three years of age, that the magnitude of these effects increases with age, and that effects vary depending on the types of transgressions and criterion judgments considered. Based on these findings, we consider other factors that may account for heterogeneity in children’s judgments. We discuss person-centered analyses showing synchrony and age differences in children’s understanding of different types of harms, as well as research examining child characteristics (primarily empathy) and forms of social experience (such as parenting) that are related to children’s moral understanding. We conclude with implications for future research.
