ABSTRACT
This chapter describes social and moral development from a psychosocial theoretical framework rooted in a co-constructivist perspective. Psychosocial role theory, which views human behavior as rule governed, highlights the role of freedom and creativity in human behavior and development. From this perspective, the development of a full range of psychosocial competencies (linguistic, cognitive, communicative, and sociomoral) facilitates a shift from maturational and learning processes to co-constructive social processes. In this frame, ontogenetic change in sociomoral knowledge and understanding is viewed as the outcome of a formative process of the subjective construction and inter-subjective co-construction. A central focus of the research described in this chapter is on the role of co-constructive communicative processes in the ontogenesis of sociomoral knowledge and understanding.
