Morality in Everyday Life: Developmental Perspectives(Cambridge Studies in Social and Emotional Development)

This collection brings together current research on morality in human development. Morality in its various forms is a dominant influence on the conduct and evaluation of day-to-day life. The pervasiveness of the moral domain can be detected in every aspect of social life; moral commitments shape the goals and aspirations of individuals and moral judgments are apparent in discourse about most forms of human interaction. Two broad themes integrate this book: social context relationships and development. Contexts include interpersonal as well as societal communities and cultures. This volume will appeal to scholars from many disciplines including: psychology, anthropology, education, sociology, law, linguistics, and ethics.

Table of Contents:
Introduction Daniel Hart and Melanie Killen; Part I. The Acquisition of Morality: 1. The social construction of character in toddlerhood Dale Hay, Jennifer Castle, Carol A. Stimson, and Lisa Davies; 2. Morality, autonomy, and social conflict Melanie Killen and Larry P. Nucci; 3. Children's conceptions of sociomoral affect: happy victimizers, mixed emotions, and other expectancies William Arsenio and Anthony Lover; Part II. Social Judgment in Different Contexts: 4. Obedience to authority in children and adults Marta Laupa, Elliot Turiel, and Philip Cowan; 5. Social contexts in social cognition: psychological harm and civil liberties Charles C. Helwig; 6. Psychological and philosophical considerations of prudence and morality Marvin Berkowitz, Jeffrey P. Kahn, Gregg Mulry, and Jeanne Piette; 7. Context, conflict, and constraint in adolescent-parent authority relationships Judith G. Smetana; Part III. Social Judgment in Different Cultures: 8. Development in the context of everyday family relationships: culture, interpersonal morality and adaptation Joan G. Miller and David Bersoff; 9. Diversity in social development: between or within cultures Cecilia Wainryb and Elliot Turiel; Part IV. Moral Integration and Character: 10. Moral commitment in inner-city adolescents Daniel Hart, Miranda Yates, Suzanne Fegley, and Gerry Wilson; 11. The development of extraordinary moral commitment Anne Colby and William Damon; 12. Reasoning about morality and real-life moral problems Lawrence J. Walker, Russell C. Pitts, Karl H. Hennig and M. Kyle Matsuba.

Review :
"Killen and Hart, moving beyond their Kohlbergian roots, present chapters which mainly bring a social perspective to moral reasoning development. Several pay detailed attention to interactions between children, and between children and adults. This rich data demonstrates the vital importance of naturalistic studies, which are examples of how the cognitive developmental framework is being transmuted into the developing field of cultural psychology. They also illustrate research rigour, and conceptual sophistication about the problems of defining morality." The Psychologist "This book is a terrific achievement...I quote from it all the time. The paperback version makes the book widely accessible. Itas a must for advance level courses." William Damon, Professor of Education and Director of the Stanford Center on Adolescence, Stanford University "The editors of this volume deserve praise for bringing together, in a single volume, many different strands of moral issues and perspectives. Killen and Hart have put together an important collection of papers that will prove to be an invaluable resource to anyone interested in understanding the topics, theories, research issues and debates that inform contemporary moral psychology." Culture and Psychology