Meaning, measurement, and correlates of moral development [Hardcover]

Morality has once again become an important focus of research in different scientific disciplines, from biology, neuroscience and evolutionary psychology, to social psychology, economics, and political philosophy. One of the reasons for this renewed interest stems from the tragedies that human beings, individually or in groups, inflict upon the lives of one another and the world at large, tragedies such as war, the extinction of species and ecological destruction, climate change, and last but not least  the financial crisis. Moral destitution and collapse, a lack of respect for human dignity and worth, and deficits in proper moral functioning at all levels of the world community, often discounted or masked by transparent excuses and vacuous rationalizations, are all viewed as principal causes of the social, societal and ecological crises with which we are confronted today. The key to solving these crises must lie, at least partly, in a better understanding and active deployment of morality. Developmental psychology is charged with the specific task of illuminating the growth and evolution of moral functioning in human beings. This book was originally published as a special issue of the European Journal of Developmental Psychology.

Introduction: Meaning, measurement, and correlates of moral development Daniel Brugman, Monika Keller, and Bryan Sokol

1. The evolved developmental niche and child sociomoral outcomes in Chinese 3-year-olds Darcia Narvaez, Lijuan Wang, Tracy Gleason, Ying Cheng, Jennifer Lefever, and Lifang Deng

2. Shame and guilt development in preschoolers: The role of context, audience and individual characteristics Daniela Bafunno and Marina Camodeca

3. Counterfactual reasoning and moral emotion attribution Michaela Gummerum, Christopher Cribbett, Anna Nogueira Nicolau, and Rebecca Uren

4. Moral emotions and the developmelƒ}