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The Journal of Genetic Psychology, 2007, 168(2), 101104

Copyright 2007 Heldref Publications

Introduction to the Special Issueson Moral Development: Part I

Morality is of the highest importancebut for us, not for God.Albert Einstein

For decades, scientists have been interested in understanding moral behav-

ior, focusing on understanding individual differences in compliance, conscience

development, prosocial behavior, empathy-related emotions, sharing, moral

sensitivity, and moral judgment in children, adolescents, and adults. This issue is

the first of a two-part series designed to contribute to the scientific understanding

of moral behavior, moral affect, and moral cognition. The first issue is devoted

to research on parental socialization of childrens moral emotions and behavior.

The second issue focuses on the measuring of moral behavior and predicting

individual differences in moral development from a variety of factors, such as

affective processes, cognitive processes, education, and contextual factors.The contributions to both issues are varied in researchers approaches to

studying moral development in toddlers, children, adolescents, and adults. In tod-

dler and young preschool samples, researchers used observational data to assess

childrens prosocial behavior (Volbrecht, Lemery-Chalfant, Aksan, Zahn-Waxler,

& Goldsmith) and compliance (Groenendyk & Volling). Additionally, contribu-

tors used parents and teachers reports of moral behaviors (Groenendyk & Vol-

ling; Hastings, McShane, Parker, & Ladha; Malti & Gummerum). Researchers

also relied on participants responses to emotional videos (Hinnant & OBrien)

and self-report data (Barr & Higgins-DAlessandro; Carlo, McGinley, Hayes,

Batenhorst, & Wilkinson; Malti & Gummerum; Narvaez & Gleason; Patrick& Gibbs) across a variety of ages. Moreover, within similar study designs, the

measures of moral behavior differed in each investigation. As discussed in a con-

tribution by Jordan, there is an array of measures of moral sensitivity, and more

consistency in measurement is needed to compare across studies.

One theme that crosses both issues in this series is a focus on gender differ-

ences in moral behavior. It is a long-held assumption that girls outperform boys on

indexes of moral development, such as empathy and prosocial behavior. Empirical

data support this claim, although results vary based on the method used and on the

age of participants (see Eisenberg & Fabes, 1998). The studies in this series are no

exception, as researchers found that girls generally exhibit more sympathy and pro-social behavior than do boys (Carlo et al.; Malti & Gummerum; Volbrecht et al.).


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102 The Journal of Genetic Psychology

It is particularly striking that gender often served as a moderator in predicting

childrens moral behavior. For example, Carlo et al. and Hastings et al. found thatthe relations between parental practices and moral behavior differed for boys and

girls. Thus, socialization processes may have different meanings across the sexes

and, as a consequence, result in divergent outcomes for boys and girls. Gender

also moderated relations between cognitive or affective processes and childrens

moral development (Barr & Higgins-DAlessandro; Hinnant & OBrien; Malti

& Gummerum; Volbrecht et al.). Several groups of investigators found that the

relations between these variables and moral development were significant only

for boys. Perhaps one reason for these findings is that girls often are more con-

sistently high in moral behavior, regardless of their levels of cognitive or affective

development; thus, these factors may play a less important role in predicting girlsmoral development. Future research should focus on understanding the processes

involved in predicting boys and girls moral behaviors, investigating why predic-

tors of their development differ, and exploring whether their trajectories across

childhood differ as well.

Part I

Biological factors undeniably play a role in childrens moral development

(Zahn-Waxler, Schiro, Robinson, Emde, & Schmitz, 2001), and the contributions

of nature and nurture to moral development are still under debate. In the firststudy, using a genetically informative design, Volbrecht and colleagues tested the

genetic and environmental contributions to young childrens empathy. Their find-

ings demonstrated shared environmental influences on prosocial behavior and

concern and very little evidence of genetic contribution to these variables. Thus,

the implication of this study is that environmental factors, including parental

socialization efforts, play an important role in childrens moral behavior.

Various aspects of parenting are linked to childrens moral behavior, and

this issue includes research on broad parental styles (Carlo et al.; Hastings et

al.), parental responses to childrens empathy (Hastings et al.), parental practices

specific to childrens prosocial behaviors (Carlo et al.), and parental cognitions(Hastings et al.). Parental discipline practices also are seen as important to the

development of moral values and behavior. Hoffman (2000) theorized that paren-

tal use of inductive practices (i.e., parental use of reasoning) orients children to

others needs without overly arousing the children, whereas parental love with-

drawal and power assertion may threaten children or overly arouse them such that

children may become self-concerned or fail to process the information provided

in the socialization interaction. Although researchers have found some empiri-

cal support for this suggestion (e.g., Hastings, Zahn-Waxler, Robinson, Usher,

& Bridges, 2000; Krevans & Gibbs, 1996), Patrick and Gibbs question whether

an additional component (i.e., parental expression of disappointment) should beconsidered a separate, distinct discipline practice. Their data did not support the


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Introduction to the Special Issue 103

use of disappointment as a distinct strategy; however, this work reminds research-

ers of the importance of critically approaching long-held assumptions about thetypology of parental discipline.

Another important development in current studies of childrens moral

behavior is researchers not only studying the role of parental socialization on

the acquisition of childrens morality but also examining the processes involved

in this development. Carlo and colleagues attempt to examine such processes in

their contribution to this special issue. The authors found that the associations

between parenting practices used to promote prosocial behavior (e.g., social

rewards, experiential learning) and adolescents prosocial behaviors are indirect,

mediated through adolescents sympathy. Although longitudinal data are needed

to further test the causal nature of these mediational processes, this study servesas an important step toward understanding the role of parenting practices and

sympathy on childrens prosocial behavior.

To date, researchers studying the socialization of childrens moral develop-

ment have focused almost exclusively on mothers child rearing. In this issue,

fathers influence on childrens prosocial development is considered in two con-

tributions. First, Hastings et al. examined the association of mothers and fathers

parenting to childrens prototypically feminine and prototypically masculine

prosocial behaviors. Their findings demonstrate that fathers engaged in more sex-

typed socialization than did mothers; however, maternal parenting was a stronger

predictor of young childrens prosocial behavior than was paternal parenting.Second, Groenendyk and Volling used a whole-family approach to observe moth-

ers, fathers, and two children in a family clean-up paradigm and also assessed

coparenting behaviors in relation to childrens compliance and conscience devel-

opment. Coparenting (i.e., behaviors used to either support or undermine the

others parenting) was linked to childrens conscience development. Both studies

point to the importance of moving beyond a focus on motherchild interactions

and considering the contribution of both mothers and fathers to childrens moral

development.

The work in this special issue contributes substantially to our knowledge

about the socialization of childrens morality. However, the bidirectional rela-tions between parents and children should not be ignored. Researchers generally

acknowledge that children are operating in a dynamic system; however, few

researchers have examined the reciprocal relations between parental socialization

strategies and childrens moral behavior. Thus, longitudinal work that focuses on

bidirectional effects is needed.

Work on the socialization of moral behavior and moral affect is essential to

understanding the development of morality in children. There is still much to be

learned regarding the relations of parenting to childrens moral behaviors. Future

researchers should focus on understanding the processes involved in the socializa-

tion of moral behavior and considering complex relations (such as moderatingfactors) between parental behaviors and childrens morality.


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REFERENCES

Eisenberg, N., Fabes, R. A., & Spinrad, T. L. (2006). Prosocial development. In W. Damon& R. M. Lerner (Series Eds.) & N. Eisenberg (Vol. Ed.), Handbook of child psychol-ogy: Volume 3. Social, emotional, and personality development(6th ed., pp. 646718).Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

Hastings, P. D., Zahn-Waxler, C., Robinson, J., Usher, B., & Bridges, D. (2000). Thedevelopment of concern for others in children with behavior problems.DevelopmentalPsychology, 36, 531546.

Hoffman, M. L. (2000). Empathy and moral development: Implications for caring andjustice. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Krevans, J., & Gibbs, J. C. (1996). Parents use of inductive discipline: Relations tochildrens empathy and prosocial behavior. Child Development, 67, 32633277.

Zahn-Waxler, C., Schiro, K., Robinson, J. L., Emde, R. N., & Schmitz, S. (2001). Empa-thy and prosocial patterns in young mz and dz twins: Development and genetic andenvironmental influences. In R. N. Emde & J. K. Hewitt (Eds.), Infancy to early child-hood: Genetic and environmental influences on developmental change (pp. 141162).London: Oxford University Press.

TRACY L. SPINRAD

NANCY EISENBERG

FRANK BERNT

Guest Editors


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moral development eisenbergi

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