2-122 - Coordinating concerns from multiple domains: Analyses of how children and adolescents make judgments about multifaceted issues

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Social-cognitive theories maintain that judgments are more than immediate intuitions (Haidt, 2001) or learned responses (Skinner, 1971); decisions are the result of active reasoning and reflection (Kohlberg, 1974; Turiel, 2002). Although some issues involve solely moral or solely personal concerns, many issues children and adolescents face are multifaceted and may involve components of various domains of reasoning. For example, getting a tattoo may involve personal identity issues, social expectations, and a possibility of self-harm. Whereas much of the early work with social domain theory (Smetana, 1995) focused on youths’ differentiation among domains, the papers in the proposed symposium examine the ways that individuals coordinate competing claims found within more complex, multifaceted issues.

These four papers feature a distinguished group of scholars who employ diverse samples and methodologies to examine coordination of reasoning in a range of significant issues. The first examines the ways that children weigh and prioritize honesty against other moral, societal, and personal considerations. The second explores how middle school students coordinate among moral considerations, school rules, personal harm, and personal choice when making judgments about everyday school misbehavior and classroom disruptions. The third examines how adolescents’ considerations of harm to self and to others characterize their reasoning about problem and high-risk behaviors. Finally, the fourth investigates how children prioritize moral concerns of fairness versus societal expectations when reasoning about gender norms.

These papers extend our understanding of how children and adolescents make sense of sometimes conflicting concerns in making judgments about everyday complex issues.

Sub Unit

• Moral Development

Chairs

• Christopher Daddis, The Ohio State University

• Clare E Conry-Murray, Saint Joseph's University

Individual Presentations

• Children’s coordination of moral, social, and personal considerations in reasoning about deception - Presenting Author: Matthew Gingo, Wheaton College, Massachusetts

• A social domain analysis middle school misbehavior and classroom disruptions - Presenting Author: Christopher Daddis, The Ohio State University

• Adolescent and parent conceptualizations of distinct types of prudential behavior: Variations by adolescent gender and age - Presenting Author: Aaron Metzger, West Virginia University; Elizabeth Yale Babskie, West Virginia University

• Children use gender norms to distribute resources in public more than in private - Presenting Author: Clare E Conry-Murray, Saint Joseph's University