Poster #83 - A Longitudinal Study on the Emergence of a Coherent Moral Self-Concept

• In Event: Poster Session 08

Abstract

The moral self-concept (MSC) – defined as “children`s self-representations about their moral behavioral preferences” (Sengsavang & Krettenauer, 2015, p. 214) – has been identified as an early indicator on how children view themselves as moral agents (e.g., Krettenauer, 2013). Yet, the question of when the MSC first emerges during early childhood received only little attention so far. An important feature of an established and stable self-concept seems to be the coherency of the children’s responses within one domain. Indeed, influential developmental theories from a variety of theoretical backgrounds agree that some kind of coherency is central for having a self-concept (e.g., Baumeister, 1997; Erikson, 1959, 1968; Rogers, 1959). Furthermore, in line with Shavelson’s (1976) model of a structured, multidimensional and hierarchical self-concept, recent studies suggest a three-dimensional structure within the MSC consisting of helping, sharing, and comforting (Sticker et al., 2021). Taken together, a deeper insight into the early development of the MSC requires to take three aspects into account; the emergence of coherency, a differentiated structure and, stability over time.
To this end, preschoolers were presented with a puppet-interview about their self-concept at two measurement points (Mean (Age): T1=4.21 years, T2=5.43 years, N=108-133; 51-57% female). The interview includes three moral self-concept scales (helping, sharing, and comforting). To investigate whether children have an established self-concept and therefore answered coherently, we analyzed the children’s answer patterns: The greater the answers vary within the scales, the lower children score. This led to a coherency score ranging from “0” (high variation within the scales, indicating no coherent self-concept) to “1” (low variation; coherent self-concept).
At 4 years, 48% of the children scored in the lower range on the coherency scale (below 0.5), indicating a deficiency of a formed moral self-concept. At age 5, only 32% did (see attached figure for distribution of coherency scores). The mean coherency score rose significantly from .52 (T1) to .65 (T2) (p= .003). Factor analysis confirmed the three-dimensional structure at age 5, but not at age 4. There were no longitudinal relations between T1 and T2 concerning the three MSC subscales helping, sharing, and comforting. Importantly, one could argue that it is unlikely to find longitudinal stability of a self-concept that has not yet been coherently developed, which is the case for nearly half of the children at T1. When only taking children with high coherency at T1 into account, we found positive longitudinal correlation for each MSC subscale. Therefore, our results suggest that once children have developed a coherent MSC, it is also stable over time.
Our study provides first empirical insight into when children’s concept of themselves as moral agents emerges in early childhood, that is between 4 and 5 years. Furthermore, it offers a new approach to investigate the emergence of the self-concept in early development by integrating the important aspect of coherency into the area of moral self-concept research.

Authors

• Lena Anna Soeldner, Ludwigs Maximilians Universität München
  Presenting Author

• Markus Paulus, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München

• Maria Mammen