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The Development of Moral Emotions and Decision-Making From Adolescence to Early Adulthood: A 6-Year Longitudinal Study

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Abstract

Adolescents’ emotions in the context of moral decision-making repeatedly have been shown to predict actual behaviour. However, little systematic information on developmental change regarding these emotion expectancies has been available thus far. This longitudinal study investigated anticipated moral emotions and decision-making between the ages of 15 and 21 in a representative sample of Swiss adolescents (N = 1,258; 54 % female; M = 15.30 years). Anticipated moral emotions and decision-making were assessed through a semi-structured interview procedure. Using Bernoulli hierarchical linear modeling, it was found that positive feelings after a moral transgression (i.e., “happy victimizer” responses) decreased over time, whereas positive feelings after a moral decision (i.e., “happy moralist” responses) increased. However, this pattern was contingent upon the moral scenario presented. Systematic relationships between anticipated moral emotions and moral personality characteristics of sympathy, conscientiousness, and agreeableness were found, even when controlling for socio-demographic characteristics and cognitive ability. Overall, this study demonstrates that the development of anticipated moral emotions is not limited to childhood. Furthermore, our findings suggest that moral emotions serve as an important link between moral personality development and decision-making processes that are more proximal to everyday moral behavior.

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Acknowledgments

The Swiss National Science Foundation funded the research reported in this paper. The authors would like to express their sincere thanks to the children and parents who participated in the study. Moreover, the authors are grateful to all the interviewers and undergraduate students who helped with the collection and coding of data.

Author contributions

TM and MB participated in the design of the study and coordinated data collection. TK was responsible for manuscript preparation and data interpretation. TC assisted in running statistical analyses and drafting the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final version of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Wilfrid Laurier University, 75 University Ave W, Waterloo, N2L 3C5, Canada

    Tobias Krettenauer

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Tyler Colasante & Tina Malti

  3. Jacobs Center for Productive Youth Development, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Marlis Buchmann & Tina Malti

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  1. Tobias Krettenauer
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  2. Tyler Colasante
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  3. Marlis Buchmann
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  4. Tina Malti
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Correspondence to Tobias Krettenauer.

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Krettenauer, T., Colasante, T., Buchmann, M. et al. The Development of Moral Emotions and Decision-Making From Adolescence to Early Adulthood: A 6-Year Longitudinal Study. J Youth Adolescence 43, 583–596 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-013-9994-5

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