Abstract
Navigating successful and satisfying interactions in a complex social world is a developmental task that children manage surprisingly well. Through interacting with Others, they increasingly come to understand the particularities of social situations in terms of the relationships and perspectives of the persons involved in them, including the Self and Others (e.g. interests, needs and feelings, as well as the (moral) rules and expectations governing relationships and social interaction). In this chapter, these achievements will be outlined as the development of a naïve theory of action, including social (descriptive), moral (prescriptive) reasoning, based on the differentiation and coordination of perspectives of the Self and Others. I will describe a developmental sequence of sociomoral reasoning from childhood to adolescence, which integrates cognitive, affective and behavioural aspects of the Self and Others’ awareness (e.g. the ability to coordinate perspectives of the Self and Others, emotional concern for others and action strategies). This will be documented in two contexts: the development of moral awareness in close relationships, focusing on close friendship; and moral awareness in a situation of sharing with anonymous others. Finally, I will discuss briefly how the theoretical framework provides a teaching method for discourses about conflicting claims in relationships, and for broadening moral awareness beyond close relationships and ingroup boundaries.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Adalbjainardôttir, S. (1999). Tracing the developmental processes of teachers and students: A sociomoral approach in school. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 43, 57–79.
Arsenio, W. R & Lemerise, E. A. (2001). Varieties of childhood bullying: Values, emotion processes, and social competence. Social Development, 10(1), 59–73.
Axelrod, R. (1984). The evolution of cooperation. New York: Basic Books.
Bandura, A. (1999). Moral disengagement in the perpetration of inhumanities. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 3, 193–209.
Baumeister, R. R (1996). Evil: Inside human cruelty and violence. New York: Freeman.
Berkowitz, M. W. & Keller, M. (1994). Transitional processes in social cognitive development: A longitudinal study. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 17(3), 447–467.
Blair, J., Jones, L., Clark, R & Smith, M. (1997). The psychopath: A lack of responsiveness to distress cues. Psycho physiology, 34, 192–198.
Blasi, A. (1983). Moral cognition and moral action: A theoretical perspective. Developmental Review, 3, 178–210.
Camerer, C. R (2003). Behavioral game theory. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Damasio A. R. (1994). Descartes’ error: Emotion, reason and the human brain. New York: Putnam.
Enright, R. D. (1991). The moral development of forgiveness. In W. M. Kurtines & J. L. Gewirtz (Eds.), Handbook of moral behavior and development: Vol. 1. Theory (pp. 123–152). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Fehr, E. & Gächter, S. (2000). Cooperation and punishment in public goods experiments. American Economic Review, 90, 980–994.
Gasser, L. & Keller, M. (2009). Are the competent the morally good? Perspective taking and moral motivation of children involved in bullying. Social Development, 18, 798–816.
Gibbs, J. C. (1987). Social processes in delinquency: The need to facilitate empathy as well as sociomoral reasoning. In W. M. Kurtines & J. L. Gewirtz (Eds.), Moral development through social interaction (pp. 301–321). New York: Wiley.
Gummerum, M. & Keller, M. (2008). Moral psychology and economic game theory. European journal of Developmental Science, 2(3), 206–220.
Gummerum, M., Takezawa, M. & Keller, M. (2009). The influence of social category and reciprocity on adults’ and children’s altruistic behavior. Evolutionary Psychology, 7(2), 295–316.
Haidt, J. (2001). The emotional dog and its rational tail: A social intuitionist approach to moral judgment. Psychological Review, 108, 417–449.
Hoffman, M. L. (2000). Empathy and moral development: Implications for caring and justice. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Izard, C. E. (2002). Translating emotion theory and research into preventive interventions. Psychological Bulletin, 128, 796–824.
Keller, M. (1984). Resolving conflicts in friendship: The development of moral understanding in everyday life. In W. M. Kurtines & J. L. Gewirtz (Eds.), Morality, moral behavior, and moral development (pp. 140–158). New York: Wiley.
Keller, M. (1996). Moralische Sensibilität: Entwicklung in Freundschaft und Familie [Moral sensitivity: Development in friendship and family]. Weinheim: PVU.
Keller, M. (2004). Self in relationship. In D. K. Lapsley & D. Narvaez (Eds.), Moral development, self, and identity (pp. 267–298). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Keller, M. (2006). The development of obligations and responsibilities in cultural context. In L. Smith &J. Vonèche (Eds.), Norms in human development (pp. 169–188). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Keller, M. & Becker, G. (2015). Entwicklung und Förderang sozio-moralischer Sensibilität: ein handlungsbezogener Ansatz [Development and education of sociomoral sensitivity: an action-oriented approach]. In T.Malti & S. Perren (Hg.), Soziale Kompetenz bei Kindern und Jugendlichen. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer.
Keller, M. & Edelstein, W. (1991). The development of socio-moral meaning making: Domains, categories, and perspective-taking. In W. M. Kurtines Sc J. L. Gewirtz (Eds.), Handbook of moral behavior and development: Vol. 2. Research (pp. 89–114). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Keller, M., Edelstein, W., Krettenauer, T., Fang, F. X. & Fang, G. (2005). Reasoning about moral obligations and interpersonal responsibilities in different cultural contexts. In W. Edelstein & G. Nunner-Winkler (Eds.), Morality in context (pp. 313–337). Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Keller, M., Edelstein, W., Schmid, C., Fang, F.-X. & Fang, G. (1998). Reasoning about responsibilities and obligations in close relationships: A comparison across two cultures. Developmental Psychology, 34, 731–741.
Keller, M., Gummerum, M., Canz, T., Giger enzer, G. &Takezawa, M. (2013). The is and ought of sharing: The equality heuristic across the lifespan. In R. Hertwig, U. Hoffrage & the ABC Research Group (Eds.), Simple heuristics in a social world (pp. 171–195). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Keller, M. & Malti, T. (1999, September). Preschoolers’ friendship relations: Links to sociomoral development and social behavior. Paper presented at the IXth European Conference on Developmental Psychology, Spetses, Greece.
Keller, M. & Reuss, S. (1985). The process of moral decision-making: Normative and empirical conditions of participation in moral discourse. In M. W. Berkowitz & F. Oser (Eds.), Moral education: Theory and application (pp. 109–123). New York: Erlbaum.
Keller, M. & Wood, P. (1989). Development of friendship reasoning: A study of interindividual differences in intraindividual change. Developmental Psychology, 25, 820–826.
Killen, M. (2007). Children’s social and moral reasoning about exclusion. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 16, 32–36.
Kohlberg, L. (1976). Moral stages and moralization: The cognitive developmental approach. In T. Lickona (Ed.), Moral development and behavior: Theory research and social issues (pp. 31–53). New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
Malti, T. (2003). Das Gefühlsverständnis aggressiver Kinder [Understanding of feelings in aggressive children]. Unpublished doctoral thesis, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany.
Malti, T, Gummeram, M., Keller, M. & Buchmann, M. (2009). Children’s moral motivation, sympathy, and prosocial behavior. Child Development, 80, 442–460.
Malti, T. & Keller, M. (2009). The relation of elementary-school children’s externalizing behaviour to emotion attributions, evaluation of consequences, and moral reasoning. European Journal of Developmental Psychology, 6, 592–614.
Montada, L. & Kals, E. (2001). Mediation: Lehrbuch für Psychologen und Juristen. [Mediation: Textbook for psychologists and lawyers]. Weinheim: PVU.
Piaget, J. (1932). The moral judgment of the child. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Scheithauer, H. & Bull, D. (2009). Fairplayer manual. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
Selman, R. (1980). The growth of interpersonal understanding: Developmental and clinical analyses. New York: Academic Press.
Selman, R. & Demorest, A. (1984). Observing troubled children’s interpersonal negotiation strategies: Implications of and for a developmental model. Child Development, 55, 288–304.
Selman, R. & Schultz, L. H. (1990). Making a friend in youth. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Semin, G. R. & Manstead, A. S. (1983). The accountability of conduct: A social psychological analysis. London: Academic Press.
Tomasello, M., Melis, A., Tennie, C., Wyman, E. & Herrmann, E. (2012): Two key steps in the evolution of human cooperation. Current Anthropology, 53(6), 1–21.
Turiel, E. (2002). The culture of morality: social development, context and conflict. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
Wagner, P. (Ed.) (2008). Handbuch Kinderwelten: Vielfalt als Chance-Grundlagen einer vorurteilsbewussten Bildung und Erziehung [Handbook children’s world: Diversity as chance — Foundations of a bias-sensible education]. Freiburg i.B.: Herder.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2015 Monika Keller
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Keller, M. (2015). The Development of Intersubjectivity: Cognitive, Affective and Action Aspects. In: Psaltis, C., Gillespie, A., Perret-Clermont, AN. (eds) Social Relations in Human and Societal Development. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137400994_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137400994_3
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-48626-7
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-40099-4
eBook Packages: Palgrave Social Sciences CollectionSocial Sciences (R0)