Developing conceptions of moral maturity: traits and identity in adolescent personality

摘要

Moral traits and identity were jointly considered toward a developmental understanding of adolescentmaturity through volunteerism. In Study 1 (with 1550 urban high school students), moral traits were factoranalyzed for developmental and cultural validity. Developmental maturation was implied with the findingthat high school Seniors scored higher than freshmen on four of five moral trait factors. Factors wereregressed on volunteer indices. Adolescents reporting higher levels of moral traits were more involved involunteer activities. Overall, caring-dependable and principled-idealistic woral trait factors were associated withvolunteerism. In Study 2 (with 15 exemplar adolescents and 15 matched comparisons), caring-dependable and principled-idealistic moral trait factors were compared with self-understanding narratives in a computational knowledge model. This analysis produced self-understanding schemas by sample group. Exemplar adolescentsassociated action with personal goals in the self. Findings suggest that traits influence maturing adolescentidentity through goal-oriented moral actions which promote purpose and meaning.