Moral Cognitions and Prosocial Responding in Adolescence

From the late 1960s through the 1980s, research on moral judgment flourished, especially work influenced by Kohlberg's (1981, 1984) influential cognitive developmental approach to moral judgment. In addition, there was a marked upsurge in empirical research on prosocial development from the early to mid-1970s until approximately a decade ago. Much of the early research on moral judgment included adolescent study participants; moreover, in recent years there has been an inordinate amount of research on adolescents' aggression and antisocial behavior. Nonetheless, as noted by Hoffman in 1980 and Eisenberg in 1990, studies of the prosocial aspects of moral development during adolescence have been limited in quantity. Indeed, in 1987 Hill commented that "capability for relatedness, connectedness, communion, and for what Gilligan has termed 'caring morality' have ... been little studied" (p. 24). Perhaps the relative dearth of research on adolescents' prosocial tendencies is not surprising, given that social science researchers and the popular press have tended to emphasize the negative aspects of adolescence, painting a picture of this developmental period as one of emotional turmoil, hormones, and delinquency (Steinberg & Morris, 2001).