The development of children's socio-moral judgments.

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The present research examined development of children's distinct domains of socio-moral cognitive knowledge, i.e., moral, conventional, and personal domain. First, 83 young children were observed their social conflicts at nursery school. It was found that types of social interactions differed dependent on domains of conflicts, and preschool children made different judgments for moral, conventional, and prudential transgressions.Next, 158 elementary school children were presented several stories about moral and conventional transgressions and personal acts, and were asked criterion judgments about them. Results revealed children made judgments for typical transgressions in each domain based on their qualitative distinct domain concepts. There was no significant age and sex difference in their judgments. Children's concepts of sex role were also examined in terms of domain approach. The results suggested that boy's cross-gender activities were interpreted by using both conventional and p … More ersonal concepts, on the other hand girl's cross-gender activities were judged based on only personal concepts.Finally, domain concepts of parents and teachers were examined. One hundred-ninety two mothers were asked to evaluate teacher's method of intervention in 18 children's transgressions. The results showed that mothers expected different methods of intervention to moral, conventional, and prudential violations. Seventy teachers were requested to evaluate three types of children's transgressions, and to reason their judgments. Teacher made judgments differently in accordance with features of each domain. They reasoned the seriousness of moral transgressions by using concepts of justice, welfare, and rights, and reasoned the wrongness of conventional transgressions by using social order, existence of social rule, and social coordination.These results indicated that different social contexts in accordance with each domain exist, domain concepts develop in early childhood, children coordinate among domains cognitively to mixed domain events. It was also suggested that domain approaches were effective for studying children's socio-moral cognitive development. Less