Sociological Study of Formation of the Grayscale of Badness

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In this study, we have focused on the process in which adolescents classify, reason and order various conceptions of badness, based on the social survey data. Our major findings are as follows :(1) Relaxation of moral strictness reaches a peak at about 20 years old, which depicts a universal age curve.(2) Relaxation does not occur concerning norms of justice and harm, although norms of sex and prudence are normally relaxed.(3) Sexual development set off this moral relaxation and ordering.(4) From the evolutionary point of view, this adolescent phenomenon can be explained as an adaptive strategy which enables human beings to make a higher level of social order.