Moral and conventional violations are usually judged differently: Only moral violations are treated as independent of social rules. To investigate the cognitive processing involved in the development of this distinction, undergraduates (N = 34), adolescents (N = 34), and children (N = 14) read scenarios presented on a computer that had 1 of 3…

This study investigated children's, adolescents', and young adults' judgments and reasoning about teaching two values (racial equality and patriotism) using methods that varied in provision for children's rational autonomy, active involvement, and choice. Ninety-six participants (7-8-, 10-11-, and 13-14-year-olds, and college students) evaluated…

This study examined the judgments and reasoning of adolescents (ages 12-19 years) from three sites in urban and rural China (n = 270) and in an urban Canadian comparison sample (n = 72), about the fairness of various forms of democratic and non-democratic government. Adolescents from both China and Canada preferred democratic forms of government,…

It is argued here that autonomy entails universal psychological needs pertaining to agency and identity formation, expressed in different ways over different developmental periods. As children develop skills and abilities related to psychological needs for self-expression and competence, they will claim areas related to the exercise of these…