The Background of the study is determined by the importance of information exchange for adolescent moral development, in particular the role of cognitive processing of social information (CPI) for the development of moral consciousness.

The Objective of the study was to investigate the relationship between the level of moral development of adolescents and the Internet CPI. The Hypothesis of the study: the features of moral sensitivity and the level of development of moral judgments in adolescents provide background to different stages of cognitive processing of social information on the Internet.

Methods and sampling. The study used the following methods: «Justice – Care» method (S.V. Molchanov) aimed at identifying the level of development of moral judgments was used; the author’s method of identifying the level of moral sensitivity, the method of cognitive processes of assessing social information on the Internet; Yanoff-Bulman scale of basic beliefs (modified By M. A. Padun and A.V. Kotelnikova). The study involved 208 adolescents aged 13-18 years (48% males and 52% females).

Results. On the basis of the cluster analysis, two groups of adolescents were identified – individuals with a high level of development of moral judgments and high moral sensitivity and individuals with a low level of development of moral judgments and heterogeneous moral sensitivity. Moral sensitivity determines how much the subject is aware of the moral content of problem situations. Adolescents with a high level of moral development are characterized by a strong belief in the justice of the world and the experience of the value and significance of their own Self. Differences in cognitive processing of social information are revealed. Adolescents with a high level of moral development are more focused on the choice of response behaviour, taking into account its possible consequences and assessing self-efficacy in the process of social interaction in the Internet space. Adolescents with a low level of moral development are more focused on the interpretive stage of social information analysis, where the task is to understand the moral content of the situation and highlight the moral conflict.

The paper highlights the urgent issues of complex and multifaceted social and legal phenomenon of «child abuse». The definitions of «child abuse» in family law and relevant explanations of the Supreme Court in relation to Article 69 of the Family Code are shown. Within the criminal protection of children, it is determined that erroneous and deliberately incorrect qualification of actions of those responsible for committing child abuse that occurs in the practice of the preliminary investigation and inquiry occurs due to the imperfection of criminal law, including the lack of the concept of «child abuse», which is used as a mandatory feature in the art. 156 of the Criminal Code (failure to child-rearing responsibilities). This gap in the criminal law and personnel incompetence allow the guilty evade responsibility, as they are often refused a suit, or ordered to dismiss the criminal case or termination of proceedings for various reasons. The necessity of a legislative definition of «child abuse», shall be due to the following: analysis of available scientific debate in the doctrine of criminal law, the definition of «child abuse» in Article 156 of the Criminal Code; lighting statistical parameters, confirming the high level of latency of this category of crime, but because of difficulty with their identification and qualification; generalization of judicial practice, which also does not have a uniform approach to solving the problems mentioned above, but allowed to identify the main forms of manifestation of «child abuse» as a result of which there are specific consequences of distorting the child’s personality. Summing up, for the criminal law to protect the rights of the child and the right of a practical approach, the concept of «child abuse» should be legally defined as the category of the legal institution carries risks too broad or, on the contrary, overly narrow its interpretation, which may lead to abuse in law enforcement, as well as leave the guilty unpunished, and defenseless children.

Moral choice in adolescents is determined by the interaction of cognitive, emotional and personal factors that prescribe the orientation on the justice principle, or the principle of care, exercised in certain social psychological and situational conditions. Some features of the of moral dilemmas solution in L. Kohlberg’s concept of moral development and N. Eisenberg’s theory of prosocial behaviour are considered. The following types of moral choice dilemmas are identified: personal choice and decision-making within uncertain moral norms as a behaviour regulating tool; moral choice within competitive moral norms; the dilemma ofalter altruism.

Conditions and factors of solving moral dilemmas in adolescents are identified and described: the social psychological conditions (culture, socioeconomic status, family, school); individual features (moral values, moral feelings and emotions, e.g. guilt, sympathy, empathy and distress, presence of socio-cognitive conflicts in past experiences, the proximity to the victim and identifying oneself as a victim, age, sex); level of cognitive development and attribute processes (regarding prosocial behaviour of other people as «good» and identifying oneself as «good»; being aware of altruistic motives of one’s behaviour and the nature of one’s behaviour as showing care for welfare of others; adequately assessing the needs of another person for further assistance and identifying its objective necessity); situational factors and structural and content limitations of the moral dilemmas (according to the degree of involvement, either personal or social, according to the extent of meeting social expectations, i.e. antisocial, prosocial dilemmas and social pressures).

The problems of information security in the area of new technologies are considered. Central to the range of issues under consideration are psychological problems. It is stated that a number of children and adolescents can not use transfer to the virtual environment rules of moral behavior they are familiar with; this is the reason of large influx of newcomers violators of rules of behavior to the networking community. The necessity of developing a special training course designed to help such children and adolescents, as well as the widespread education of the younger generation in the sphere of the basics of cyberethics. The usefulness of this training course is illustrated by the results of a study conducted in the cyber environment: preferred direction of hacker community are demonstrated.

Main socio"cultural changes in modern society are outlined. Their influence on personality development of children and adolescents is revealed. The features of contemporary children due to evolutionary morphological transformations of human are discussed. The problems that comes from these processes to the psychological and pedagogical theory and practice, especially in the modern school, are described.

The ideas about spirituality, which have developed in different philosophic theories as well as various religious faiths of Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism, etc. are considered. A comparative analysis of religious traditions concerning spiritual quest and aspirations of a human being is given. The similarity of the religious understanding of man’s spiritual growth and psychological characteristics of a holistic, psychologically mature and healthy personality existing in the different theories of personality.