Conditions and factors of solving moral dilemmas in adolescence.

Abstract

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).