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This study examines how culture and development jointly shape moral values in northern Thailand. Eighty participants (40 adolescents [ M age = 17.30] and 40 parents, evenly divided across a rural community and a globalized urban city) completed the Ethical Values Assessment (EVA), a questionnaire that examines the extent to which individuals prioritize Ethics of Autonomy, Community, and Divinity. Statistical analyses reveal that these three moral values are customized by extent of exposure to globalization: adolescents in the globalized urban context were most likely to prioritize Autonomy, and least likely to prioritize Community. Urban parents prioritized Community values more so than their children and rural-dwelling parents. These and other findings speak to the effects of globalization and localization in the face of cultural change. The more granular focus on particular EVA items endorsed further reveals both the maintenance of long-standing cultural values (i.e., filial piety), even among those with most significant exposure to globalization, and ways in which certain autonomous values may be tailored to function alongside long-standing local values. In total, this study suggests that local value systems are maintained, reasserted, and dynamically reshaped with globalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Moral psychology has been moving toward consideration of multiple kinds of moral concepts and values, such as the Ethics of Autonomy, Community, and Divinity. While these three ethics have commonly been measured qualitatively, the current study sought to validate the long and short forms of the Ethical Values Assessment (EVA), which is a questionnaire developed on the basis of the standard coding manual for the three ethics. Two studies were conducted, the first with a sample of 551 college students (18-29 years, 60% female, 61% European American) and the second with a nationally representative sample of 1,519 individuals (18-93 years, 51% female, 72% European American). Results from Study 1 indicated that a three factor solution using the EVA_L (long form) had adequate model fit, and internal reliability and validity of all three subscales were established. Results from Study 2 showed that model fit for a three-factor solution using the EVA_S (short form) was also acceptable. Measurement invariance as a function of age was established for some subscales and age groups, but not others. Discussion focuses on the implications of this measure for moral psychology and important future research directions.

In this chapter, I argue that Dialogical Self Theory (DST) represents a compelling answer to how to conceptualize the psychology of the self in today's world, when people increasingly are aware of more than one way to think, feel, and relate to others. DST envisions a self of plural voices. The chapters in this volume show intriguing applications of the theory, ranging from microlevel infant-caregiver interactions to macrolevel repercussions of globalization among Pacific island communities. I end by suggesting that the pliable nature of DST, illustrated in the chapter on an Indian social movement, is a strength. In my view, it fits with today's need for a new philosophy of social science. One-size-fits-all approaches are often too broad and too biased to adequately capture the complexities of human selves and relations. The challenge and opportunity that we face today is one of bridging universal theories with cultural ones--and the present volume can be read as one example of how to meet that challenge with respect to a psychology of the self.

This paper proposes a cultural-developmental approach to moral psychology. The approach builds on and synthesizes findings from different research traditions, including the cognitive-developmental, domain, two orientations, three ethics, and moral identity traditions. The paper introduces a conception termed a "cultural-developmental template." The template charts developmental patterns across the life course for moral reasoning in terms of the three Ethics of Autonomy, Community, and Divinity. The template, however, is not one-size-fits-all. Its general developmental patterns accommodate to the different constellations of Ethics held by culturally diverse peoples. From the present theoretical proposal follows a set of specific research expectations as well as a set of broader research implications for how to conduct research on morality from the vantage points of both culture and development. These expectations and implications include consideration of moral emotions, definitions of morality, and cultural variation in the life course itself. (Contains 3 figures.)

Immigrant parents (first generation) and adolescents (second generation) from El Salvador and India (N = 80) took part in interviews on civic engagement. The immigrants were almost unanimous in regarding civic engagement as important. They also were engaged themselves, more so at the community than the political level. One third of immigrants were engaged in community activities that specifically had a cultural focus or occurred through cultural organizations, and the comparable number for political activities was 25%. Cultural motives (i.e., a cultural or immigrant sense of self) were twice as likely to be mentioned as sources of engagement rather than disengagement. Qualitative analyses of these cultural motives revealed seven engagement themes (e.g., cultural tradition of service) and three of disengagement (e.g., ethnic exclusion). (Contains 3 tables and 4 footnotes.)

This volume brings together leading scholars to describe important new directions in research on child and adolescent development. This introductory chapter places their articles in the context of three larger trends in the field.

In this study, 229 high school students and 261 college students evaluated the acceptability of lying to parents under 19 different circumstances where a person's motive for lying differed. Students also indicated the frequency with which they had lied to their parents about diverse issue such as friends, dates, and money. Results indicated that adolescents and emerging adults quite commonly lied to their parents, and that in part they framed lying to parents as a way to assert the right to autonomy. Emerging adults were less accepting of lying and reported less frequent lying, compared to adolescents. Results also showed the association of sex, personality (self-restraint and tolerance of deviance), and family environment (control and cohesion) upon adolescents' and emerging adults' acceptance of lying to parents and lying behavior.

The study included 144 Indian children in middle childhood and early adolescence of high and low SES. Based on the cultural-developmental approach, the aims were to test hypotheses about use of the three Ethics of Autonomy, Community and Divinity, and to gain qualitative insights into the children's indigenous moral concepts. Three findings stood out: 1) Older children employed a rich set of indigenous duty concepts, thereby also using the Ethic of Community more than younger children. 2) Younger children already reasoned in terms of the Ethic of Divinity. 3) High-SES children used the Ethic of Autonomy more than low-SES children and conceptualized the individual in independent and psychological terms; whereas low-SES children's view of autonomy invoked fear of physical punishment. The cultural-developmental theory and methodology revealed sides of children's moral reasoning that are largely missing in Western studies, and point to new research directions in moral development and socialization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]