Adolescents’ Commonsense Understanding of Rights and Duties

Abstract

During adolescence, individuals start to develop a civic identity that contributes toward defining their civic participation later on in adulthood. In developing their civic identity, adolescents start to reason with the topics of rights, duties, and responsibilities. The aim of this study is to analyze how some Italian adolescents ( N = 134) conceive the concepts of rights and duties. Moreover, as some scholars—in reference to so-called individualist-focused cultures—assert that people tend to attach priority to their individual rights within an individualistic worldview and deemphasize duties, the aim is also to empirically identify this “individualization of rights.” Results show that adolescents who define rights as “are not limited by others” and as disjointed from the notion of duty tend to prioritize their personal rights ( vs. other’s rights) in two rights dilemmas. This effect is partially mediated by the importance attached to egalitarian values.