Children’s strategies for self-correcting their social and moral transgressions and perceived personal shortcomings: Implications for moral agency

Abstract

Previous research has found that when children engage in social and moral transgressions, they take steps to either remedy or explain their behavior. However, no prior systematic investigation has examined the strategies children employ to ‘correct’ their behavior in future situations. The present study employed a domain theory lens to investigate developmental changes in children’s self-reported strategies for self-correcting their moral and social conventional transgressions as well as adjusting self-perceived personal shortcomings. Participants were 100 children from two regions of the US distributed across five age groups, six-, eight-, 10-, 12- and 16-years. Findings from interviews revealed significant differences in strategies for self-correction by domain and age. Implications for expanding our definitions of moral agency and improving social and emotional learning (SEL) programs are discussed.