Context specificity in adolescents’ implicit theories of morality

Abstract

This study investigated between and within person differences in adolescents’ endorsement of moral essentialism and moral incrementalism across various types of morally-relevant situations. The sample included 97 adolescents (age range = 12–15 years). Adolescents responded to vignettes depicting recurrent and nonrecurrent actions in prosocial and antisocial contexts, with questions assessing moral essentialism, incrementalism, and other character and situation judgments. The majority of the variance for essentialism and incrementalism was linked to within-person differences across contexts. Findings revealed between-person associations between moral mindset, implicit theories of personality, and externalization of blame. Adolescents endorsed moral essentialism more in prosocial contexts and incrementalism more in antisocial contexts. Within-person variations in essentialism were linked to likability, acceptability, person attributions and consequence judgments in particular contexts. Results corroborate research and theorizing about the flexible endorsement of moral essentialism and incrementalism, and document the ways in which adolescents’ judgments are responsive to the unique features of events. Findings are discussed in terms of their contributions to scholarship on moral mindsets during adolescence.