Moral Development, Moral Identity, and Prosocial Behavior

Abstract

This chapter examines some of the variables that account for individual differences in the likelihood of prosocial behavior. Drawing on the theories of Lawrence Kohlberg, Martin Hoffman, and Jonathan Haidt, it explores the interrelationships between moral development, moral identity, and prosocial behavior. It also considers the complexity of sociomoral behavior in relation to moral motivation. These issues are discussed by presenting a case study from Robert Coles's 1986 book The Moral Life of Children: a White youth's rescue of an African American youth from imminent attack. The chapter suggests how individuals who seem primed to discern and act against unfairness and harm amid the complexities of social conformity, ideology, and distorted thinking in the “field” of human social situations tend to be those for whom morality is central to their sense of self (that is, they tend to be high in “moral identity”).