All for One: Contributions of Age, Socioeconomic Factors, Executive Functioning, and Social Cognition to Moral Reasoning in Childhood

Abstract

Moral reasoning (MR) is a socio-cognitive skill essential to appropriate social functioning in childhood, and evolves in quality and complexity during ontogenetic development. Past research suggests that MR is related to age, socioeconomic factors, as well as some social and cognitive skills, such as executive functioning (EF), theory of mind (ToM), empathy, and affect recognition. However, their contributions have been studied in silos rather than comprehensively, with little integration of the relative and combined contribution of these skills to MR. Furthermore, few studies have addressed the putative links between these factors in childhood, a period during which these skills are in maturation. The aim of this study was to explore what factors predict moral maturity in typically developing children (n = 76, 47.4% males, M = 9.2, SD = 1.67 years), explore the potential moderating and mediating role of executive functions and social cognition in the relationship between age and MR maturity, and identify the specific contributions of age, socioeconomic factors, EF, and social cognition, using an innovative visual MR assessment tool (So-Moral). The results indicate that MR maturity was correlated with age, EF (inhibition, verbal fluency, and attentional control), and social cognition (ToM and affect recognition). Neither EF nor social cognition moderated the effect of age on MR maturity. However, verbal fluency and third-order false beliefs had a moderating role in this link. MR maturity in children was predicted by three variables from each of the three domains: age, verbal fluency, and third-order ToM. These results contribute to a better understanding of the underpinnings of MR during childhood, suggesting that MR is not reducible to general developmental factors such as age, but that higher order skills, such EF and social cognition also contribute to moral maturity. The findings have relevance for both typically developing and clinical populations in which social skills may be reduced, as well as for the identification of potential loci for intervention in children at-risk for socially maladaptive behaviors.

Visual Encoding of Social Cues Contributes to Moral Reasoning in Autism Spectrum Disorder: An Eye-Tracking Study

“…Participants completed the SoMoral ( Dooley et al, 2010 ; Beauchamp and Dooley, 2012 ; Beauchamp et al, 2013 ; Vera-Estay et al, 2015 , 2016 ; Chiasson et al, 2017 ). The SoMoral is a self-paced, visual, computer-based task.…”

“…The Socio-Moral Reasoning Aptitude Level Task (SoMoral; Dooley et al, 2010 ; Beauchamp and Dooley, 2012 ; Beauchamp et al, 2013 ; Vera-Estay et al, 2015 , 2016 ; Chiasson et al, 2017 ) is a visual moral reasoning measure that contains moral dilemmas from everyday life situations presented using pictures. It measures three aspects of moral reasoning: understanding, decision-making, and justification.…”

“…For example, visual encoding differences between ASD participants and neurotypical controls tend to be more apparent when measured using clear dyadic signs ( Chawarska et al, 2012 ) or ecological social interactions ( Chevallier et al, 2015 ), whereas studies using gray scale, static stimuli fail to find visual fixation differences between ASD and neurotypical participants ( Van Der Geest et al, 2002 ; Sterling et al, 2008 ; McPartland et al, 2011 ). When used in the context of neurotypical development, predictors of SoMoral scores include cognitive variables (e.g., executive functions) and demographic variables such as socioeconomic status and age ( Vera-Estay et al, 2015 , 2016 ). The task has also been used in clinical populations and results highlight the impact of conditions such as traumatic brain injuries ( Dooley et al, 2010 ; Beauchamp et al, 2013 ) and focal brain insults ( Chiasson et al, 2017 ) on moral reasoning.…”

The Griffith Empathy Measure Does Not Validly Distinguish between Cognitive and Affective Empathy in Children

“…Other analyses revealed that the cognitive dimension more robustly associated with child conduct problems and prosociality than did the affective dimension (Dadds et al, 2008). A growing number of studies have since relied upon these GEM cognitive and affective scales (e.g., Dadds, Cauchi, Wimalaweera, Hawes, & Brennan, 2012;Dawel, Palermo, O'Kearney, & McKone, 2015;Decety, Meidenbauer, & Cowell, 2017;Deschamps, Been, & Matthys, 2014;D'Hondt et al, 2017;Kimonis et al, 2016;McDonald et al, 2017;Tsang, Gillespie-Lynch, & Hutman, 2016;Vera-Estay, Seni, Champagne, & Beauchamp, 2016). The original validation article (Dadds et al, 2008) and the first major follow-up article (Dadds et al, 2009) have both already been cited more than 100 times according to the Google Scholar database, with a few dozen citations each since 2016.…”

Visual encoding of social cues predicts sociomoral reasoning

“…The Socio-Moral Reasoning Ability Level task (SoMoral) [ 1 , 11 , 42 – 44 ] addresses some of these methodological limitations. The task consists of visual dilemmas that represent moral conflicts (e.g.…”