“…The nature of this link has been described in various ways. For instance, some propose that the moral self is an ‘earlier and less mature form’ of adolescent moral identity (Krettenauer & Hertz, , p. 143), while others suggest it may be the ‘precursor’ (Hardy & Carlo, ) or ‘developmental source’ (Lapsley, , p. 168) of mature moral identity. Characterizing the link between the moral self of early childhood and moral identity in adolescence in this way invokes a long‐standing debate about whether child development across various domains (e.g., moral, social, and numbers and logic) proceeds in a gradual, additive, and continuous manner, or whether development proceeds by virtue of abrupt, discontinuous, and qualitatively distinct changes (for a review, see Lerner, ).…”