Moral Development, Cultural Differences in
Klaus Helkama and Florencia M Sortheix, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Abstract
Drawing on current conceptualizations of values (Schwartz’s basic human values theory) and the moral domain (Haidt’s
moral foundations theory; Shweder’s big three of morality), as well as the cognitive developmental approach to morality, we
examine research on cross-cultural differences in the emphases on different parts of the moral domain and in the pathways of
moral development in the light of cultural variations in wealth, relatedness, and hierarchy. We also review studies of age-
related changes in values and justice-oriented reasoning, and examine influences on cultural and individual inclusiveness of
the moral ingroup.
The Moral Domain
Morality has two functions: to promote ideals and justice, and
to maintain social stability. Among the classics in psychology
and sociology, Piaget and Weber stressed the former, Freud
and Durkheim the latter function. The current dominant
definition of the moral domain (Haidt, 2012) includes six
moral foundations: harm/care (not hurting anybody, caring
for the weak), liberty (freedom from oppression), fairness/
reciprocity (equal treatment of all), ingroup/loyalty (not
betraying one’s group, being proud of the history of one’s
country), authority/respect (showing respect for authority),
and purity/sanctity (not violating standards of decency). The
first three foundations are, roughly, related to the promotion
function of morality, the three latter to its prevention func-
tion. Another taxonomy of moral ideologies is Shweder et al.’s
(1997) ‘big three’: Ethic of autonomy (corresponds to Haidt’s
care, liberty, and fairness), community (ingroup and
authority), and divinity (purity). Obviously, the foundations
could be in conflict, for instance, in a choice between ingroup
loyalty and honesty. In line with the two opposite functions
of morality, politically conservative people in the United
States emphasize the three foundations related to stability
(loyalty, authority, and purity), whereas liberals stress the
change-oriented harm and fairness foundations.
Values, abstract, general, desirable goals, represent what
is most important in life. They are the foundations based
on which people live and relate to others (Schwartz, 1992).
Studies relying on Schwartz’s (1992) value model suggest
that there is also universal agreement that some values are
moral. His model postulates 10 universal values. They can be
described in terms of a circular structure with two dimensions,
self-enhancement – self-transcendence and conservation –
openness to change. Values relate in consistent ways to moral
foundations (Boer and Fischer, 2013). Benevolence is regarded
as a moral value in widely different cultures (Vauclair, 2010),
and is positively associated with all five moral foundations
Table 1 The moral domain in different psychological approaches
Schwartz’s values Self-direction, universalism, benevolence
Haidt’s Moral foundations Liberty, fairness, care
Schweder’s ‘big three’ Autonomy
International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2nd edition, Volume 15
among more than 34 000 respondents from all over the world
(Graham et al., 2011). Conformity and tradition-related values
(self-discipline, politeness, honoring of parents and elders;
being devout, respect for tradition) are related to the two
foundations of authority, and purity (Boer and Fischer, 2013),
possibly also to ingroup (Sverdlik et al., 2012), see Table 1.
Except for benevolence, the moral domain varies across
cultures. Conformity and tradition are more often regarded
as moral values in less wealthy than in affluent countries,
whereas universalism values (e.g., broadmindedness, equal-
ity, world peace, social justice, protecting environment) and
even some self-direction values (freedom) are regarded as
moral values more often in wealthy individualistic than in
poor collectivistic countries (Sverdlik et al., 2012; Vauclair,
2010).
Morality is neither sociologically nor psychologically
a coherent system. Max Weber pointed out in 1918 that our
conceptions of justice involve a fundamental antinomy or
incompatibility, between egalitarianism and merit. Neuro-
psychological research shows that we regard it as right to kill
one person by turning a switch in order to save five people,
but regard it as wrong to kill one person by pushing him
from a bridge to save five persons. The thought of pushing
another activates the ‘old’ regions in our brain, whereas the
thought of turning the switch activates the ‘new’ parts of the
brain.
However, there are universally shared moral intuitions, for
instance, that dishonesty is wrong. Vauclair and Fischer (2011)
reviewed responses of more than 200 000 people from 84
countries to the ‘morally debatable behaviors’ scale, used in the
World Value Survey since 1981. By means of multilevel anal-
yses they found that there was very little variation across
cultures or across individuals in the opinion that such
‘dishonest and illegal’ acts as accepting a bribe were wrong. By
contrast, there was a great deal cross-cultural as well as within-
culture variation with regard to ‘personal and sexual’ acts like
abortion, homosexuality, or divorce.
Conformity Tradition
Ingroup/loyalty, authority/respect Purity
Community Divinity
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-097086-8.23212-1 781
782 Moral Development, Cultural Differences in
Moral development is here defined as any change in
a morally relevant psychological variable that occurs in human
beings as they age. Culture is here seen as the primary mode of
human adaptation, which reflects the demands of the ecolog-
ical, demographic, and institutional environment, as well as
historical experiences. Culture and development are inter-
twined in many senses. Culture sets the developmental tasks
for individuals and largely defines developmental pathways of
development.
A hunting and gathering culture is egalitarian and low in
conformity, often with benevolent attitudes to outgroups.
A culture adapted to an agrarian socioeconomic environment
is organized by the dimension of relatedness, where the indi-
vidual is part of the social system, defined by cooperation,
acceptance of hierarchy, striving for harmonious relationships.
A culture, adapted to an urban socioeconomic postindustrial
environment, is organized by the dimension of autonomy; the
individual is self-contained in a social system defined by
a mixture of competition and cooperation, and plurality of
values. We examine sociocultural contexts that range from
countries and geographic areas to smaller units such as
professions or families. In characterizing those contexts, the
focus will be on the dimensions of relatedness – expressed
by autonomy vs. embeddedness (Schwartz, 2008) – and
hierarchy – egalitarianism (expressed by Schwartz’s and Hof-
stede’s well-known dimensions) as well as economic affluence
of the social unit.
Pathways of Moral Development
As the moral domain varies cross-culturally, so do pathways of
moral development. This is seen already in infancy. In cultures
where relatedness values (conformity, tradition) are empha-
sized, socialization goals and parenting strategies of mothers
for their infants differ from the goals and strategies of mothers
in postindustrial cultural contexts (Keller, 2007). There is
no explicit developmental cross-cultural research on the
authority, ingroup, and purity foundations. Jensen (2011)
advanced a cultural–developmental theory, in which she out-
lined a series of developmental trajectories for the autonomy,
community, and divinity in different cultural contexts. She
noted that community-related arguments increase with age, as
shown by the findings that in late adolescence and adulthood,
there is an increase in moral concepts associated with societal
organization, and with what is best for the society. These results
are found not only in western countries, but also in India and
Zambia. Adulthood age trends from representative national
samples are consistent with this view, as they demonstrate an
increase in the importance of conformity and security values.
Wealth has two important consequences for values and
moral development pathways. First, it increases the likelihood
of individualism and democracy (causality is reciprocal).
Inglehart and Welzel (2005) found that the ratio of societal
changes toward democracy vs. changes toward autocracy for
the period 1950–90 increased with wealth. In countries with
per capita incomes greater than 7000 dollars, changes toward
democracy occurred 28 times as often as the reverse changes.
Even within democracies, wealth increases preference for fair-
ness and care (self-transcendence values). Van Herk and
Poortinga (2012) examined 195 regions in Europe
comparing the influence of historical factors and current
economic situation. They found that contemporary affluence,
measured by the gross national product (GNP), was far more
important than history in explaining preference for self-
transcendence values (benevolence and universalism). Using
the third wave of the European Social Survey, we calculated
correlations of universalism with age. Despite the confounding
of cohort effects, correlations were positive in all countries,
ranging from 0.12 (Denmark) to 0.31 (Russia). Democracies,
then, seem to favor the moral developmental trajectory toward
universalism values.
A second consequence of wealth is increasing value
differentiation (Boer and Fischer, 2013). In wealthier and more
individualistic societies, there is less value consensus. Schwartz
and Sagie (2000) suggest that with increasing de-
mocratization, value consensus further decreases. This means
that a new developmental task emerges: how to solve value
conflicts? That is the focus of Kohlberg’s (1984) cognitive–
developmental theory of moral judgment.
Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development
The cross-cultural studies on Kohlberg’s developmental
theory of moral judgment are far more numerous than on any
other approach (see, e.g., Eckensberger and Zimba, 1997).
His basic focus was moral judgment, which is the ability to
reason about value conflicts. He attempted to formulate
a system of universal moral categories. Kohlberg’s category
system covered, broadly, Haidt’s (2012) six foundations. In
Kohlberg’s Moral Judgment Interview (MJI), two commonly
accepted moral principles clashed in a dilemma, for instance,
saving a life vs. obeying the law, or authority vs. honesty
(promise keeping).
Moral development was defined by the justifications
(structure) people gave for their choices, not by the choices
(content). The justifications were rank ordered into stages
according to their cognitive sophistication and level of social
perspective taking. Thus, the criteria of development were more
stringent than mere age-related change. After a radical revision
of the scoring system, the final sequence consisted of five
empirical stages (preconventional: (1) heteronomous morality,
punishment, and obedience to authority; (2) individualism,
instrumental purpose, and exchange; conventional: (3) mutual
interpersonal expectations, relationships, and interpersonal
conformity; (4) social system and conscience; and post-
conventional: (5) social contract or utility and individual
rights).
Although Kohlberg initially thought that development
would lead to agreement on universal ethical principles at Stage
6, this stage was not found in empirical studies. At the post-
conventional level, there is no value consensus but post-
conventional arguments could be employed to defend a variety
of values. While research has supported many Kohlbergian
criteria of development, e.g., the hierarchical nature of the
stages, there is more situational variation in the arguments
than Kohlberg’s idea of stages as integrated wholes implied.
Therefore, current usage relies on the concept of a schema:
personal interest schema for Stage 2/3, maintaining norms

Table 2 Developmental approaches to morality
Fairness
Kohlberg (1984): Stages of moral reasoning
Focus: Solving value conflicts presented in hypothetical dilemmas
Methods of assessment:
- Moral Judgment Interview (MJI; Colby and Kohlberg: The measure-
ment of moral judgment, Cambridge University Press, 1987; produc-
tion measure)
- Defining Issues Test (DIT; Rest: Development in judging moral issues,
1979: comprehension and preference) DIT-2 (Rest et al., 1999)
- Sociomoral Reflection Measure (SRM; Gibbs, Widaman, and Colby,
Child Development, 1982)
- Sociomoral Reflection Measure-Short Form (SRM-SF; Gibbs,
Basinger, and Fuller, Moral maturity: measuring the development of
sociomoral reflection, Erlbaum, 1992). (The SRM-SF, unlike the other
instruments, is not based on dilemmas.)
- Moral Judgment Test (MJT; assessment of moral arguments); Lind
(www.uni-konstanz.de/ag-moral/lind.htm)
Care
Gilligan: In a different voice (1982)–Skoe (1998): Ethic of care
Focus: Solving dilemmas on care of others vs. care of self (partly own real-
life dilemmas)
Countries: Norway, Canada, Finland (Juujärvi, Myyry, and Pesso, J. Moral
Education, 2010)
Method of assessment: Ethic of Care Interview (Skoe et al. Early
Adolescence, 1999)
Eisenberg et al. (Developmental Psychology, 1987): Prosocial reasoning
Focus: Reasons for prosocial behavior
Countries: USA, Brazil (Eisenberg, Zhou, and Koller, Child Development,
2001)
Method of assessment: Prosocial dilemma interview
Community, autonomy, and divinity (the ‘big three’)
Jensen: Coding manual for the ethics of autonomy, community, and
divinity (2004).www.LeneArnettJensen.com
Focus: Coding moral reasons from moral discourse
Guerra and Giner-Sorolla: Community, Autonomy, Divinity Scale (CADS),
Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 2010
Moral exemplarity
Studying morally outstanding persons who have shown extraordinary
commitments promoting benevolence, justice, or basic human welfare
(Life review interview; List of personal strivings; Frimer, Walker, and
et al., Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2011)
schema (Stage 3/4), and postconventional schema (Rest et al.,
1999).
Most importantly, there is empirical support for the
assumption that higher stage solutions to moral problems are
felt to solve those problems in a more balanced and just way.
When presented with Stage 5 postconventional arguments and
Stage 4 conventional arguments, both right-wing and left-wing
students in Britain prefer Stage 5 to Stage 4. High scorers are less
self-serving in judging their own and others’ bad deeds and
more likely to rely on the procedural justice principle of bias
suppression in reporting personal real-life dilemmas (Myyry
and Helkama, 2002). However, high scorers are hardly more
likely to resist temptation or show altruism or moral respon-
sibility than others.
Kohlberg’s theory conceptualizes environmental influence
in terms of social perspective-taking opportunities (participa-
tion in peer groups, decision making in the family, and sense of
participation in societal institutions of work and politics in
general). These experiences stimulate the growth of justice
Moral Development, Cultural Differences in 783
reasoning. The structural nature of the stages implies that
development is mainly about increasing sophistication, i.e.,
differentiation and hierarchical integration of moral concepts,
as well as increasing universality, but does not necessarily lead
to adoption of any definite values.
The variety of approaches and measures of different aspects
of moral development are summarized in Table 2. Findings on
comprehension and preference formed the basis of Rest’s
Defining Issues Test (DIT), which measures the preference for
postconventional schema and has been frequently used in
cross-cultural research. Gibbs’s measures, on the other hand,
deal with development up to Stage 4.
Is there evidence for the Rousseau-derived hypothesis of a
‘natural’ universal trend toward postconventional Stage 5 judg-
ment? Studies carried out with the MJI, where respondents
produce moral arguments, show that Stage 5 is extremely rare
(Eckensberger and Zimba, 1997; Snarey, 1985). By contrast,
studies that have used the DIT, a comprehension and preference
test, suggest that the preference for postconventional arguments
increases with age and education in a number of countries (Gielen
and Markoulis, 2001). The postconventional schema reflects an
outside-society or prior-to-society perspective, as illustrated by
such items of the DIT as “would (X) in this case bring about more
total good for the whole society or not” or “what values are going
to be the basis of governing how people act toward each other.”
Social perspective taking has been shown to be the factor
underlying the progress along the stages of justice reasoning
judgment, irrespective of method of assessment (Gibbs et al.,
2007). The same holds for the ethic of care. Therefore, when
looking at culture-based differences in Kohlbergian moral
development, the natural question is: What are the dimensions
of culture that are related to social perspective-taking oppor-
tunities and actual perspective taking?
Culture-Based Differences in Justice Reasoning
The prototypes of Gesellschaft (society) and Gemeinschaft
(community) have been used as explanatory constructs for
cultural differences in the attainment of higher stages (Snarey,
1985). Gesellschaft, an urban, complex, heterogeneous envi-
ronment, with a variety of contacts with strangers, supposedly
provides more varied social perspective-taking opportunities
than does Gemeinschaft, rural, face-to-face, homogeneous
environment, where contacts are mostly with familiar people.
Movement of any ecological variable (e.g., diversity of occu-
pations or formal schooling) in a Gesellschaft direction shifts
cultural values toward more individualism and developmental
pathway toward more independent behavior (Greenfield,
2009).
However, in addition to a movement toward a larger society
(Gesellschaft), the cultural value of autonomy vs. embedded-
ness could be related to perspective taking. One prerequisite of
social perspective taking is the existence of value plurality,
which means increasing likelihood of encountering situations
where different values are represented by different people, i.e.,
in a sociocognitive conflict. Experimental studies show that
sociocognitive conflict leads to cognitive development. In
autonomous societies individuals are socialized for indepen-
dent thinking and personal freedom is highly valued. In more
784 Moral Development, Cultural Differences in

embedded societies religion, group norms and social conven-
tions govern everyday life giving less freedom for individual
choices in moral justice-oriented reasoning. The weaker value
consensus in more democratic societies implies that individ-
uals growing up in such societies are more exposed to socio-
cognitive value conflicts, so we could expect that they score
higher on moral judgment tasks.
The role of egalitarian vs. hierarchical cultural values also
seems to influence moral development. Hofstede’s power
distance (hierarchy) refers to the extent to which those lower in
organizational hierarchy regard inequality as natural. Table 3
shows that moral judgment development scores tend to be
higher in countries which score lower on power distance. The
upper half of Table 3 shows the scores for the highest scoring
(higher middle class) adults in Snarey’s (1985) review of studies
using the Moral Judgment Interview, and the bottom half shows
the P% (percentage of postconventional arguments regarded as
most important) scores of freshman samples from different
countries in Gielen and Markoulis’ (2001) review, with
Spearman rho ¼ 0.80 (p < .01). The notable exception from the
pattern in Table 3 is Ireland, low in power distance but also low
postconventional morality. This is probably due to the influence
of Catholic Church.
Religious orthodoxy is associated with lower postconven-
tional scores (Rest et al., 1999). Where a high proportion of
moral rules are seen as absolute, there is less room for value
conflicts.
The role of egalitarianism is also seen in smaller cultural
units; e.g., families. Adolescents who participate in decision-
making score higher on the DIT than adolescents in hierar-
chical role–oriented families. Husbands and wives who make
decisions together score higher on the MJI than those who do
not. Although these findings could be due to the tendency of
individuals high on justice-oriented reasoning to act demo-
cratically, the findings on university students’ moral judgment
development suggest that the causal link goes from a hierar-
chical culture to individuals.
The US business world is hierarchical, and the business
students score lower than expected on measures of moral
reasoning (Maeda et al., 2009). Also the medical profession is
known to be fairly hierarchical. In contrast to students in other
fields of study, European and Canadian medical students do
not appear to progress on moral judgment. This is suggested by
findings of regression in at least four recent longitudinal
studies, which used different Kohlbergian methods to assess
justice-oriented reasoning. Presumably, for the medical
profession, like other life-and-death occupational groups (fire
brigades, armies), a hierarchical organization is often a natural
one for effective functioning. Solving value conflicts is not
easily compatible with its functional requirements. However,
the hierarchical organization of medical profession and its
consequences on moral reasoning is no natural law, as
shown by findings of clear progress among medical students
in the United States (Maeda et al., 2009). Likewise, business
school students in Finland obtained high scores on post-
conventional moral judgment in the 1980s.
Over the past decades, inequality has increased almost
everywhere in the Western world. The findings that in the
United States, university students’ P% scores have declined,
narcissism increased and empathy decreased are consistent
with each other in suggesting a weakened disposition of taking
into account the feelings and consequences of own actions for
other people.
Democracies provide a sense of participation in the political
process, an essential input for the attainment of the system
perspective and the prior-to-society perspective, on which

Table 3 Moral judgment development indices and power distance

MMS Power distance

A. Kohlberg’s Moral Judgment Interview (MMS); Snarey (1985)

Israel (Kibbutz) 458 13
USA 391 40
Taiwan 370 58
India 363 77

P% Power distance

B. Defining Issues Test (P %; Gielen and Markoulis, 2001, p. 87)

Australia 43.8 36
USA 42.3 40
South Korea 41.5 60
Taiwan 41.4 58
Greece 40.3 60
Poland 39.9 68
Hong Kong 37.9 68
Ireland 34.1 28
Nigeria (West Africa) 30.0 77
Sudan 27.8 80
Kuwait 24.6 80
Egypt 22.6 80

MMS; moral maturity score.

P % ¼ weighted percentage of postconventional arguments ranked among the most important ones.

Kohlberg’s Stages 4 and 5 are based. On the other hand,
a substantial proportion of citizens with the Stage 4 and 5
systems and prior-to-society perspective seems to be a prereq-
uisite of a well-functioning democracy. These perspectives
enable them to see the common good in the midst of
competing values and ingroup as well as religious loyalties. To
summarize, Gesellschaft (as opposed to Gemeinschaft),
autonomy (as opposed to embeddedness), brought about by
sufficient wealth, as well as democracy and egalitarianism in
the sense of low power distance (as opposed to autocracy,
hierarchy, and high power distance) seem to be those dimen-
sions of culture that are conducive to individual development
of justice-oriented reasoning.
Other Developmental Dimensions
After Kohlberg, several moral–developmental dimensions have
emerged (Table 2). Far less cross-cultural research exists on
these dimensions than on Kohlberg’s justice. An attempt to
build a comprehensive moral–developmental psychology,
relying on neo-Kohlbergian findings and brain research is
Narvaez’s (2008) Triune ethics. It unites findings from brain
and clinical research with studies of moral emotions, and
singles out three basic ethical mindsets, which represent global
brain states. Ethic of safety, shared with all animals, is based
primarily on instincts for survival, and located in the brainstem
and lower limbic system. Ethic of engagement is based on
mammalian emotional systems that guide people toward
intimacy, as e.g., in parental care, or play in a peer group. Ethic
of imagination relies on recently evolved parts of the brain (neo
cortex and prefrontal cortex) and makes possible will power as
well as moral problem solving by means of reflection. How
much one favors one mindset over another is shaped by
experience in early life (i.e., caregiving practices) and other
sensitive periods.
Moral Values and Development of Justice-Oriented
Reasoning
If the structural development of moral judgment does not lead
to agreement about the hierarchy of moral principles or moral
values, then it is natural to ask how value priorities and moral
judgment development are related. Few associations of value
priorities with Kohlbergian moral development have been
published, which is consistent with the idea of the indepen-
dence of structure (moral stage) and content (value). A review
(Helkama, 2011) found that 70% of the 24 significant positive
associations of Kohlbergian measures with values were for
universalism values, and the rest were evenly divided between
benevolence and self-direction.
Conformity values have shown negative correlations with
Kohlbergian measures of moral development in educationally
homogenous samples. Universalism values are by definition
universalistic in the sense of being related to concern and
protection for the welfare of all people and nature. Benevolence
and conformity are ingroup values, concerned with the welfare
of close ones and restraint from violation of ingroup norms,
respectively. The association of universalism with the
Moral Development, Cultural Differences in 785
development of moral reasoning could be attributed to the
close association of universalism with social perspective taking
and empathy.
Moral Inclusiveness, Country-Level,
and Individual-Level
The two ingroup values, benevolence and conformity, while
motivationally close, relate to perspective taking and empathy
differently. Across eight studies in four countries, benevolence
showed consistent associations with both cognitive perspective
taking and emotional empathy, while conformity did not
show any associations (Helkama, 2011). The fact that the
patterns in the associations of benevolence and universalism
are very similar – almost identical – could be used to argue that
universalism could be understood as sympathy extended
beyond the boundaries of the ingroup, to all people. This idea
is supported by the notion of the inclusiveness of the moral
universe (Schwartz, 2007), which is defined as the extent
toward which universalism values are applied to outgroup
members. At the country level, inclusiveness increases with
egalitarianism and democratization and decreases with
embeddedness.
Schwartz (2007) operationalized the notion of the inclu-
siveness of moral universe by looking at the separation of
benevolence and universalism values from a psychometric
point of view. He took as his starting-point four universalism
values, broadmindedness, equality, social justice, and a world
at peace. If all four items were intermixed with benevolence or
other moral value items, the inclusiveness score was 0, and if all
of them formed a distinct region, then it was 4. Among 66
countries, democratization was the strongest predictor
(r ¼ 0.73) of inclusiveness. In a sample of 21 European
countries, inclusiveness of moral universe predicted acceptance
of immigrants. Moreover, the country inclusiveness moderated
the associations of universalism with acceptance of outgroup
immigrants and participation in prosocial activity, so that the
association was stronger in those countries where moral
universe was more inclusive, i.e., where universalism values
were understood as applying to members of outgroups, too.
The inclusiveness of an individual’s moral ingroup should
increase with his or her moral judgment level, if Kohlberg’s
stages follow the Kantian notion of universality, as he assumed.
Because history provides many examples of members of highly
developed cultures whose belief in their moral superiority has
led them to barbarous acts toward outgroup members, it is
appropriate to ask whether and when high scores on Kohl-
bergian measures of moral judgment predict inclusiveness of
the moral ingroup. Two studies seem relevant.
One study (Helkama, 2009) examined opinions about
development cooperation in relation to Kohlberg’s moral
stages at two points of time among ordinary adults in a Finnish
rural community. When economy was thriving (1982), moral
judgment level predicted inclusiveness of the moral universe in
the sense that those who scored higher on moral judgment
were more likely than low scorers to see contributing to
development cooperation as a moral duty. However, during
the massive economic recession in 1993, no association was
found between moral reasoning and inclusiveness of the moral
786 Moral Development, Cultural Differences in
ingroup, defined in terms of the same questions on develop-
ment cooperation. The inclusiveness of the moral universe in
that specific rural community in 1993 was much narrower than
the Finnish average over 1990s. Thus, the relation of moral
judgment development to the inclusiveness of the moral
ingroup varies as a function of the economic situation.
The other study (Passini, submitted for publication)
addressed ordinary Italians, who were given Rest’s DIT and
measures of social distance tapping prejudice toward im-
migrant groups. There were two kinds of dilemmas on the DIT. In
some dilemmas, the protagonist was Italian, an ingroup
member, in others, Romanian, an outgroup member. Overall,
the postconventional score was related to lower prejudice.
However, respondents with a narrow moral ingroup (i.e., prej-
udiced ones) scored lower on postconventional reasoning when
the protagonists were Romanian (outgroup members) than in
case they were Italian. By contrast, those respondents with an
inclusive moral ingroup obtained identical P% scores on both
types of dilemmas. Inclusiveness of the moral ingroup at the
individual level is, accordingly, not reducible to the develop-
mental level of moral judgment.
In sum, these studies suggest, first, that the value choices
that higher stage moral arguments justify are susceptible to
prevailing value climate and that the inclusiveness of the
ingroup may regulate the social perspective-taking process.
Categorizing some people as members of the outgroup leads to
switching off empathy toward them (Demoulin et al., 2009).
Second, they suggest that the inclusiveness of the moral
ingroup may vary quickly as a function of the economic situ-
ation. Disease stress as well as economic threat narrow the
boundaries of the ingroup and increase the importance of
conservation values. In the Finnish rural community just
mentioned, both local and national identifications increased
from 1993 to 2007, simultaneously with the increase in
importance of conservation values (Sortheix et al., 2013).
These Finnish observations, then, suggest that societal
moral code adapts to economic and other threats by shifting
toward relatedness values and narrower ingroups. As value
consensus increases, moral judgment in the sense of ability to
solve value conflicts is less needed.
Conclusions and Future Directions
The concept of moral development, introduced by Piaget and
Kohlberg, is an Enlightenment notion, based on common
human nature and equality of all people. The centrality of
benevolence values in morality and increase in reasoning about
societal organization with age seem to be universal features.
Piaget and Kohlberg assumed that there is a ‘natural’ trajectory
of development, which is only diverted by poor institutions.
Rousseau’s idea of a free and egalitarian society is consistent
with observations on hunter-gatherers, who live in an ecolog-
ical environment where autonomy is needed and equality is
functional. By contrast, in conditions with high disease stress
and economic scarcity, hierarchy is functional, and the
authority, ingroup loyalty, and religious purity (social-stability
maintaining) components of morality concur in promoting
self-discipline. Increase in economic affluence decreases the
need for conformity and creates pressure toward individualism,
democracy, and equality. While the weight of conservation
values in morality is reduced, no value consensus on univer-
salism (fairness) along the lines of ‘natural’ Rousseau-like
development is observed in wealthy societies, but increased
value diversity, also among moral values. ‘Human nature’
seems equally inclined to believe in ingroup superiority and
ingroup loyalty as in the Golden Rule and universal human
rights. The moral–developmental trajectory for citizens in
postindustrial democracies is characterized by growth of
reflective moral problem-solving skills, based on social
perspective taking; i.e., the developmental trajectory described
by Kohlberg’s stage sequence.
Moral change follows the route predicted by Bardi’s and
Goodwin’s (2011) theory of value change: With increase in
wealth and societal equality, the domain of moral values
moves along Schwartz’s circle from conformity toward
universalism and even self-direction. In affluent contexts,
ingroup norms, which in less affluent environments are all
regarded as moral, get differentiated into conventional and
moral ones. As the increase in wealth makes democracy and
value plurality more likely, also self-direction values (liberty)
become to be thought of as moral values.
While the above review suggests that moral codes tend to be
rational given the life circumstances (self-discipline is stressed
in conditions of scarcity, universalism in affluent societies,
which can afford it), continuity of traditions is a force that
is obviously also at work. Wealth does not automatically
bring about individualistic values and democracy. As Boer
and Fischer (2013) show in their review, the increased oppor-
tunities that arise from wealth only give rise to more choice
through a cultural emphasis on autonomy (as op-
posed to embedded and traditional societies) and, we would
add, egalitarianism. The possibility of choice (value plurality) is
important, but so is the responsibility that egalitarian societies
foster in their citizens (see Helkama, 2011).
With decrease in wealth, increase of threats in the envi-
ronment, or increase in inequality, moral change goes to the
opposite direction, as illustrated above: Universalism values
become less important and conservation values more impor-
tant. Since moral judgment (in the Kantian and Kohlbergian
sense of ability to solve value conflicts) is less required, level of
moral judgment goes down. Possibly, in these contexts the
responsibility of making such choices is left to the collective or
the authority.
The cross-cultural study of moral development has been
fairly one-sided in many ways. Most of it has been carried out
starting from Kohlberg’s theory. Developmental studies have
been restricted to care and fairness. In the future, there is
a need for more research using other methods than question-
naires or interviews about hypothetical situations. Mixed-
method approaches that combine qualitative and quantitative
approaches will become more common.
Brain research is one of the most rapidly expanding areas
in psychology. Integrating results from these studies (like
Narvaez’s (2008) Triune Ethics) with cross-cultural data will
increase our knowledge of the interaction of affective and
cognitive factors in moral development as well as of long-term
influence of childhood experiences.
The accumulation of representative databases from earlier
time periods and development of more sophisticated

statistical techniques like multilevel modeling make it
possible to better understand the short-term historical and
temporal dynamics of societal and psychological change in
moral development and, e.g., the interplay of normative and
value regulation.
The increased heterogeneity of societies implies increase in
the number of people who simultaneously belong to groups
that differ in their values and moral outlooks. As Sverdlik et al.
(2012) point out, one important future direction is to find out
how membership in multiple ingroups could be translated into
a permissive moral outlook.
See also: Behavioral Problems, Effects of Parenting and Family
Structure On; Defiant Behavior During Adolescence across
Cultures; Defiant Behavior During Infancy and Early Childhood;
Empathy During Early Childhood Across Cultures,
Development of; Moral Development, Theories of; Parenting
Attitudes and Beliefs across Cultures; Prosocial Behavior,
Effects of Parenting and Family Structure On; Self-Regulation
During Early Childhood Across Cultures, Development of;
Values Across Cultures, Development of.
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