Sticker, R.M., Gniewosz, G. & Paulus, M. Moral Self-Concept Instability

The moral self-concept (MSC) is an important aspect of human morality. Developmental studies have explored the MSC in early childhood and have demonstrated its relevance for children’s prosocial behavior. Yet, the structure of the MSC in early childhood remains unknown. Based on a multidimensional concept of MSC, three alternative structural patterns that look at the development of the MSC dimension over time are possible: First, a “stability pattern”, representing a stable dimensional structure early on; second, a “changing dimensions pattern”, showing a change in the number of dimensions and third, a “differentiation pattern”, representing a changing correlational relations between dimensions. This study aimed to fill a gap by investigating the stability of young children’s MSC across three measurement points. More precisely, we explored 1) the dimensional structure of MSC to investigate the stability of it; 2) the existence of a hierarchical structure; and 3) the invariance on a measurement and structural level. Using a three-wave longitudinal sample (N = 133) of children aged between four to six years at T1, we found a highly stable three-dimensional MSC model, including the dimensions helping, sharing and comforting, over three measurement points. The results show a highly stable MSC from an early point in childhood. The results do not support the differential distinctiveness hypothesis and the hierarchical structure model, but evidence invariance of three distinct moral dimensions for each measurement point. The data contain responses from a puppet-interview of the domains helping (he), sharing (sh) and comforting (co) of three measurement points (e.g., co1_2, for the second comforting item at the first measurement). Due to skewed distribution (in terms of a difference from the normal distribution) of the underlying data, the items were categorized into three instead of five responses. This was necessary, as we needed robust scales for the kind of analysis we aimed to conduct in this study. Thus, the response categories 1 and 2 (a lot and bit like the negating puppet) as well as the categories 3 and 4 (like neither/both, a bit like the affirming puppet) have been combined; response category 5 (a lot like the affirming puppet) remained unchanged.

道德自我概念（Moral Self-Concept, MSC）是人类道德的重要组成部分。发展心理学研究已针对幼儿期的道德自我概念展开探索，并证实其与儿童亲社会行为存在关联。然而，幼儿期道德自我概念的结构仍未明确。基于道德自我概念的多维度理论框架，学界已提出三种可用于考察其维度随时间发展的备选结构模式：其一为“稳定模式”，指早期即具备稳定的维度结构；其二为“维度变化模式”，表现为维度数量发生改变；其三为“分化模式”，体现为维度间的相关关系产生变化。本研究旨在填补该研究空白，通过三次测量点追踪幼儿道德自我概念的稳定性。具体而言，本研究开展了三项探索：1）考察道德自我概念的维度结构以分析其稳定性；2）验证层级结构的存在性；3）检验测量与结构层面的不变性。本研究采用三波纵向样本（N=133），被试在T1时的年龄为4至6岁。结果发现，在三次测量中，包含帮助、分享与安慰三个维度的道德自我概念三维模型具有高度稳定性。研究结果表明，幼儿早期的道德自我概念具备高度稳定性，既不支持分化独特性假说，也不支持层级结构模型，但证实了各测量点下均存在三个独立的道德维度。本数据集包含来自木偶访谈的应答数据，涵盖帮助（he）、分享（sh）与安慰（co）三个领域的三次测量结果，例如co1_2代表第一次测量中第二个安慰条目。由于原始数据呈偏态分布（与正态分布存在显著差异），我们将条目原有的5个应答类别合并为3个。此举实属必要，因为本研究拟采用的分析方法需要具备良好信效度的量表。据此，我们将应答类别1与2（非常像否定式木偶、有点像否定式木偶）以及类别3与4（既不像/两者均像、有点像肯定式木偶）分别合并，仅保留类别5（非常像肯定式木偶）。