Age-Related Differences in Contribution of Rule-Based Thinking toward Moral Evaluations.

This study aims to investigate the interplay of different criteria of moral evaluation, related to the type of the rule and context characteristics, in moral reasoning of children, early, and late adolescents. Students attending to fourth, seventh, and tenth grade were asked to evaluate the acceptability of rule breaking actions using scenarios. Results suggest that the role of different moral evaluation criteria changes by age.