title: Moral virtue and practical wisdom: theme comprehension in children, youth, and adults.
abstract: The authors tested 3 hypotheses about the relation of moral comprehension to prudential comprehension by contrasting comprehension of themes in moral stories with comprehension of themes in prudential stories among third-grade, fifth-grade, and college students (n = 168) in Study 1, and among college students, young and middle-aged adults, and older adults (n = 96) in Study 2. In both studies, all groups were statistically significantly better at moral theme comprehension than prudential theme comprehension, suggesting that moral comprehension may develop prior to prudential comprehension. In Study 2, all groups performed equally on moral theme generation whereas both adult groups were significantly better than college students on prudential theme generation. Overall, the findings of these studies provide modest evidence that moral and prudential comprehension each develop separately, and that the latter may develop more slowly.
authors.affiliation: University of Notre Dame, Department of Psychology, South Bend, IN 46556, USA. dnarvaez@nd.edu
authors.forename: Darcia
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Narvaez
authors.forename: Tracy
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Gleason
authors.forename: Christyan
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Mitchell
mesh_terms: D000124:Achievement; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002648:Child; D032882:Comprehension; D005201:Fantasy; D005260:Female; D005793:Generalization, Psychological; D006040:Goals; D006801:Humans; D033182:Intention; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D035863:Moral Development; D011340:Problem Solving; D011932:Reading; D012917:Social Adjustment; D012927:Social Control, Informal; D012945:Social Values; D028722:Virtues; D055815:Young Adult