Moral self concept and children's wellbeing at school

Abstract

Children's social cognitive understanding has been found to play a major role in shaping their social engagement and behaviour. It has been assumed that this understanding of the mind and emotion of others shapes the ways in which children go on to understand their own moral identity: their proclivities, sensitivities and responses to moral acts, but there appears to be a gap between the ways in which children talk about other people and the ways in which they talk about themselves. It was hypothesised that it is social engagement that shapes moral identity in young children rather than their understanding of other people. A longitudinal study of 115 six to seven year olds was run over two years examining these three features, self concept, socialisation and social cognition and their interactions over time. The study utilised child self-report measures and the validity and usefulness of such tools was also examined. It was found that as children progress through the first years of primary school their knowledge of the social world and their socialising agents is indeed related to behaviour concurrently and predicts positive social engagement one year later. However, there was no relationship found between social cognitive understanding and a child's developing moral self concept. It was found, in opposition with the traditional models of moral self concept, that children's social engagement at six shaped their moral self concept at seven rather than vice versa. These findings suggest that while children's skills in the domain of social cognition shape their pro-social behaviours this social engagement is influencing and shaping the ways in which these children view themselves as moral agents which may have important implications for children’s ongoing wellbeing.