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We evaluated whether narrating anger-provoking events promoted learning from those events, as compared with other responses to anger, and whether the effectiveness of narrative depended on age. In addition, we tested relations between anger-reduction and learning and in a subset of participants, between narrative quality and learning. 248 youth (8 to 17 years old) recalled an anger-provoking experience, and were randomly assigned to one of four activities: recalling the event a second time, narrating the event, and distraction (via video game play or conversation). Youth then recalled the event one last time, and rated the extent to which they had learned from that event. Younger children reported more learning when they had narrated their experience. Older youth reported more learning when they had narrated the event more frequently prior to participation. Stronger reductions in anger following regulation were associated with greater self-reported learning. Finally, more elaborative and less resolved narratives were associated with greater self-reported learning.

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Individuals' thinking about different types of disagreements was examined. Ninety-six participants in third grade (mean age = 8 years 9 months), seventh grade (mean age = 13 years 2 months), and college (mean age = 21 years 10 months) judged the acceptability of believing and acting on different types of beliefs with which they disagree, the attributes of the persons with whom they disagree, and the relative importance of cultural uniformity or diversity of belief. Findings indicated that participants' thinking did not simply become more tolerant with age; their thinking at all ages was constrained by both the realm over which there was disagreement and the form of the disagreement. At all ages, participants judged that some disagreements were acceptable and some unacceptable, described disagreeing others in terms of different (more or less positive) attributes, and judged that diversity of belief was important in some realms but uniformity was preferable in others.

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Children's developing conceptions of what is right or proper are commonly studied without reference to concomitant changes in their understanding of beliefs, just as studies of young people's maturing grasp of the belief entitlement process ordinarily proceed separately from any examination of the value considerations that invest beliefs with meaning. In an effort to reverse these isolationist practices, a case is made for rereading the fact-value dichotomy that currently works to divide the contemporaneous literatures dealing with children's moral reasoning development and their evolving theories of mind. Findings from two research programs, in which children's beliefs about truth and rightness are combined, serve to illustrate the natural interdependence of these moral and epistemic matters.

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We present a developmentally grounded perspective on the study of social life in cultures that examines the sources of the coexistence of sociability and opposition, harmony and conflict, acceptance and critique. The coexistence of these elements, it is proposed, is systematically connected both to the development of distinct domains of thought and to the dynamics of participation in more and less hierarchical social relationships in society.

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Tolerant and intolerant judgments of different types of dissent were examined. One hundred sixty participants (aged 7.3, 10.4, 13.6, and 20.1) made judgments about dissenting beliefs, speech, practices, and people engaged in those practices. Across all ages, participants were more tolerant (1) of the holding of dissenting beliefs than of their expression, (2) of the expression of beliefs than of the persons engaged in acts based on those beliefs, and (3) of the persons than of the acts. Tolerance of dissenting beliefs and speech increased with age. Although, at all ages, participants were intolerant of the practices, they were relatively more tolerant of practices grounded in cultural contexts. Participants were more tolerant of people espousing dissenting information than dissenting values. We concluded that tolerance and intolerance coexist at all ages and hinge on what individuals are asked to tolerate and on the sense in which they are asked to tolerate it.

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This study examined differences in moral judgments as they relate to informational assumptions. It was hypothesized that (1) differences in moral judgments are related to differences in informational assumptions, (2) moral judgments change if the information believed to be true changes, and (3) the relation between informational assumptions and moral judgments is not affected by age. 72 subjects (aged 11-9, 15-10, and 21-3) evaluated events concerning welfare, justice, and rights and reevaluated them in light of the opposite information. A significant relation was found between the evaluations and the informational assumptions, and 80% of the evaluations changed in response to informational changes. The relation between evaluations and informational assumptions was significant within each age group. These findings demonstrated that informational assumptions are a source of variation in moral judgments and underscored the need to distinguish between the 2 types of judgments when studying differences in moral reasoning.

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The three studies reported in this Monograph examine high school and college students' reasoning about the issues of abortion, homosexuality, pornography, and incest. The studies stemmed from previous research on reasoning in the "prototypical" moral, social conventional, and personal domains. We postulated that abortion, homosexuality, pornography, and incest are nonprototypical issues. We expected that reasoning about nonprototypical and prototypical issues would differ and that reasoning about nonprototypical issues would be inconsistent and involve ambiguities in informational assumptions. Two groups were preselected in Study 1, those who negatively and those who positively evaluated the nonprototypical issues. Assessments were made of criterion judgments (evaluations, rule contingency, and generalizability) and justifications regarding moral, personal, and nonprototypical issues. The groups differed in judgments about the nonprototypical issues but not the moral issues. Both groups gave noncontigent and generalized judgments about moral issues, with justifications of justice and rights. Subjects who evaluated nonprototypical acts negatively used varied and often inconsistent configurations of criterion judgments. Responses coded for general reasoning types often entailed juxtapositions of prescriptive judgments and assertions of personal choice. Subjects who evaluated nonprototypical acts positively judged that they should be legal and nongeneralized and gave justifications based on personal choice. Using similar procedures, Study 2 was conducted with practicing Catholics attending parochial high schools. The findings paralleled those of Study 1, including a split among subjects in their evaluations of the nonprototypical issues. The results suggested a bidirectional relation between individual judgments and group positions. The findings of Studies 1 and 2 suggested that variations in evaluations and judgments about the nonprototypical issues were associated with variations in ambiguously held informational assumptions. Study 3 examined the role of such informational assumptions. It was found that assumptions associated with judgments about abortion and homosexuality were ambiguous and inconsistently applied. Thus, we propose that ambiguity around assumptions is a central component of the nonprototypicality of these issues.

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