When Friends’ and Society’s Expectations Collide: A Longitudinal Study of Moral Decision-Making and Personality across College

Authors

Kathryn L. Bollich, Washington University in St. LouisFollow
Patrick L. Hill, Carleton University, Ottawa, OntarioFollow
Peter D. Harms, University of Nebraska - LincolnFollow
Joshua Jackson, Washington University in St. LouisFollow

Date of this Version

1-11-2016

Document Type

Article

Citation

Bollich KL, Hill PL, Harms PD, Jackson JJ (2016) When Friends’ and Society’s Expectations Collide: A Longitudinal Study of Moral Decision- Making and Personality across College. PLoS ONE 11(1): e0146716. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0146716

Comments

Copyright: © 2016 Bollich et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License

Abstract

Early adulthood is a developmentally important time period, with many novel life events needing to be traversed for the first time. Despite this important transition period, few studies examine the development of moral decision-making processes during this critical life stage. In the present study, college students completed moral decision-making measures during their freshman and senior years of college. Results indicate that, across four years, moral decision-making demonstrates considerable rank-order stability as well as change, such that people become more likely to help a friend relative to following societal rules. To help understand the mechanisms driving changes in moral decision-making processes, we examined their joint development with personality traits, a known correlate that changes during early adulthood in the direction of greater maturity. We found little evidence that personality and moral decision-making developmental processes are related. In sum, findings indicate that while moral decision-making processes are relatively stable across a four-year period, changes do occur which are likely independent of developmental processes driving personality trait change.