Peer interaction and the process of change in children's moral reasoning.

Abstract

In order to study the manner in which peer interaction influences children's moral development, children ages 5 to 9 were videotaped in triads during peer discussions of a distributive justice problem. Pretests and posttests established that the 78 children who participated in these discussions were more likely to advance in their moral reasoning than were either children who discussed a similar justice problem with an adult or children who were merely exposed to the preand posttests. Videotapes of the peer discussions were analyzed to de termine the social-interactional characteristics of those children who advanced during the peer encounter. One observational coding scheme was used to as sess subjects' discourse patterns, and another scheme was used to code sub jects' modes of responding to others' statements. Children who engaged in re jecting, conflictual modes of interaction tended not to advance. Lower level children who did advance tended to focus on solutions pertaining to them selves, and tended to accept or transform (through compromise or collabora tion) the solutions of their peers. Higher level subjects who changed did so through social-interactional processes that were more varied and diverse than those of lower level children. The implication of these findings for theories of social interaction and developmental change are noted.