Journal of Moral Education, 2016

VOL. 45, NO. 4, 387–399

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03057240.2016.1213708

Development of moral emotions and decision-making from

childhood to young adulthood
Mari Hasegawa
Association of International Arts and Science, Yokohama City University, Yokohama, Japan

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
This study investigated the development of moral decision-making Moral decision-making;
and moral emotion attributions in antisocial behavior and peer moral emotion attribution;
relationship dilemma scenarios. Participants were 540 school- and happy victimizer (HV);
college-aged students, who were asked to explain their moral happy moralist (HM); peer
relationship
decision-making, subsequent emotions, and reasoning in regard
to the scenarios. We combined moral decision-making (morally
appropriate or morally inappropriate) and emotion (positive or
negative) to create the four reaction patterns of happy victimizer
(HV), unhappy victimizer (UHV), happy moralist (HM), and unhappy
moralist (UHM). Across all four scenarios and age groups, there
were very few HM reactions, and HV responses were more common
among adolescents and adults than among children in jaywalking and
peer exclusion scenarios. In contrast, there were no age differences
in reaction patterns in shoplifting and broken-promise scenarios;
however, more moral considerations in reasoning were revealed
among older age groups. The role of peer relationship in emotion
attribution is discussed.

Do morally right choices feel good, even though they are often accompanied by personal
sacrifice? Repressing the urge to take something we want or to cancel an appointment in
favor of more attractive options, involves holding back our desires so as to follow moral rules.
Thus, educational and social systems should motivate individual members of social groups
to engage in moral behavior. One such effective motivator is moral emotions, such as guilt,
shame, compassion, and pride, which encourage people to adhere to moral boundaries. In
fact, many previous studies have demonstrated that there is a relationship between moral
emotion and moral behavior, whether antisocial or prosocial (Arsenio, Gold, & Adams,
2006; Eisenberg, Spinrad, & Sadovsky, 2006; Malti & Krettenauer, 2013). Thus, moral emo-
tion (including moral emotion attributions) plays a central role in moral development.
How do children respond emotionally when engaging in moral behaviors and deci-
sions? One phenomenon that has attracted attention in relation to this question is that of
the happy victimizer (HV), which refers to a victim attributing a positive emotion to the
victimizer in a morally deviant scenario (Arsenio et al., 2006). Before eight or nine years

CONTACT Mari Hasegawa marihase@yokohama-cu.ac.jp

© 2016 Journal of Moral Education Ltd
388 M. Hasegawa

of age, children typically do not anticipate negative emotions occurring as a consequence

of moral transgressions (Arsenio et al., 2006; Keller, Lourenço, Malti, & Saalbach, 2003).
According to Harris (2008), this developmental change depends on a lack of understanding
that appraisals of breaking a moral rule result in a bad feeling. Younger children are likely
to think that wrongdoers focus mainly on their goals and feel happy or sad depending on
whether or not those goals are fulfilled. On the other hand, older children acknowledge an
additional process in which the wrongdoer appraises his or her actions in terms of whether
or not he or she obeys various rules (Harris, 2008).
In a study of the emotions that occur in situations where rules and desires conflict,
Lagattuta (2005) found that with increasing age, subjects were more likely to attribute
positive or mixed emotions to a hypothetical protagonist who controlled his/her desires,
and to attribute negative or mixed emotions when the protagonist failed to control his or
her own desires. Further, in another study on emotional responses to situations in which
personal desires had to be suppressed in order to help others, Weller and Lagattuta (2013)
again found that older subjects attributed positive emotions to the protagonist that helped
others. These findings might be explained as an age-related learning effect of suppressing
morally deviant behavior and engaging in prosocial behavior, which leads to positive
emotions.
Few studies, however, have focused on the links among adolescents’ emotion, moral
behavior, and decision-making. Krettenauer and Johnston (2011) asked 7th, 9th, and 11th
graders to rate their moral emotion expectancies in 18 scenarios describing everyday
hypothetical situations in which a moral obligation is either acknowledged or disregarded.
These researchers found that while positive emotions were more pronounced in prosocial
action than in moral transgression contexts, the opposite was true for negative emotions.
Moreover, expectations of guilt and pride were significantly related to the self-importance
of moral values.
Further, Malti, Keller, and Buchmann (2013) conducted a longitudinal study of 15-and
18-year-olds, in which they presented one dilemma related to the fairness of a purchase
and a second dilemma related to a promise to friends. Subjects were asked about their own
moral decision-making (whether their decision was or was not morally right) and emotions
(positive or negative) for each scenario, and responses were classified into four patterns: HV
(positive outcome-oriented emotions for not acting morally), unhappy victimizer (UHV:
negative self-evaluative emotions for not acting morally), happy moralist (HM: positive
self-evaluative emotions for acting morally), and unhappy moralist (UHM: negative out-
come-oriented emotions for acting morally). In both age groups and for both scenarios,
HM reactions took up the largest share, at 63–75% in the purchase scenario and 63–67% in
the broken promise scenario. Thus, children seem to gradually learn that suppressing their
desires in order to engage in morally right behavior leads to positive emotions.
While numerous studies have explored the cultural differences in moral development
(e.g., Neff & Helwig, 2002), there has been little cultural research conducted on moral
emotion attribution. Malti and Keller (2010) reported that the frequency of both HV and
UHV responses declined between seven and 15 years of age in Icelandic and Chinese sam-
ples. Moreover, the UHM response frequency showed no decline in the Icelandic samples.
Krettenauer and Jia (2013) investigated adolescents’ moral emotion expectancies for actions
vs inactions in Chinese and Canadian samples, and found that Chinese adolescents tended
to report stronger negative emotions for antisocial behavior and less positive emotions for
 Journal of Moral Education 389

moral actions than Canadian adolescents did. Chaparro, Kim, Fernández, and Malti (2013)
showed that older children made more moral emotion attributions than did younger chil-
dren in both Chile and Switzerland. Although moral emotion attributions hinge on universal
principles that interact in complex ways with cultural values and the individual’s moral
judgment (Krettenauer & Jia, 2013), children seem to gradually come to understand that
morally right behavior ties into positive emotions, which leads them to choose to engage
further in morally right decision-making.
Why does the frequency of HV decrease and HM increase with age? Blasi’s (2004) theory
on the moral self asserts that moral judgments and moral emotions start to become inte-
grated in adolescence. Moral reasoning and self-understanding develop independently of
one another but gradually become integrated so that one’s moral convictions may become
an aspect of self-definition. Blasi’s model is supported by findings from previous studies
(e.g., Krettenauer, Colasante, Buchmann, & Malti, 2014; Malti et al., 2013) on how moral
behavior and affirmative emotions become linked during the course of development.
Despite the significance of developing moral emotion attribution research, the long-term
developmental process from early childhood to adolescence and young adulthood has not
been given enough consideration. There is a need to observe a wider age range, spanning
early childhood to adulthood, to enhance understanding of how the links between moral
decision-making and emotion change under the same circumstances. The aim of this study
is to investigate how the links between making moral decisions and moral emotions vary
among children from elementary school through to college age.

Decision making and emotions in moral dilemmas in which peer relationships

conflict with moral and/or social norms
Malti, Killen, and Gasser (2012) point to differences in situation contexts as the reason
that HV responses disappear by middle childhood. Researchers have indicated that HV
responses occur among adolescents who are faced with peer exclusion scenarios (Malti et.
al., 2012) because peer relationships become more important in adolescence. It is quite likely
that both the emphasis placed on peer relationships and peer pressure affect children’s and
adolescents’ decision-making, which can conflict with moral and/or social norms in their
daily lives, such as choosing to shoplift or commit other petty crimes as a group. However,
few researchers have investigated moral emotions in moral dilemmas in which peer rela-
tionship conflict with moral and/or social norms. Thus, we examined in this study how
peer relationships affect moral decision-making and emotion attributions.
Moreover, a distinction should be made between conventional rule violation and moral
violation in the context of antisocial behavior. According to social domain theory (Turiel,
2006), social issues can be divided into moral, social-conventional, and personal domains.
The moral domain is structured on the concept of justice and is related a focus on the welfare
of others, trust, fairness, responsibility, and rights. What is right does not depend on context
or authority, and the rules are universal across different scenarios. The social-conventional
domain is concerned with whether behavior follows the rules, conventions, and customs
of society. What is right depends on context and authority. The personal domain is beyond
the reach of morals and customs and is concerned with actions under our own control.
These three domains have proven to be effective tools for understanding a variety of social
judgments and behaviors (Turiel, 2006).
390 M. Hasegawa

While numerous domain theory studies have been conducted, there is little existing
research on emotion attribution in relation to the differences among these domains.
Adolescents tend to hold differing opinions about how closely customary rules should be
followed, and exercise flexible judgment depending on the context (Smetana, 2006). Because
the legitimacy of social-conventional rules depends on situations or contexts, people may
justify rule-violating behavior as they age if they perceive some sort of merit to themselves.
Moreover, peer group conformity behaviors might cause positive emotions despite the
behaviors not being conventional.
The first purpose of this study is, therefore, to examine the development of the links
between decision-making and emotions in regard to moral/conventional behavior and peer
relationship dilemma scenarios.

Need for the present study

It is also essential for further understanding of the links between moral decision-making
and emotion to analyze why participants exhibit a certain emotional response. The same
affirmative or positive emotion may be explained by any number of motivations, including
material gain, sympathy for friends, or observance of moral rules. Malti et al. (2012) classi-
fied these various explanations as being either moral or selfish. However, moral dilemmas
involve more complex thinking, and children might find it difficult to coordinate various
sources of information in this regard (Killen & Smetana, 2015). According to Blasi’s (2004)
moral self-theory, moral consideration increases with age. At the same time, the importance
placed on peer relationships is also considered to increase with age (Horn, 2003). Similarly,
previous research (Malti et al., 2012) has shown that older, compared to younger, adolescents
are more likely to use group functioning reasons to justify peer exclusion.
The second purpose of this study is to examine the development with age of reasoning
in regard to moral/conventional behavior and peer relationship dilemma scenarios.

Research objective and hypotheses development

As stated above, the aim of this study is to investigate changes in the links between making
moral decisions and moral emotions from childhood through to adolescence. Specifically,
we investigated the development of the links between decision-making and emotions, as
well as the development of reasoning, in relation to moral/conventional behavior and peer
relationship dilemma scenarios. Scenarios were as follows: (a) social-conventional rules
(jaywalking) vs peer relationships; and (b) moral rules (shoplifting, a broken promise, and
peer exclusion) vs peer relationships. These antisocial acts commonly occur in the partic-
ipants’ societal environment. Moreover, previous researchers have treated these acts noted
in part (b) as typical morality violations (Krettenauer & Eichler, 2006; Malti et al., 2012).
All scenarios had the same construction, including describing the conflict between antiso-
cial behavior and the protagonist’s peer group pressure. Participants were asked to decide
whether or not they would engage in the antisocial behavior along with their peer group.
We expected that emotion attributions would vary across scenarios. Jaywalking (a social
conventional rule) typically occurs when people perceive some sort of benefit from engaging
in this behavior. Thus, responses in the form of positive outcome-oriented emotions for rule
transgressors are predicted to increase from childhood to adolescence in the jaywalking
 Journal of Moral Education 391

scenario. Previous research has suggested that HV responses occur among adolescents faced
with peer exclusion scenarios. Moreover, according to Nucci and Turiel (2009), indirect
harm (for example, keeping a lost item for oneself) involves a U-shaped curve, which indi-
cates that immoral reactions to indirect harm might increase in early adolescence. Since
increased social and moral understanding of older individuals can affect the incorporation
of situational information, their likelihood of selecting the ‘non-moral’ choice in a conflict
situation is likely to increase paradoxically (Nucci & Turiel, 2009). Thus, in the exclusion
scenario HV responses are predicted to increase from childhood to adolescence. On the
other hand, we predicted that the typical moral transgression scenarios of shoplifting and
broken promises would be judged as being more important than rules related to social
conventions, such as peer relationships.
Although rule transgressors in social-conventional situations who experience positive
outcome-orientated emotions may be considered to be happy rule transgressors, we have
used the term ‘happy victimizer’ (HV) in both social-conventional and moral situations in
this article to avoid complexity.
As regards reasoning, moral consideration is predicted, based on moral self-theory (Blasi,
2004), to increase from childhood to adolescence. From the above review, we present the
following hypotheses:
Hypothesis 1: The jaywalking and peer exclusion scenarios will result in more HV responses
among adolescents and adults than among children.
Hypothesis 2: The shoplifting and broken-promise scenarios will result in more HM responses
among adolescents and adults than among children.
Hypothesis 3: More adolescents and adults than children will make decisions based on moral
considerations.
In addition, to explore the mechanism of emotion attribution, we tested the relations
between emotion attribution patterns (HV, UHV, UHM, and HM) and type of justification.
No hypothesis was formulated with regard to these associations.

Method
Participants
Participants (N = 540; age range = 9–22 years) were students in elementary, junior, and
senior high school, and college, and were drawn from public elementary schools, junior
and senior high schools, and colleges in a city near Tokyo, in Japan. There were 110 4th
graders (59 boys, 51 girls), 87 6th graders (47 boys, 40 girls), 135 8th graders (75 boys, 60
girls), 103 10th graders (52 boys, 51 girls), and 105 college students (48 men, 57 women).

Measures
The social and/or moral dilemma scenarios were presented as a booklet, along with other
scales not used in this research, which are not presented in this manuscript.
Dilemma scenarios. Conflicts between conventional or moral rules and the behavior of
one’s peer group were depicted in four scenarios (see Appendix): jaywalking, shoplifting, a
broken promise, and peer exclusion. All scenarios describe a peer group member engaging
in an antisocial behavior for practical merit, and the protagonist must decide whether to
also engage in that behavior.
392 M. Hasegawa

We finalized the scenarios and characters after discussing ethical considerations with
elementary, junior high, and high school educators. Each scenario was designed to be
understood and compatible across all age groups and adjusted as necessary by changing
the language and props used. Characters were expressed as ‘You,’ ‘Your Friend(s),’ and ‘Your
Peer Group’ so as not to indicate sex.
For each scenario, there were three types of questions: (1) Decision-making, which
involved choosing to either engage along with peers in behavior that is not conventionally
or morally appropriate (non-moral decision-making), or engage in conventionally or mor-
ally appropriate behavior without being influenced by peers (moral decision-making); (2)
Emotion, which involved choosing from sad, somewhat sad, somewhat happy, and happy to
describe how students felt about their decision; and (3) Reasoning, which was a free writing
exercise used to collect the reasons for students’ emotional response.

Procedure
Participants completed the paper-and-pencil test in 15–20 minutes, in a classroom at their
school. For elementary and junior high school children, the instructor (i.e., class teacher)
asked out loud each of the questions printed in the booklet. High school and college stu-
dents read the questions to themselves and wrote down responses at their own pace. We
explained that participation was voluntary and asked for participants’ consent to take part in
the study after conveying that we had taken steps to protect their identities. All participants
responded to all items in the booklets and no responses were discarded.

Data analysis and coding of justifications

For the purposes of analysis, we first paired responses for decision-making and emotion,
categorizing responses into four patterns per scenario: non-moral decision-making + some-
what happy & happy (HV), non-moral decision-making + somewhat sad & sad (UHV),
moral decision-making + somewhat happy & happy (HM), moral decision-making + sad
& somewhat sad (UHM).
For explanations of emotional response, we focused on the three perspectives of moral
issues, peer group, and resulting merits/demerits, then divided responses into four catego-
ries comprising moral considerations, peer group conformity, merits/demerits, and other.
The moral considerations category refers to emotion derived from moral deliberation and
includes both compliance and noncompliance with moral rules. Specific responses included
‘Prior engagements should be honored’ and ‘I am doing the right thing.’ Peer group con-
formity refers to how emotion is influenced by conformity or nonconformity to peer group
norms and includes engaging or being unable to engage in the same behavior that peers
exhibit. Specific responses included ‘I went along with everyone else’ and ‘Everyone can
get along together.’ Merit/demerit refers to material merits or demerits arising from moral
decision-making, with specific responses including ‘I do not suffer a loss’ (the jaywalking
scenario) and ‘I cannot be the only one who gets the items’ (the shoplifting scenario). Other
refers to statements that were not included in the other categories or that were unclear.
Explanation responses were coded categorically, with 1 indicating endorsement of the cat-
egory and 0 indicating that the category was not used. If a participant responded from
multiple perspectives, each perspective counted. There was 93.4% correspondence when
 Journal of Moral Education 393

two evaluators (one being the author) independently evaluated 20% of randomly selected
participants.

Results
Jaywalking and peer exclusion scenarios
Percentage breakdowns for HV, UHV, HM, and UHM patterns are shown in Figure 1. In
Hypothesis 1, we predicted that the jaywalking and peer exclusion scenarios would result
in more HV responses among adolescents and adults than among children.
A 5 (grade: 4th, 6th, 8th, 10th, college) × 4 (pattern: HV, UHV, HM, UHM) repeated
measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) of the jaywalking scenario resulted in main effects
of pattern, F(3, 1605) = 30.79, p < .001, and the grade × pattern interaction, F(12, 1605)
= 24.54, p < .001. Bonferroni post hoc tests revealed that HV and UHV were low among
4th and 6th graders and high among 8th and 10th graders, and college students; HM was
high among 4th graders and low among 6th, 8th, and 10th graders, and college students;
and UHM was high among 4th and 6th graders and low among 8th and 10th graders, and
college students (Table 1).
A 5 (grade) × 4 (pattern) repeated measures ANOVA of the exclusion scenario resulted
in main effects of pattern, F(3, 1605) = 22.86, p < .001, and the grade × pattern interaction,
F(12, 1605) = 7.61, p < .001. Bonferroni post hoc tests revealed that HV was low among
4th graders and high among 6th, 8th, and 10th graders, and college students; UHV was low
among 4th graders and high among 8th and 10th graders, and college students; HM was
high among 4th graders and low among 6th, 8th, and 10th graders, and college students;
and UHM was high among 4th graders and low among 6th and 8th graders, and college
students (Table 1).

Figure 1. Frequencies of patterns of decision-making and emotion.

Table 1. The results of Bonferroni post-hoc tests for jaywalking and peer exclusion scenarios.
Jaywalking Peer exclusion
HV 4th, 6th < 8th, 10th, college 4th < 6th, 8th, 10th, college
UHV 4th, 6th < 8th, 10th, college 4th < 8th, 10th, college
HM 4th > 6th, 8th, 10th, college 4th > 6th, 8th, 10th, college
UHM 4th, 6th > 8th, 10th, college 4th > 6th, 8th, college
394 M. Hasegawa

Thus, Hypothesis 1 was mostly supported by the greater number of HV responses among
students in junior high and high schools, and college, compared to elementary school stu-
dents, for the jaywalking and peer exclusion scenarios.

Shoplifting and broken promise scenarios

In Hypothesis 2, we predicted that the shoplifting and broken promise scenarios would result
in more HM responses among adolescents and adults than among children. For these two
scenarios there was very little HV or UHV, so we conducted a 5 (grade: 4th, 6th, 8th, 10th,
college) × 2 (pattern: HM, UHM) repeated measures ANOVA of the shoplifting scenario,
which resulted in main effects of grade, F(4, 535) = 5.32, p < .001, pattern, F(1, 535) = 39.73,
p < .001, and the grade × pattern interaction, F(4, 535) = 3.45, p < .001. Bonferroni post hoc
tests revealed no significant differences in HM, and rates of UHM that were low among 8th
graders but high among 6th and 10th graders.
A 5 (grade) × 2 (pattern) repeated measures ANOVA for the broken-promise scenario
resulted in a main effect of pattern, F(1, 535) = 8.92, p < .001, and HM was less common
than UHM.
Hypothesis 2 was not supported, as there was very little difference by grade level in the
shoplifting and broken promise moral scenarios.

Age differences in social reasoning

Our third hypothesis was that more adolescents and adults than children would make
decisions based on moral considerations. Figure 2 shows the breakdown of response expla-
nations by category.
A 5 (grade: 4th, 6th, 8th, 10th, college) × 3 (reason: moral, peer, merit) repeated measures
ANOVA of the jaywalking scenario resulted in main effects of reason, F(2, 1028) = 13.08,
p < .001, and the grade × reason interaction, F(8, 1028) = 9.11, p < .001. Bonferroni post hoc
tests revealed that moral and peer reasoning was uncommon among 4th and 6th graders
and common among 8th and 10th graders, and college students; further, merit reasoning
was common among 4th graders and uncommon among 6th graders.
A 5 (grade) × 3 (reason) repeated measures ANOVA of the shoplifting scenario resulted
in main effects of reason, F(2, 1042) = 48.33, p < .001, and the grade × reason interaction,

Figure 2. Frequencies of justifications about emotion attributions.

 Journal of Moral Education 395

F(8, 1042) = 3.84, p < .001. Bonferroni post hoc tests revealed that moral reasoning was
uncommon among 6th and 10th graders and common among college students; peer reason-
ing was common among 6th graders and uncommon among 8th graders; merit reasoning
was common among 8th graders and uncommon among college students.
A 5 (grade) × 3 (reason) repeated measures ANOVA for the broken promise scenario
resulted in main effects of grade, F(4, 514) = 6.26, p < .001, and reason, F(2, 1028) = 99.15,
p < .001. Bonferroni post hoc tests revealed that merit reasoning was the most common,
followed by moral and then peer reasoning.
A 5 (grade) × 3 (reason) repeated measures ANOVA for the exclusion scenario resulted
in a main effect of reason, F(2, 1028) = 70.94, p < .001. Bonferroni post hoc tests revealed
that moral and peer reasoning was more common than merit reasoning.
Thus, Hypothesis 3 was supported regarding the jaywalking and shoplifting scenarios,
with moral consideration responses being more frequent among college students, but not
regarding the broken promise and peer exclusion scenarios, in that the grade level × rea-
soning category interaction was nonsignificant.

Relationships between patterns and reasoning

We also conducted a 4 (pattern: HV, UHV, UH, UHM) × 3 (reason category: moral, peer,
merit) chi-square test to test for potential category bias. Table 2 shows the frequencies of
the 12 combinations (four patterns × three reasoning) across the four scenarios. We found
bias for all scenarios (jaywalking: χ2(6) = 588.23, p < .01; shoplifting: χ2(6) = 468.39, p < .01:
broken promise: χ2(6) = 334.26, p < .01; exclusion: χ2(6) = 128.00, p < .01).
Residual analysis showed that moral reasoning was common for UHV and HM, peer
reasoning was common for UHM, and merit reasoning was common for HV and HM in
the jaywalking scenario. In the shoplifting scenario, moral reasoning was common for
UHV and HM, peer reasoning was common for UHM, and merit reasoning was common
for HV. In the broken promise scenario, moral reasoning was common for UHV and HM,
peer reasoning was common for HV and UHM, and merit reasoning was common for HV
and UHM. In the exclusion scenario, moral reasoning was common for UHV and HM,
peer reasoning was common for UHM, and merit reasoning was common for HV. Thus,
UHM and HM were related to moral reasoning, and HV and UHM were related to peer
or merit reasoning.

Discussion
In this study, we tested three hypotheses to determine the relationship between moral deci-
sion-making and moral emotion attribution. Results supported our first hypothesis, that

Table 2. Frequencies (%) of four response patterns and reasonings by scenarios.

Jaywalking Shoplifting Broken promise Peer exclusion
Moral Peer Merit Moral Peer Merit Moral Peer Merit Moral Peer Merit
HV 0 (0) 44 (8) 79 (15) 0 (0) 3 (1) 12 (2) 0 (0) 9 (2) 26 (5) 27 (5) 22 (4) 163 (31)
UHV 170 (32) 12 (2) 8 (1) 9 (2) 0 (0) 0 (0) 15 (3) 1 (0) 5 (1) 57 (11) 10 (2) 40 (8)
HM 30 (6) 0 (0) 30 (6) 147 (27) 0 (0) 45 (8) 159 (30) 0 (0) 56 (10) 32 (6) 22 (4) 39 (8)
UHM 1 (0) 149 (28) 12 (2) 0 (0) 269 (50) 52 (10) 1 (0) 48 (9) 218 (41) 13 (3) 44 (8) 50 (10)
396 M. Hasegawa

there would be more HV among older participants for the jaywalking and peer exclusion
scenarios, but not our second hypothesis, that there would more HM among older partici-
pants for moral scenarios other than the peer exclusion scenario. Our third hypothesis, that
moral considerations would increase among older participants, was partially supported.
Specifically, for the broken promise and peer exclusion scenarios, there was no difference
by grade in the category breakdown, but in the jaywalking and shoplifting scenarios, col-
lege students cited moral reasons for their decisions more often than elementary school
students did.
Our first key finding was that older adolescents showed more HV in the jaywalking
and peer exclusion scenarios. That adolescents tend to have flexible attitudes toward con-
ventional rules (Smetana, 2006) seems to be supported by our finding of high HV among
students in junior high school and above regarding the jaywalking (rule deviant) scenario
in this study. For the typical moral scenarios of shoplifting and broken promises, contrary
to our expectations there was almost no grade difference for any of the patterns, and UHM
response was the most common; that is, although participants chose morally appropriate
behaviors, these behaviors caused negative emotions. On the other hand, as in previous
studies (e.g., Malti et al., 2012), HV responses were observed in the peer exclusion scenario;
that is, younger adolescents showed an increased tendency to experience positive emotions
even when engaging in morally incorrect behaviors, like peer exclusion. This suggests that
among youth, peer exclusion holds a different meaning to stealing or breaking a promise,
although all scenarios involve a conflict between moral norms and peer relationships.
We also examined the development of reasoning in moral/conventional behavior and
peer relationship dilemma scenarios and found that the age-related explanations for deci-
sions made varied by scenario. For the jaywalking and shoplifting scenarios, moral con-
sideration reasoning was high among older adolescents; however, no age differences were
observed for broken promise and exclusion scenarios. Blasi’s (2004) moral self-theory was
only supported for young adults in certain scenarios in our study.
Moreover, UHV and HM were related to moral consideration reasoning, whereas HV
and UHM were related to merit/demerit and peer relationships reasoning. For the jaywalk-
ing and shoplifting scenarios, peer reasoning was more common than merit reasoning in
UHM. On the other hand, for broken promise and exclusion scenarios, merit reasoning
was common than peer reasoning in UHM (Table 1). Thus, although UHM was high for
both the shoplifting and broken promise scenarios, the reasons were different.
In typical moral deviation scenarios (shoplifting and broken promise), most respondents
made moral decisions (not to steal or not to break a promise) but tended to report expe-
riencing negative emotions (Figure 1). This contrasts with Malti et al.’s (2012) finding that
HM made up 63–75% of responses. Why was HM low and UHM high in this study? The
first possibility is that our scenarios coincidentally happened to produce a UHM response
because we, in contrast to Malti et al., examined the conflict between social/moral violations
and peer relationships. Although HM responses generally tend to increase from childhood
to adolescence, the fact that our conflict situation included peer relationships may have
prevented the occurrence of HM responses. However, we can be sure that the peer rela-
tionships dilemma was not the only cause of low HM responses because the frequencies of
the four response patterns varied depending on the scenario used.
A second possibility is that Japanese individuals’ emotion attribution style differs from
that used by Western samples. Chinese adolescents have been found to report more negative
 Journal of Moral Education 397

emotions in the context of antisocial behavior and fewer positive emotions in regard to
moral actions (Krettenauer & Jia, 2013). Moreover, Westerners have a self-serving bias that
contrasts with the self-depreciating bias that is common among Japanese people. However,
Japanese people and Westerners demonstrate the same self-serving tendency in the context
of success or failure within one’s own in-group (Muramoto, 2003; Muramoto & Yamaguchi,
2003). Thus, Japanese individuals may not attribute positive emotion to moral choices in
the case of the individual but may do so in the case of the in-group. Thus, contexts and cul-
tures may reflect the complex nature of emotion attribution and the reasoning behind this.
Several limitations to the present study should be noted. First, we only addressed emotion
as being positive or negative. There are many different emotions involved in moral behaviors
(Arsenio et al., 2006; Eisenberg et al., 2006), and these emotions may vary depending on
the type of moral behavior. These different types of emotions deserver further attention.
Second, as discussed above, we were unable to determine why HM response was low, and
will need to conduct longitudinal and cross-cultural studies to confirm the soundness of
our findings and provide further empirical data on how moral decision-making relates to
emotion.
This study has expanded previous findings by presenting scenarios involving a con-
flict between antisocial behavior and relationships with peers. However, several questions
remain, such as why HM reactions were uncommon and why differences in reactions were
observed depending on the scenarios. Moving forward, longitudinal and cross-cultural
studies will be needed to resolve these questions.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Funding
This research was supported by JSPS KAKENHI [grant number 26380847].

Notes on contributor
Mari Hasegawa is a Professor of Psychology at Yokohama City University, Japan. She received her
Ph.D. degree from the Ochanomizu University. Her research interests are primarily in the field of
moral development, specifically in investigating moral and social judgments. In particular, she has
examined children’s understanding of democratic concepts, such as freedom of speech, children’s
judgments about exclusion in peer groups, and the understanding of moral emotions, such as guilt
and pride.

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Appendix
Jaywalking scenario
You and five of your friends are in a hurry to catch the train. You were all waiting at a crosswalk for the
light to turn green so that you can cross the street. Because there are no cars, four of your friends say,
‘We’re in a hurry so let’s cross together even though it’s a red light’ and they start to cross the street.

Shoplifting scenario
You and five of your friends enter a store in the shopping arcade. The store carries a rare collector’s
item that is popular and difficult to find. It will probably be sold right away. The old lady at the counter
is asleep. Four of your friends say, ‘We really want this, so let’s all take it home together’ and they
start to put the item in a bag.
Note: The item to be stolen in the shoplifting scenario was a keychain for elementary and junior high
school students as opposed to a collector’s item for high school and college students

Broken promise scenario

You promised to go to the movies with your friend from cram school. As you are about to leave to
meet up with your friend, your close group of friends from school invites you to go to the shopping
arcade because they won some event tickets. You had wanted to go to this event for some time and
would really like to go, but your friend from cram school does not have a phone so there is no way
to call and say you can’t make it to the movie. You will miss the event if you go after meeting up with
your friend to see the movie first.

Peer exclusion scenario

You and your close group of friends from school are planning to go to the shopping arcade together.
One of your friends says that Friend B should not be invited because, even though you have always
gotten along, Friend B sometimes gets upset and hits people. Everyone feels more at ease without
Friend B.
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