| Abstract: | Understanding lay conceptions of morality is important not only because they can guide moral psychology theory but also because they may play a role in everyday moral functioning. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine adolescent conceptions of moral maturity. Study 1 (200 adolescents 12–18 years) involved a free‐listing procedure to generate traits descriptive of a moral person. In Study 2, involving 100 early (11–14 years) and 99 late (15–18 years) adolescents, the moral person traits obtained in the first study were rated in terms of how well they described a moral person. Study 3, with 234 early (10–14 years) and 240 late (15–18 years) adolescents, entailed a similarity‐sorting task and a rating procedure similar to that from Study 2. This set of studies uncovered early and late adolescents' implicit typologies of moral maturity and pointed to possible age similarities and differences. |
