Pushed by the commotion about finance industry greed, dubious investment strategies, and excessive bonus payments called forth by the still lasting financial crisis, there has been a revitalized public interest in moral qualities and character traits. Already before its comeback in public perception, there has been a revival of the character in psychological research.

Though character traits undeniably have a great appeal in times of financial misconduct and moral hazards, we should not give into the temptation to accept this revival without a critical inspection. There still are several open issues concerning the nature and properties of character traits that need to be re-examined from the perspective of modern personality psychology: (1) How consistent are people with respect to their moral behavior - is it actually our character or rather situational pressures affecting our moral conduct? (2) Is it possible to measure character traits accurately – to what degree do social desirability effects distort people’s reports on their character traits? And finally, (3) do we actually need character traits – aren’t these morally colored attributes sufficiently covered by contemporary models of personality traits?

The present project aims at addressing these questions by studying character and personality traits in a sample of working parents across the different role settings of being a parent vs. being at work. Using an e-diary design, participants will rate their daily behavior with respect to their character and personality traits. Additionally, participants themselves and four of their peers will rate the participants’ general (“how I am in general”) and role-specific (“how I am as a parent/employee”) character and personality traits by means of questionnaire inventories.

This research design allows addressing core aspects of each of the aforementioned questions: Regarding the first issue, a central goal of the present project is to examine the degree of consistency vs. variability in character-relevant behavior across different role settings. Though it can be assumed that people systematically adapt their behavior to the given role context, there should be at least a certain degree of cross-role consistency that is founded by the person’s general character.

Regarding the second question, this study allows a detailed examination of potential social desirability biases by inspecting the level of self-peer agreement. Furthermore, this is the first study that probes the viability of a daily e-diary design to measure people’s character-relevant behavior as it naturally occurs in ‘real life’.

Finally, this project provides a more decisive test to the question, if character traits are sufficiently distinctive from more established personality taxonomies. By measuring character and personality traits, this study is suited to examine the degree of overlap and the distinctive value of character traits in predicting relevant outcome variables.

To conclude, the central purpose of this project is to re-examine the character approach in the face of three major critiques that have led to its former discredit in personality psychology. Thereby, this study aims at substantiating the modern character approach to personality with more solid arguments than just its mere attractiveness.

One of the most important goals of parents and educators is to ensure that children grow up with a strong moral character. For most adults, having a strong moral character means recognizing that others' needs, desires and emotions are as important as one's own and managing one's behavior accordingly. In order to do so, however, children must first understand that others can have needs, desires, and emotions that are different from their own. Thus, development in children's ability to take others' perspectives has long been considered an important precursor to moral development. Recent research (e.g., Gasser & Keller, 2009), however, indicates that some children with highly developed perspective-taking abilities use these abilities to take advantage of others rather than to help them. This is seen, for example, in "popular bullies," children who are highly aggressive toward other children but are also seen as being among the most popular children in school. In contrast, other children with highly developed perspective-taking abilities are recognized by both teachers and classmates as especially sensitive to others' needs and willing to help others. Clearly, being able to understand others' points of view and emotions does not lead to the same level of concern for others' well-being in all children. Research among adolescents and adults indicates that those who consider it important to be moral (i.e., to be kind, honest, generous and friendly, etc.) are more likely to participate in volunteer activities that benefit others and to be distressed by violence toward others (Aquino & Reed, 2002; Aquino, Reed, Thau & Freeman, 2007). This suggests that having an idea of what an ideal moral person is like, and desiring to be like such a person, is an important aspect of moral character.

Both perspective-taking ability and self-concept (i.e., beliefs about the kind of person one is and wants to be) are developing rapidly in the elementary school years. Therefore, this project will study how developments in children's ability to understand others' perspectives and their beliefs about their own moral characteristics affect their behavior toward others. Specifically, the project will focus on children from 8 to 12 years of age. Children will complete questionnaires and individual interviews at school to determine their level of perspective-taking ability, their beliefs about their own strengths and weaknesses in various areas including moral behavior, and their perceptions of their classmates' characteristics. Teachers will complete similar questionnaires about all participating children. Children's prosocial behavior will also be directly measured by observing their behavior in two school-based community service projects. Questionnaire responses from teachers and children will be used to identify children who are seen as most likely to help others as well as those who are involved in bullying as either bullies or victims. Data analyses will explore the extent to which these groups of children differ in their perspective-taking ability, their beliefs about their own moral characteristics and desire to be moral, and their involvement in prosocial activities at school.

This project investigates how character, personality, emotions, and treatment by managers and co-workers affect the frequency with which workers engage in ethical and unethical behavior at their jobs. The workplace is an important setting to study how character affects moral and immoral behavior because most adults spend a substantial portion of their lives at work. In this study, 250 adults with full-time employment will participate in a 12-week online diary study about “weekly experiences in the workplace.” They will first provide detailed information about their jobs and complete a battery of measures assessing various dimensions of character and personality. To measure character, we will assess individual differences in guilt proneness, honesty-humility, empathic concern, moral identity and cognitive moral development, as prior research has found that these traits predispose people to think, feel, and act in morally-relevant ways. Participants will then complete 30-minute online surveys once a week for a total of 12 weeks. The weekly surveys will ask them to report the frequency with which they performed organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB) and counterproductive work behaviors (CWB). The OCB items assess moral organizational behaviors (e.g., helping co-workers with work and personal responsibilities, coming in early or staying late without pay), whereas the CWB items assess immoral organizational behaviors (e.g., verbally or physically abusing co-workers, stealing from one’s employer). The weekly surveys will also ask participants about the extent to which they experienced various emotions at work during the previous week, and how they were treated by managers and co-workers. In addition to collecting self-reports of personality and behavior, we will also collect observer-reports by surveying co-workers of the respondents. The observer-reports will allow us to test whether character can be observed and whether self-reports or observer-reports are better predictors of ethical and unethical work behaviors. This interdisciplinary research is at the intersection of social/personality psychology and organizational behavior and extends and builds on our prior work on personality, moral emotions, and unethical behavior. By examining the factor structure of and longitudinal relations among character, personality, emotions, and behavior, we will be able to determine the ways in which these factors influence moral and immoral behavior at the workplace

In December 2009, Tiger Woods confessed that he had been unfaithful to his wife. The news was particularly sensational given Wood’s squeaky clean image, which personified almost fanatical self-control. Known as the exemplar of mental discipline, Woods demonstrated remarkable self-control and moral character in many domains of life. Yet, he was impulsive when it came to extramarital sex.

Why do some people act morally in some situations but not others? In particular, how do we reconcile apparent inconsistencies in self-control behavior? That is, why does it appear that an individual can be self-controlled in one situation or domain (e.g., work) but impulsive in another (e.g., drinking)? Can subjective temptation and perceived harm explain inconsistent self-control behavior across domains? Similarly, can domain-specific subjective temptation and perceived harm explain gender differences in domain-specific self-control behavior? For example, do women have more self-control problems with food because they are more tempted to overeat than men? Does the number of self-control domains increase over the life course, and if so, can this trend be explained by age-related changes in subjective temptation and perceived harm?

We propose and test a model that incorporates and explains both domain-general (some people are more self-controlled than others on average) and domain-specific (a person can be self-controlled in one domain but impulsive in another) differences in impulsive behavior. Specifically, we suggest that individuals who on average are more self-controlled across all domains relative to others have more self-control resources to deploy (e.g., greater working memory capacity) and more effective metacognitive strategies (e.g., pre-commitment, goal setting and planning, psychological distancing). On the other hand, an individual’s observed behavior will vary across domains as a function of his or her idiosyncratic, domain-specific subjective evaluations of temptation and perceived harm. For example, Tiger Woods might have prodigious self-control resources and effective strategies for reducing the cost of resisting temptation. But, relative to other temptations that Woods did successfully resist (e.g., the urge to procrastinate), the particular improprieties which were his undoing must have elicited exceptionally strong urges and/or been evaluated as benign.

In preliminary work, we found support for our model using a convenience sample of college students. Now, we plan to conduct longitudinal studies with cohorts of varying ages (e.g., childhood, adolescence, early adulthood, late adulthood) that are more socioeconomically and ethnically diverse than our initial sample. The proposed research would shed light on putative inconsistencies in moral character. More specifically, this investigation would potentially (1) establish a model that explains both domain-general and domain-specific self-control behavior that is generalizable across the lifespan, (2) demonstrate temporal consistency of domain-general and domain-specific self-control behavior, (3) provide an explanation for the increase in relevant self-control domains from childhood to adulthood, (4) and provide an explanation for gender differences in self-control behavior.

Why were the atrocities of World War II committed? How is that some soldiers committed horrible atrocities at the prison of Abu-Grahib? Some researchers, Philip Zimbardo being one of the most prominent, provided a partial explanation to this phenomenon, explaining it from a situational standpoint. That is, situational forces are so powerful and influential social roles so large that override individual personality and the ability to act in a straight and moral way. This explanation has transcended science to the folk culture, even producing films like The Experiment, or reality shows on the BBC.

However, it is rarely mentioned that in those classic experiments of Milgram, Zimbardo and Latané, not all subjects behaved immorally. Situations and social influences had a great capacity to influence behavior, but not in all subjects. In the famous Milgram experiment, used to explain the atrocities that were committed by Nazis on the Jewish people, almost one third of the participating subjects refused to continue the experiment. Why these subjects did not wish to continue? The most likely explanation is that some factors in their inner self prevented to continue them participating in the experiment.

These individual characteristics are now known as personality traits and character. Indeed, since the 1970s, there has been virtually no study that has tried to explain why some individuals behaved morally in those experiments. Moreover, at present it is not possible to replicate them in the original way because of clear ethical limitations. Some of those experiments have been recently replicated in virtual reality environments. This gives us the chance to investigate individual characteristics that could affect the fact that a participant behave morally in the experiment, but with appropriate ethical safeguards.

In this ambitious project, we aim to answer several questions: 1) The fact that someone behave immorally has to do with individual characteristics? 2) People who behave immorally in a particular situation do equally behave immorally in others? 3) How general are, if any, these individual characteristics that may explain immoral behavior? 4) What is the real role of situations in immoral behavior? and 5) with which state-of-the-art technologies can we reach groundbreaking conclusions about the character?

To carry out this study, we will use new technologies to simulate classic experiments of social psychology in virtual reality environments. Moreover, we will also analyze genetic data and brain functioning of the participants in the study. In addition, we will take advantage of more than 40 years of research in personality psychology, which have improved the tools we have to assess the character.

Altogether, we intend to take Evil into the laboratory in order to study if people behave immorally because of their character, or because the circumstances of the situation they may encounter.

Does moral character result from genuine interest in others’ welfare or is moral character merely means to achieve self-interest? Put differently, is moral character founded on genuine other-love or on fundamental self-love? This question pervades philosophical thinking and social/behavioral sciences ever since Aristotle (350 BC) coined the terms “other-love” and “self-love.” The question also lies at the heart of the Rousseau-Hume quarrel in Western philosophy, the Mencius-Xunzi quarrel in Confusion philosophy, and the Botero-Machiavelli quarrel in politics. Most recently, the question is at the forefront of economists’ debate on economic decision-making, evolutionary biologists’ debate on group-selection versus individual-selection processes, and psychologists’ debate on true altruism versus egoistic altruism.

We move beyond the evasive question of whether genuine other-love objectively exists and onto the empirically answerable question of whether there are individual differences in laypersons’ beliefs about the existence of genuine other-love. This project sets out to show that subjectively held beliefs about the existence of genuine other-love have important consequences for thinking, feeling, and behaving. Specifically, we propose that differences in laypersons’ beliefs about the existence of genuine other-love shape moral character.

Our Genuine Other-Love Beliefs model comprises four corollaries. First, like the belief in the existence of God, the belief in the existence of genuine other-love is hypothesized to be cross-culturally prevalent. Second, compared to disbelievers, believers in the existence of genuine other-love are hypothesized to exhibit more moral character. In experimental economy, genuine other-love believers should make more moral economic decisions. In experimental philosophy, genuine other-love believers should be more moral in ethical dilemmas. In sociology, genuine other-love believers should engage in more moral civic behavior. Finally, in social psychology, genuine other-love believers should behave more morally in interpersonal and intergroup contexts. Third, genuine other-love believers are hypothesized to exhibit more moral character across the aforementioned domains, because they should hold particularly positive self-views (e.g., “I am genuinely other-loving”) and particularly positive other-views (e.g., “Others are genuinely other-loving”). Finally, the belief in the existence of genuine other-love is hypothesized to stem from universal human desires for calmness emotions (e.g., “It calms me down that others genuinely love me”), relationship security (e.g., “Genuinely loving individuals won’t turn their backs to me”), and Christian faith (e.g., “The Song of Solomon and Thomas Aquinas describe other-love as genuine”).

Together, our Genuine Other-Love Beliefs model capitalizes on concepts from psychology, philosophy, and theology in an effort to understand better how a particularly central lay belief related to moral character is shaped, and how this lay belief in turn shapes moral character. The empirical examination of our model will contribute toward the restoration of the written off image of character and toward the recent revival of character, ethics, and morality as objects of psychological scrutiny. In times of growing self-centeredness, the revival of a psychology of moral character is essential. We maintain that genuine other-love beliefs lie at the heart of moral character, so that the study of this topic may clarify both moral character and ways to pursue it.

A person’s moral character is their “normal pattern of thought and action, especially with respect to concerns and commitments in matters affecting the happiness of others or [themselves], and especially with respect to moral choices” (Kupperman, 1991, p. 17). Psychologists and philosophers have debated the existence of moral character. Some skeptical theorists, having been influenced by the seeming lack of stability in moral behavior across time and across contexts, have taken the position that ‘character’ is a fictional notion (e.g., Harman, 2009). Such skepticism seems misguided. The extent to which stability is lacking in characteristic patterns of moral thought and action may have been overstated by skeptics – even if such patterns are highly context and situation specific, there can nevertheless be consistency within, if not across, situations, and across larger aggregates of behavior (see e.g., Fleeson, 2004; Mischel & Shoda, 1995). Further, and perhaps most importantly, even if it were conclusively to be established that character is a fictional notion, this would not change the fact that it is a widely believed and influential notion. In fact, we think that lay conceptualizations of moral character play a particularly important role in everyday life. For one thing, our beliefs about other people’s moral character determine whether we trust and cooperate with them (see e.g., Haselhuhn, Schweitzer, & Wood, 2010). For another, our beliefs about our own moral character can determine the likelihood of our contributing to charitable causes (see e.g., Sachdeva, Iliev, & Medin, 2009). Such beliefs probably also contribute to several other features of moral life, such as our willingness to engage in moral self-criticism (Kupperman, 2006). More generally, beliefs about the nature of moral character, where it comes from, whether and how it can be improved, also likely contribute to a range of everyday moral education practices, such as parenting, teaching, coaching, and advice-giving. In this proposal we outline a plan of empirical work that will explore individuals’ basic beliefs about moral character, and will test five key hypotheses about the perception of moral character: (1) Moral character is seen as the most important information we can have about another person; (2) Moral character is perceived as a coherent entity, and as distinct from personality or ability; (3) Moral character is perceived as being composed of two fundamental sorts of traits, “strength” and “goodness” traits; (4) The perception of moral character, in contrast to the perception of abilities, is seen as being most strongly determined by a person’s “weakest link” rather than their “strongest link”; and (5) Unlike in ability domains, directly presenting oneself as being of high moral character is likely to backfire, because reliable information about one’s moral character must be revealed through actions and not words. We will investigate these hypotheses primarily through questionnaires, completed both by college students and by international adult samples. By exploring these ideas, we hope to provide a better understanding of the role of character in everyday moral life, and in the pursuit of the “good life” more generally.

Intellectual merit. Empathy is the glue of social relationships. It involves imagining others’ perspectives and actually feeling things from others’ points of view, rather than from one’s own point of view. Empathy is a character trait because of its relevance to ethical and moral behavior. Some research states that empathy is a trait (people differ from each other in their levels of empathy), some states that the most important determinant of empathic behavior is the immediate situation, and some treats empathy as a skill to be learned (individuals can increase their empathy for others by learning specific skills and through practice). There is much debate about how to encourage empathic behavior, but little research on how empathy functions under situations of depletion and constraint, or how simple interventions can increase empathy in those who have little energy for it. To our knowledge, no studies have examined whether the capacity to empathize with others can be depleted, nor has research situated empathy within a broader theoretical framework that can more strongly predict how and when empathy results in prosocial behavior.

Objectives. We will examine whether empathy functions like a muscle. We expect that people start out with different levels of empathy, similar to how different people have different capacities for muscle strength. We also expect that empathy is a character trait that can be strengthened, similar to how muscles can be strengthened through practice. We propose a testable model that accounts both for the consistent relationship between empathy and prosocial behaviors, and also the inconsistency in empathy’s ability to predict these same behaviors.

Methods. We will conduct 3 experimental studies to test these hypotheses. In Study 1 we will determine the extent to which an empathic act depletes the energy of lower empathy people more than higher empathy people, as well as whether this depletion in energy is associated with less helping behavior. In Study 2 we will examine the effect of providing an energy boost (via glucose) on the helping behavior of people with lower versus higher empathy. In Study 3 we will examine the effect of empathy-building exercises on increasing the empathic “strength” (i.e., resilience to depletion) of people with a variety of levels of empathy. These empathy-building exercises will be sent to participants in text messages so they can strengthen their empathy skills over the course of 2 weeks, in the context of their regular lives.

Broader scientific impact. These studies have broader implications for learning about how empathy functions and how it develops. Empathy is vital to human social interaction, and these studies can inform whether and how we can encourage empathy in our children, neighbors, businesses, government, medicine and education. Empathy extends its reach into most aspects of our lives, and increasing our understanding of how empathy functions can create a far-reaching ripple effect of understanding, inquiry, and progress, both scientifically and socially.

For almost a century, the existence of character has been debated by psychologists with central issues being the definition and consistency of character. The present project examines character as a collection of moral tendencies or dispositions such as being honest or forgiving others. Specifically, different categories of moral dispositions are compared to see which categories are more likely to predict moral behavior. The degree of overlap between different categorizations is examined to help identify the possible structure of character. To examine consistency, moral dispositions from a single individual across multiple time periods are collected and moral dispositions found in both children and young adults are compared. This research design allows for the assessment of individual changes in character across short time spans such as weeks and months as well as developmental changes in character spanning several years. Beyond time, situational characteristics and influences can also affect consistency. Some situational characteristics involve how well you know other people in the situation and your level of interest in the activities occurring in the situation. These characteristics are thought to influence the expression of certain behaviors as well as the opportunity to display those behaviors. For instance, if you are in a situation where there is no conflict and no one is in need of help, it would be hard to display the moral characteristic of bravery. Hence, assessing situational characteristics are critical in the study of character. In a similar way, situational influences are also important in the study of character. Some situational influences involve the moral characteristics and behaviors displayed by others such as parents and peers. Of particular interest in the present project were those individuals that are looked up to or named as role models and their impact on an individual’s moral identity and behavior.

The current research design addresses structure and consistency in character; these same findings are applicable to current controversies in the field of personality psychology. One personality controversy addressed involves whether dispositions should be studied as differences within unique individuals or as differences between groups of people. A second personality controversy addressed involves whether there are characteristic ways of behaving or if behavior is the product of situational influences. A resolution to these controversies involving a synthesis of opposing viewpoints is presented.

Overall, the present project provides valuable information for the specific study of character as well as for the field of personality psychology in general. The present project utilizes innovative approaches in order to advance our current knowledge of character and personality.

The question of the existence of moral character has been at the heart of one of the most contentious debates in psychology. In the fifth decade since its ignition, important basic questions remain empirically unanswered. Among those questions are (a) how moral traits–in contrast to “regular” (i.e. non-virtuous) traits–should be measured, (b) the degree to which they exist, and (c) whether they follow similar or different “operating principles”. The proposed project will shed new light on these questions by examining the convergence among behavioral, self-report, and informant-report measures of moral character and testing the stability, variability, and changeability of virtuous relative to neutral and negative daily behavior using a novel, observational ecological momentary assessment method, the Electronically Activated Recorder (EAR; Mehl et al., 2001). The EAR is a digital audio recorder that people wear while going about their daily lives. It periodically records snippets of ambient sounds from people’s environments. The EAR yields acoustic logs of behavior as it naturally unfolds, making large observational studies feasible while protecting participants’ privacy. It yields about 70 sound bites per person per day – enough to provide representative data on participants’ daily lives – which are then coded for specific, observable daily behaviors. The EAR brings several innovative aspects to the study of character, among them the ability to provide data independent from self-reports, which can be biased especially for highly evaluative constructs. The project has two parts. First, we will conduct a new study measuring moral and non-moral aspects of character with self-reports, informant-reports, behavior coded from videotaped interactions in the laboratory, and EAR coded behavior. This study will help establish the validity of each method for measuring moral character. These analyses will reveal to what extent each perspective (self, informant, observer) can pick up on moral character, and where there are areas of disagreement among the perspectives. These results will help us interpret the results from the EAR-based analyses. Second, using data from five (i.e. the new and four archival) EAR studies (more than 300 participants and 100,000 real-world situations), the project will test (1) the stability of virtuous daily behavior, (2) the amount of within-person variability in virtuous daily behavior relative to the amount of between-person variability, and (3) the potential for (deliberate) change in virtuous daily behavior. All existing EAR sound files will be coded for a set of acoustically detectable virtuous behaviors. The virtuous behaviors (e.g., compassion, gratitude, affection) will then be compared to base-rate matched, evaluatively neutral (e.g., talking on the phone, talking to oneself, using numbers) and evaluatively negative (e.g., rude, arrogant, blaming) behaviors. Stability, variability, and change in the virtuous daily behaviors will be evaluated against (a) the (neutral and negative) control behaviors and (b) effect size benchmarks established by prior social/personality research. This project will provide unique empirical evidence regarding the measurement and relative degree of stability, variability, and changeability of virtuous behavior. That way, it will allow for reliable conclusions regarding the existence (or absence) of moral character based on strong empirical data.

Do virtues and character traits develop and grow in college? If so, how and why? The current research follows two hundred young adults through the course of their first two years in college. The beginning of college represents an important life transition and period of development in which many students spend a lot of time and effort on figuring out who they are and who they want to be, and begin to plan what they want to do with their lives. Although there exists a lot of psychological knowledge about young adults’ personalities in general, psychologists don’t yet know much about their specific character strengths and virtues and how these might develop during this dynamic span of life. The current study aims to answer six central questions. First, the study investigates which character traits and virtues are strongly represented in young adults, and which characteristics they are relatively lacking. This will be important to know because it will reveal young adults’ character strengths and weaknesses. Second, the study identifies which character traits and virtues young adults find highly important, and which characteristics they desire to improve upon, and the reasons why the chosen characteristics are important and worthy of trying to change. This is important because it will suggest which aspects of character matter to young people and why. Third, the study tracks character traits and virtues of young adults across their first two years of college to see which character traits and virtues are strengthened and which characteristics either remain the same (or even decrease). This will be important to know because it will show how young adults typically develop and grow in these important characteristics and which may be neglected. Fourth, the study predicts changes in character traits and virtues by looking at a multitude of personality, life event, and college adjustment factors. This is important because it will highlight the internal and external factors that foster optimal character development. Fifth, the study tests whether young adults’ own plans and desires to change their character traits and virtues result in later improvements. This will uncover whether intentions to improve actually have an effect on real change. Sixth, the study explores the outcomes of good character and improvements in specific character traits and virtues, including happiness, academic achievement, social investment, and college engagement. This will suggest several reasons why good character may be important. In sum, this research promises to yield some likely interesting and revealing answers about young people’s character development, an important topic about which too little is currently known!

The development of moral character is of central concern to psychologists, philosophers and laypeople alike. Traditionally, the study of the development of morally relevant thought, feelings and behavior relied heavily on methodologies that require complex verbal responses, forcing the conclusion that the development of moral character awaits middle childhood. The past thirty years, however, have seen the birth of innovative non-verbal methodologies designed to investigate thoughts, feelings and behavior in infants and young children. This work has revealed impressive knowledge of the physical and social world in infancy, raising the possibility that moral thoughts, feelings and behavior may be within the reach of young children and infants.

The current project addresses 5 key questions concerning the development of moral character. First, we investigate whether infants and young children are capable of thinking, acting and feeling in morally relevant ways, through the use of novel paradigms that rely on simple responses within infants’ repertoire. Second, based on our initial work suggesting that moral sensitivities are present by at least 15 months of age, we investigate whether moral thoughts, behavior and feelings are consistent over the course of infancy or whether they exhibit developmental change during this period. Third, we address whether individuals vary in morally relevant thoughts, behavior and feelings within the first two years of life, and whether such individual differences are stable over time. Fourth, we address the question of whether moral thoughts and feelings (e.g., judgments and evaluations) are distinct from, or related to, moral behavior (e.g., prosocial behavior). And, fifth, we investigate the role that parental beliefs play in the development of children’s morally relevant thoughts, behavior and feelings.

In the current project, 120 infants will make laboratory visits at 12, 15, 18 and 24 months of age. During each visits, infants will participate in tasks that measure their awareness of, and sensitivity to, moral norms (such as the norm of fairness: that resources should be distributed equally) and their ability and tendency to engage in prosocial behavior (such as the ability to share with others, and help others). Parents will complete questionnaires that measure their infants’ personality to situate infants’ moral cognition and behavior within the broader context in which these developments are occurring, and in order to explain potential individual differences. Parents will also complete questionnaires concerning their own moral values, attitudes and beliefs, to determine whether these values, attitudes and beliefs are related to infants’ developing moral cognition and behavior.

Our research will contribute to a number of key questions about moral character raised by the New Frontiers in the Psychology of Character funding initiative, including whether there are reliable and meaningful individual differences in dispositions to think, feel, and act in morally relevant ways, how character develops, and whether methods and analytic techniques can provide breakthroughs in the study of character. More broadly, the current project will provide important information concerning not only how moral character develops, but how moral character can be fostered within the first two years of life.