Meta-moral cognition: bridging the gap among adolescents’ moral thinking, moral emotions and moral actions

Abstract

Adolescence is a stage when significant changes in moral development take place. Sometimes, a discrepancy between adolescents’ thoughts, emotions and actions may result in socially undesirable outcomes. The question is not whether emotions produce moral behaviour, but how awareness of emotions may influence moral action. In this paper, the interaction among cognition, emotions, and action is considered from two theoretical perspectives: cognitive-developmental and social domain theory. We argue that with increased awareness of cognition and emotion, actions may be influenced, and propose meta-moral cognition process as an active mediator of the cognition and emotions involved in making moral decisions. The meta-moral cognition strategies are also provided for classroom practices with the intention to support adolescents’ meta-moral cognitive development.