The Consolidation of Conscience in Adolescence

Abstract

(from the chapter) The end product of moral development is the conscience. Similar to John Bowlby's ideas about how attachment relationships result in mental representations or internal working models (Bowlby, 1988), the conscience is also a mental representation--an internal working model of what an individual believes to be morally good or bad, morally right or wrong (Stilwell & Galvin, 1985; Stilwell, Galvin, & Kopta, 1991). The conscience functions as a dynamic entity within the self, continuously prompting responses to moral issues. By the end of adolescence, the impact of conscience on an individual is reciprocal with that individual's impact on conscience. A moral working alliance is formed between them, modification constantly subject to new experience, maturation, or regression. That alliance may be strong or weak, openly accepted or ignored. It may operate as a collision, a collusion, or a collaboration. It may be experienced as an ongoing war or a peacekeeping process. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved) (chapter)