Assessment of the Youth's Moral Consciousness

This study examines moral development in adolescence as an evaluative component of a person's consciousness, considering events and actions from the perspective of moral categories, norms, and values. Special attention is paid to moral development in the overall process of socialization. Such development goes through certain stages until morality is organized at the conventional level. This level of morality involves considering public opinion and realizing that a person's moral judgments should depend more on external conditions. It is taken into account that the development and formation of moral judgments in adolescence are subject to moral distortions but generally pass through such stages as the pre-conventional, conventional, and post-conventional levels of moral maturity. The research methodology is represented by the theory of moral development, which Lawrence Kohlberg developed, and according to which the development of morality includes six stages. These stages are described in three levels: pre-conventional, conventional, and post-conventional. These are the three primary levels of moral consciousness development. The novelty of the research lies in identifying and specifying the content of the levels of moral consciousness of young people, depending on their age and place of residence. The study's main conclusions are that adolescents often have a post-conventional level of moral development rather than a conventional level. The indicator of the conventionality of adolescent morality compared with the subjects of the older (youth) group indicates that adolescents often focus only on their own ideas about the importance of morality and, therefore, are prone to moral distortions of perception of social situations. The prevalence of indicators of the development of moral consciousness in adolescence depends on the place of residence. The territorial factor of development is important for socialization at this age. Compared to youth from the regions, representatives of Moscow youth are more often characterized by indicators of pre-conceptual consciousness. Conventional choices on diagnostic dilemmas, on the contrary, are more common among regional youth compared to Moscow youth. Post-conventional moral beliefs are more common among the youth of Moscow than among the youth from other regions.

The moral consciousness of youth, Organization of moral consciousness, Formation of moral beliefs, Kohlberg's Dilemmas, Levels of moral consciousness, Stages of moral consciousness, The preconventional level of morality, The conventional level of morality, The postconventional level of morality, Moral distortions