A longitudinal assessment of the stability of the three-dimensional moral self-concept during early childhood

ABSTRACT

Moral self-concept (MSC) is an important aspect of human morality and emerges in early childhood. It indicates how early children view themselves as moral agents. Yet, its structure and developmental patterns are unclear and require more research. This study addresses if the multidimensional structure of MSC is stable during early childhood and if the dimensions are differentiating over early to middle childhood. We explored the structure of MSC by testing a three-dimensional CFA model, its longitudinal invariance, reliability and correlational structure. Using a three-wave longitudinal sample (N = 133) of children aged between four to six years at T1, we found evidence for a stable three-dimensional MSC model, including the dimensions helping, sharing and comforting.

KEYWORDS:

• Moral self-concept
• early childhood
• longitudinal data
• invariance

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by a European Research Council Starting Grant [MORALSELF, No. 679 000] to MP.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data Availability Statement

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in OSF Storage at https://osf.io/4wtus/?view_only=e81dcd943d8549febf199cad09e9afc6, Version 1.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/17405629.2022.2090333

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the H2020 European Research Council [MORALSEF; No. 679000].