The cultural-developmental approach to moral psychology: Autonomy, community, and divinity across cultures and ages

This chapter details the cultural-developmental approach to moral psychology. This conceptual framework lays out life-course templates for the three Ethics of Autonomy, Community, and Divinity. These life course trajectories are not fixed but accommodate to cultural variability by addressing: (1) whether or not an Ethic emerges, (2) when it emerges, and (3) the slope and specific characteristics of its development. As described, the formulation of the cultural-developmental approach was based on a large body of long-standing research findings, as well as research with religiously conservative and liberal groups divided by the so-called culture wars. Recent research has also extended the cultural-developmental hypotheses and validated new measures of the three Ethics. The conclusion proposes future research directions for moral psychology, and the application of the conceptual idea of cultural-developmental templates to other areas of psychology