Moral Motivation through the Life Span is the fifty-first volume in the Nebraska Symposium on Motivation series, the longest continuously running symposium in the field of psychology. This work focuses on moral development theory and research, an area of academic study that began early in the twentieth century but has never before been addressed by the Symposium. What is morality, such theorists ask, and what exactly makes a "moral person"?
The contributors to this volume are of diverse theoretical orientations and take different stances on a number of major themes: What motivates moral behavior? Are there certain universal moral values, or are such values always subjective? Does an individual's will or an individual's environment play a greater role in determining moral conduct? What influence can we attribute to spirituality? Finally, the contributors explore the practical applications of their research on moral motivation: What implications do such theories have for child-rearing or our educational system? How do we raise the next generation to be empathetic toward their fellow human beings?
