Moral Identity in Adolescence: Self and Other in Semantic Space

Through computational analysis of natural language responses, this exploratory study considered problems related to the assessment of adolescent moral identity. The matched sample was composed of 15 care-exemplar and 15 comparison adolescents from ethnically and socioeconomically diverse urban neighborhoods. Participants were given a semistructured interview based on a well-known study of adolescent moral identity (Hart & Fegley, 1995). Interview questions were designed to elicit representations of self and other. Participant responses were analyzed with the use of a computational language program. Findings indicated that care exemplar adolescents integrated parent and peer representations into actual selves, whereas comparison adolescents did not integrate other representations into actual selves. Contrary to expectations, care exemplar actual selves did not significantly incorporate the ideal self-representation. Implications for findings related to moral identity socialization and the efficacy of the computational methodology are discussed.