About

Elliot Turiel is a professor who teaches courses on human development and its relation to education at the Berkeley School of Education. He holds the Jerome A. Hutto Chair in the School of Education and is an affiliated professor in the Department of Psychology. His research focuses on social and moral development, particularly on the formulation of a theory of domains of social development involving moral judgments based on concepts of welfare, justice, and rights, and their distinction from understandings of societal conventions and personal jurisdiction. Turiel's work explores how cultures are not homogeneous and how different groups within social hierarchies may disagree on justice and equality, investigating social opposition and moral resistance to perceived unjust cultural practices. His studies include how children, adolescents, and adults attempt to counter inequalities and change practices that favor those in power. His contributions extend to examining the development of judgments about social equality, inequality, and the value of life. Turiel has authored several influential books and numerous publications in the field of moral and social development, and he has received multiple awards and honors for his work, including the Distinguished Contributions to Developmental Science Award from the Jean Piaget Society.

Research topics

• Psychology
• Social psychology
• Humanities
• Sociology
• Developmental psychology
• Political Science
• Epistemology
• Philosophy

Selected publications

• Looking Back and Moving Forward: Historical Lessons for Current Research on Moral Development

  Human Development · 2024-01-01 · 2 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  A history of research on the development of morality yields valuable lessons. In 1932, Piaget examined children’s moral judgments, proposing that actions feedback on judgments, which in turn feedback on actions. He analyzed children’s entry into the moral realm through a sense of obligation. Subsequently, Kohlberg proposed a sequence entailing differentiations of justice from non-moral considerations, emphasizing epistemology, and how one level of development is more adequate than prior levels. The Piaget and Kohlberg differentiation models of development have not held up to subsequent evidence; young children distinguish morality from social conventions as well as from the domain of personal jurisdiction. History points to issues requiring further analyses. These include expositions of children’s entry into the moral domain; developmental transformations and the bases for greater adequacy; interrelations between judgments and actions; and connections between judgments and emotions, including study of on-going, background dispositions labeled sentiments.

  PublisherDOI

• The Development of Social Knowledge

  2023-08-17 · 323 citations

  book1st authorCorresponding

  The result of a deep research work sustained for more than two decades, this book studies the construction of social knowledge from a constructivist perspective inherited from Piagetian thought. It thus advances in a process of revision and discussion, while maintaining crucial aspects of this current for the approach to the construction of the subject and the object of knowledge, in the search for the elaboration of an explanatory theory for the formation of new knowledge. A collaborative proposal between different disciplines of potential interest for the different actors who study and intervene in this field.

  PublisherDOI

• Moral Judgments and Actions

  2022-06-27 · 8 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  The main topics of this chapter are children’s constructions of moral judgments bearing on welfare, justice, and rights through social interactions, actions, and reflections upon thought and action. Development also involves the construction of other domains of thought, particularly the conventional and personal. Consequently, decisions about social situations can entail recognition of different components within the moral domain, as well as other domains. Social decisions involve processes of coordination or the weighing and balancing of different considerations and goals. As a means of illustrating processes of coordination in behaviors, the acts of researchers and participants in the studies by Milgram on so-called obedience to authority are analyzed. The actions of participants are interpreted not as obedience but as entailing conflicts between concerns with pain inflicted by the instructed supposed electric shocks and concerns with fulfilling the scientific aims of the research enterprise (similar to the processes involved in the decisions of the researchers). More generally, research on children’s judgments of the roles of authorities is considered, showing that across ages, they make distinctions between appropriate and inappropriate commands from persons in positions of authority. Processes of coordination are involved in the development of moral thinking and in judgments leading to actions.

  PublisherDOI

• The Development of Moral Judgments, Emotions, and Sentiments

  Oxford University Press eBooks · 2022-01-13

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract This chapter addresses interconnections between moral judgments and emotions. The development of morality, which begins in early childhood, involves a construction of reasoning about welfare, justice, and rights. A critique is provided of propositions that emotions are primary in moral functioning. In that context, common uses of intuition and guilt are critiqued, with a reframing of guilt as reflection and regret. Positive emotions of sympathy, empathy, and affection as evaluative appraisals are interconnected with the development of moral judgments. It is also proposed that emotions are not separate from processes of moral thinking and moral decision-making. Additionally, the idea of general sentiments, as somewhat distinct from emotions, is considered as part of the process of moral development. Three key sentiments are identified: the value of life, respect for persons, and human dignity.

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• Adolescents’ judgments about resource inequality involving group disparities

  Journal of Experimental Child Psychology · 2022-02-12 · 7 citations

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• The Development of Moral and Social Judgments: Social Contexts and Processes of Coordination

  Eurasian Journal of Educational Research · 2020 · 12 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Sociology
  • Humanities
  • Psychology

  The research presented in this essay is grounded in Social Domain Theory. Research provides substantial evidence that children’s social development is characterized by the formation of distinctly different systems of thought, including those in the moral, social-conventional, and personal domains. A main focus here is on morality, defined as involving understandings of welfare, justice, and rights, which are applied across societal contexts. Social conventions are uniformities within social systems, serving to provide uniform expectations. The domains constitute different configurations of thinking and developmental changes occur within each domain. However, decisions in social situational contexts often involve coordination, which is a process of weighing and balancing different and sometimes conflicting considerations. Such social contexts can include conflicts between different moral goals or between moral and societal goals. Processes of coordination are examined in social psychological experiments, as well as developmental studies of topics like honesty, rights, and social inclusion. Coordination is also considered in people’s perspectives on cultural practices of unfairness and inequality. Psychological research in patriarchal societies shows that females, who are subjected to inequalities evaluate those cultural practices as unfair. Anthropological research documents that females engage in acts of opposition and moral resistance regarding perceived unfair cultural practices.

  PublisherDOI

• Young people’s judgments about respecting and violating human rights

  Cognitive Development · 2020-03-02 · 4 citations

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Eugenics, Prejudice, and Psychological Research

  Human Development · 2020 · 10 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Psychology
  • Social psychology
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The Development of Moral and Social Judgments: Social Contexts and Processes of Coordination

  2020-02-05

  article1st authorCorresponding

  The research presented in this essay is grounded in Social Domain Theory. Research provides substantial evidence that children’s social development is characterized by the formation of distinctly different systems of thought, including those in the moral, social-conventional, and personal domains. A main focus here is on morality, defined as involving understandings of welfare, justice, and rights, which are applied across societal contexts. Social conventions are uniformities within social systems, serving to provide uniform expectations. The domains constitute different configurations of thinking and developmental changes occur within each domain. However, decisions in social situational contexts often involve coordination, which is a process of weighing and balancing different and sometimes conflicting considerations. Such social contexts can include conflicts between different moral goals or between moral and societal goals. Processes of coordination are examined in social psychological experiments, as well as developmental studies of topics like honesty, rights, and social inclusion. Coordination is also considered in people’s perspectives on cultural practices of unfairness and inequality. Psychological research in patriarchal societies shows that females, who are subjected to inequalities evaluate those cultural practices as unfair. Anthropological research documents that females engage in acts of opposition and moral resistance regarding perceived unfair cultural practices.

  Publisher

• Culture and children’s reasoning about preferences and gender norms

  Journal of Experimental Child Psychology · 2020 · 10 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Psychology
  • Developmental psychology
  • Social psychology
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Larry Nucci

  17 shared

• Charles C. Helwig

  10 shared

• Cecilia Wainryb

  University of Utah

  9 shared

• Judith G. Smetana

  8 shared

• Melanie Killen

  8 shared

• Clare Conry‐Murray

  Johns Hopkins University

  7 shared

• Audun Dahl

  University of California, Santa Cruz

  7 shared

• Marie S. Tisak

  Bowling Green State University

  6 shared

Awards & honors

• Guggenheim Fellow
• National Institute of Mental Health Fellow
• Distinguished Contributions to Developmental Science Award (…
• Recognition Award by the Municipality of Rhodes, Greece (202…