Are moral judgement maturity and self-serving cognitive distortions or moral disengagement merely opposites, as recently claimed? Self-serving cognitive distortions and moral disengagement constitute (more or less interchangeable) neutralization techniques; they stem from the same theoretical background and refer to the same cognitive processes.…

Kohlberg's developmental theory of moral reasoning hypothesizes that the socially unacceptable moral behavior of many juvenile delinquents is related to immature moral reasoning. A sizeable minority of delinquents, however, has been shown to reason at age-appropriate levels. This study examined issues related to those juvenile delinquents who were…

To enhance the ability of youth to help peers and themselves, the author proposes specific training in mature social decision-making to help youth overcome immature moral development and egocentric thinking. The EQUIP program emphasizes the positive moral potential of anti-social adolescents, as well as the limitations of antisocial youth:…