Internal versus external moral identity motivation in children: Relationships with age and forecasted emotions

• This study examined internal and external moral identity motivation in children aged 4–10. • Internal moral identity motivation increased with age, supporting a developmental continuity model. • Younger children showed no clear dominance of internal or external motivation, indicating a dual-motivation onset. • Internal motivation predicted stronger positive moral emotions after prosocial acts; external motivation predicted weaker ones. • The overall strength of moral identity motivation, regardless of its source, predicted stronger negative emotions following moral transgressions. This study aimed to further substantiate the early-onset view of moral identity development by investigating internal and external moral identity motivation in middle childhood and their relationship with forecasted emotions. The sample consisted of 93 four- to ten-year-old children ( M age = 7.10, SD = 2.02). Participants were presented with sets of two characters expressing either internal or external motivation for embodying various moral identity characteristics (e.g., helper, carer) and asked to select which character they identified more with. Participants also viewed a set of scenarios describing characters engaging in (im)moral behaviours (e.g., lying, sharing) and were asked to rate how they would feel after engaging in those behaviours. Findings demonstrate that while younger children’s moral identity was equally internally and externally motivated, the relative importance of internal motivation increased with age. Further, moral identity motivations differentially predicted positive and negatively valenced forecasted emotions. These findings are consistent with results obtained in samples with adolescents and adults and demonstrate continuities in moral identity development from middle childhood into adulthood.