Moral dilemmas are not easy. They make us get in touch with what’s most important to us and how we will make choices based on our values of right and wrong.

As a psychologist specializing in money management, I have worked with children and families on this issue and have been fascinated with how people of all ages justify what they do. The psychologist that is the grandfather of psychological studies on morality and moral judgments is Kohlberg. What he learned over the years is that there are stages of moral development and critical thinking which allow people to make appropriate decisions for themselves, their needs and causes in relation to what’s good and appropriate for society at large. He learned that there were people who made decisions based on the absolute of right and wrong, but many others who used their own barometer of what was right and wrong for them. People will do what they feel they need to do and justify it according to what was most important in their individual situation, but not all. So just like so many other variables in life, we humans differ on the morality scale as well. Read the rest of this entry »