Young adults face many personal conflicts rooted in the belief that personal gain at others’ expense is morally wrong

17 Nov 2025

This study examined how Filipinos in their 20s use different moral discourses to negotiate their personal conflicts. Many conflicts centered around concerns about harm and welfare, often rooted in the participants’ roles and relationships. For instance, conflicts arise when participants consider how their actions may harm others, and personal gain over others’ welfare was constructed as a moral violation. The relational construction of harm reflects the conceptualization of kapwa in Filipino psychology, whereby self-sacrifice is constructed as beneficial to oneself because it is united with others.

Participants also constructed and negotiated conflicts as a function of their relationships and the duties that come with their roles in these relationships. For example, participants expressed tensions between pursuing personal growth and their duty to obey their parents as good sons and daughters, as well conflicts between different familial roles. Moreover, participants shared conflicts around one’s sexuality and the rules espoused by religious institutions. Participants negotiated these conflicts in various ways, with some reinterpreting religious teachings, thus downplaying the authority of religious institutions, and others using the language of harm and welfare and negotiating the power dynamics within the family.

Participants’ reasoning often expressed (neo)liberal principles of freedom, equality, individual choice, rationality, and responsibility. They used such liberal language to reconstruct institutional rules and traditions, thus presenting conservative positions as rational and fair and the self as an autonomous agent. This suggests young adult Filipinos are increasingly appropriating the liberal discourses that characterize their globalized sociocultural and developmental contexts.

This study contributes to the scholarship on moral development by employing a cultural development lens to understand young adults’ moral reasoning. The research fills a gap in the literature by focusing on young adulthood—a life stage that has received relatively less attention in the field of moral development, particularly in the Philippines.

This study also provides a broader examination of moral development by examining the different ethics used by young adult Filipinos within their developmental and cultural contexts, going beyond a justice-oriented framework that dominates the literature. By examining how Filipino young adults use the ethics of autonomy, community, and divinity in negotiating their personal conflicts, this study contributes to understanding the universals and particulars of moral reasoning among young adults.

The findings of this study can potentially also be used to promote moral development by creating individual-level programs and producing and disseminating moral discourses that Filipino young adults can appropriate in their moral reasoning.

Authors: Danielle P. Ochoa (Department of Psychology, University of the Philippines Diliman) and Tracey Dela Cruz (Department of Psychology, University of the Philippines Diliman)

Read the full paper: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1354067X241285350

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Young adults face many personal conflicts rooted in the belief that personal gain at others’ expense is morally wrong

This study examined how Filipinos in their 20s use different moral discourses to negotiate their personal conflicts. Many conflicts centered around concerns about harm and welfare, often rooted in the participants’ roles and relationships. For instance, conflicts arise when participants consider how their actions may harm others, and personal gain over others’ welfare was constructed as a moral violation. The relational construction of harm reflects the conceptualization of kapwa in Filipino psychology, whereby self-sacrifice is constructed as beneficial to oneself because it is united with others.

Participants also constructed and negotiated conflicts as a function of their relationships and the duties that come with their roles in these relationships. For example, participants expressed tensions between pursuing personal growth and their duty to obey their parents as good sons and daughters, as well conflicts between different familial roles. Moreover, participants shared conflicts around one’s sexuality and the rules espoused by religious institutions. Participants negotiated these conflicts in various ways, with some reinterpreting religious teachings, thus downplaying the authority of religious institutions, and others using the language of harm and welfare and negotiating the power dynamics within the family.

Participants’ reasoning often expressed (neo)liberal principles of freedom, equality, individual choice, rationality, and responsibility. They used such liberal language to reconstruct institutional rules and traditions, thus presenting conservative positions as rational and fair and the self as an autonomous agent. This suggests young adult Filipinos are increasingly appropriating the liberal discourses that characterize their globalized sociocultural and developmental contexts.

This study contributes to the scholarship on moral development by employing a cultural development lens to understand young adults’ moral reasoning. The research fills a gap in the literature by focusing on young adulthood—a life stage that has received relatively less attention in the field of moral development, particularly in the Philippines.

This study also provides a broader examination of moral development by examining the different ethics used by young adult Filipinos within their developmental and cultural contexts, going beyond a justice-oriented framework that dominates the literature. By examining how Filipino young adults use the ethics of autonomy, community, and divinity in negotiating their personal conflicts, this study contributes to understanding the universals and particulars of moral reasoning among young adults.

The findings of this study can potentially also be used to promote moral development by creating individual-level programs and producing and disseminating moral discourses that Filipino young adults can appropriate in their moral reasoning.

Authors: Danielle P. Ochoa (Department of Psychology, University of the Philippines Diliman) and Tracey Dela Cruz (Department of Psychology, University of the Philippines Diliman)

Read the full paper: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1354067X241285350

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay