conscience

(noun)

A personification of the moral sense of right and wrong, usually in the form of a person, a being, or merely a voice that gives moral lessons and advices.

Related Terms

Examples of conscience in the following topics:

  • Freud's Psychosexual Theory of Development

    • The superego, or conscience, develops through interactions with others (mainly parents) who want the child to conform to the norms of society.
    • Latency (6-12 years of age): During this stage, sexual instincts subside, and children begin to further develop the superego, or conscience.

  • Moral Development in Childhood

    • Stage 6: Universal ethical principle - In this stage, a child believes the right action is the one chosen by his or her conscience and what is in the best interest of a person, regardless of the legality.

  • Freudian Psychoanalytic Theory of Personality

    • The superego is concerned with social rules and morals—similar to what many people call their "conscience" or their "moral compass."
    • Across these five stages, the child is presented with different conflicts between their biological drives (id) and their social and moral conscience (supereg0) because their biological pleasure-seeking urges focus on different areas of the body (what Freud called "erogenous zones").

  • Personality Psychology

    • According to his structural theory of the mind, our personality develops from a conflict between the interacting systems within our minds, which he termed the "id" (our biological pleasure-seeking drive), "ego" (the rational part of our personality), and "superego" (our conscience and moral compass).

  • The Five-Factor Model

    • It is distinct from the moral implications of "having a conscience"; instead, this trait focuses on the amount of deliberate intention and thought a person puts into his or her behavior.

  • Obedience

    • These experiments measured the willingness of study participants to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts that conflicted with their personal conscience.

  • Ethical Guidelines for Human Research

    • The experiments measured the willingness of study participants to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts that conflicted with their personal conscience.

  • Psychodynamic Psychology

    • The superego is a person's conscience, which develops early in life and is learned from parents, teachers, and others.

  • Cluster B: Antisocial, Borderline, Histrionic, and Narcissistic Personality Disorders

    • There may be a poor moral sense or conscience and a history of crime, legal problems, impulsivity, and aggressive behavior.