{"id":8615,"date":"2019-05-22T16:09:38","date_gmt":"2019-05-22T16:09:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/obligation\/"},"modified":"2019-05-22T16:09:38","modified_gmt":"2019-05-22T16:09:38","slug":"obligation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/obligation\/","title":{"rendered":"Obligation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Feelings and judgments that a course of action is necessary based on considerations of what is right and wrong. &nbsp;This description approximates the meaning of a moral obligation. &nbsp;In most societies, a moral obligation constitutes a duty that a person has based on such considerations, but which is not necessarily legally binding. &nbsp;An allied concept is that of common-sense moral obligation, something based on a special relationship with, for example, family members and friends, and those to who we have made promises or commitments of one sort or another. &nbsp;Friendships and parent-child relationships have been identified as having particular importance in formation of an understanding of obligations and responsibilities. &nbsp;According to stage-based theory of moral development articulated by <a href=\"http:\/\/faculty.plts.edu\/gpence\/html\/kohlberg.htm\" class=\"cc-route-enabled\" target=\"_self\" data-editable-link=\"http:\/\/faculty.plts.edu\/gpence\/html\/kohlberg.htm&amp;target=_self\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Lawrence Kohlberg<\/a> (1927-1987), children deemed to have attained Stage 4 manifest a sense of obligation derived from obedience to some external authority, a stage some individuals retain for the rest of their lives. &nbsp;There are some interesting insights to be gained from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mpib-berlin.mpg.de\/volltexte\/institut\/dok\/full\/keller\/moralobl\/Kell_moralobl.pdf\" class=\"cc-route-enabled\" target=\"_self\" data-editable-link=\"https:\/\/www.mpib-berlin.mpg.de\/volltexte\/institut\/dok\/full\/keller\/moralobl\/Kell_moralobl.pdf  &amp;target=_self\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">cross-cultural research<\/a> on the moral development of children with regard to the universality and culture-specific nature of a sense of obligation. &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>See <a href=\"friendship\">Friendship<\/a>, <a href=\"moral_development\">Moral development<\/a>, Moral judgements, <a href=\"normative\">Normative<\/a>, <a href=\"rule\">Rule<\/a><\/p>\n<p><\/body><\/html><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Feelings and judgments that a course of action is necessary based on considerations of what is right and wrong. &nbsp;This description approximates the meaning of a moral obligation. &nbsp;In most societies, a moral obligation constitutes a duty that a person has based on such considerations, but which is not necessarily legally binding. &nbsp;An allied concept &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/obligation\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Obligation&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2],"class_list":["post-8615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-glossary","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8615\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}