New work from the University of Amsterdam reveals that adversity in childhood can disrupt the integrated functioning of conscience in adolescents and young adults, with implications for targeted interventions.
A young person may understand the difference between right and wrong and still keep breaking the rules, and new work from the University of Amsterdam argues that this can reflect a fractured conscience rather than a simple lack of morals. Psychologist Julia Tiemersma, who will defend her dissertation on 11 September, says conscience should be seen as a system in which empathy, self-conscious emotions and moral reasoning have to operate together, not as a single fixed trait.
That idea underpins the Clinical Assessment of Conscience, a structured tool Tiemersma developed to give clinicians a shared way of describing how conscience functions in adolescents and young adults. According to the University of Amsterdam, the assessment draws on interviews, observation, information from others and existing records, and examines 12 items covering empathy, guilt, shame and moral reasoning. The aim is to move beyond a simple judgement about whether a young person has a conscience at all.
In one study involving 88 clinically referred adolescents aged 12 to 23, Tiemersma found that higher levels of childhood trauma were linked with weaker integration between the three parts of conscience. Emotional neglect showed the strongest association with disrupted integration, followed by emotional and sexual abuse. The findings suggest that adversity may leave young people with conscience-related abilities that remain present but do not work together smoothly.
The research also builds on earlier studies from Amsterdam-based researchers showing that conscience can be understood as an emotion-regulating function, shaped by empathy, shame, guilt and moral judgement. For clinicians working with troubled adolescents, that matters because it could point towards more targeted treatment: not just strengthening one skill in isolation, but helping different parts of conscience become more coherent. The university’s forensic child and youth care group, which studies serious behaviour problems and interventions, says that kind of framework is especially important in cases where judicial or therapeutic decisions depend on understanding why a young person behaves as they do.
Disclaimer: This content is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical judgment, advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
