Asked if young people today have as strong a sense of right and wrong as they did, say, 50 years ago, only 18% say yes, while 79% say no according to a 2005 Pew Research poll. This is about the same margin recorded in surveys since 1998, but a substantially more negative reading than was recorded in surveys decades ago. In a June 1952 survey, for example, nearly six-in-ten respondents judged that youth of that era were as sharply attuned to right and wrong as their forebears. Read More

Russell Heimlich  is a former web developer at Pew Research Center.