The Research Of The Mechanism Of Empathy In Moral Behavior And Empathy's Functioning In Moral Education

Empathy and its moral functioning are always the attracting subjects in moral psychology. The mechanism of empathy in moral behavior and empathy's role in moral education are discussed in the paper in order to deal with the defects in former researches. Questionnaires are used in the study in the perspective of moral emotion resulting from empathy. And the differences of engender patterns, reaction features, and the influencing factors of moral emotion in children of different levels of empathy in given moral situations are tested in the study. The conclusions prove that empathy has effects on moral behavior by influencing children's tendency, direction and self-discipline in moral emotion. And interaction between empathy and other factors, such as interpersonal relationship, behavioral motivation and behavioral result, influences the moral emotion and moral behavior. What is more, the consciousness of interpersonal relationship plays a crucial role in empathy's arousing process and its influences on moral emotion and moral behavior.Based on the study conclusions and former researches, the author discusses the mechanism of empathy in moral behavior, and puts forward that empathy's motive role on moral behavior is that, the moral emotion resulting from empathy can impel people to regulate one's self-state psychologically, that is to say, empathy can impel people to pursue positive moral emotion and escape or reduce negative moral emotion, that promote people to go in for more positive moral behavior producing positive moral emotions, and to escape negative moral behavior producing negative moral emotion.Meanwhile, the author makes a further exploration to the relation between empathy and morality and its functioning in moral education, and points out that the development of empathy is the foundation of the development of children's morality from the relation between implications of empathy and morality, the relation between empathy and individual socialization, and the relation between empathy and moral internalization. The author suggests that the cultivation of empathy is an important way for early moral education and moral education based on one's experiences, and that following the intimate levels of interpersonal relationship is a fundamental way for empathy fostering and moral education.