The Development Of Middle School Students’ Guilt And The Influence Of Guilt On Their Fair Behavior

In recent years, guilt has gradually become one of the hotspots of psychology as aself-conscious emotion. As a barometer of morality, the developmental characteristics onguilt have great significance upon the individual’s mental health. In this research middleschool students’ developmental characteristics on guilt and the influence of guilt on fairbehavior were investigated.A comprehensive literature review was made on the concept of guilt, the theory ofguilt, guilt empirical research and the research between guilt and fair behavior at home andabroad. On the basis of analysis on previous studies, three studies were presented.In study1, we collected and verified the guilt context stories from two groups whichwere randomly selected from middle school students (90in group1,107in group2) as themeasure material for developmental characteristics of guilt in study2. The materialincluded two scenarios and each scenario contained three stories after which same fivequestions was set to find out the developmental characteristics of guilt among middleschool students. After the inspection of group1and group2and the experts, we found thatthe content validity was0.81and the internal consistency coefficient was0.86, indicatingthat the questionnaire of guilt had good reliability and validity and it could be used as thetool of study2.In study2, we used the measure material made in study1to measure thedevelopmental characteristics of335middle school children’s developmentalcharacteristics on guilt from7-9grades.The results were as follows:(1) Grade did notsignificantly affect the score of guilt; the score of guilt of girls was significantly higherthan boys; the score of guilt without judgment was significantly higher than that with thejudgment of teachers; the score of guilt in the family scenario was significantly higher thanthat in the companion scenario; both the score of guilt without judgment and with companionjudgment in the family scenario were significantly higher than that in the companion scenario.(2) Grade, gender and the judgment did not significantly affect the score of violation of norms; the score of violation of norms in the family scenario was significantly higher thanthat in the companion scenario; the score of violation of norms in the family scenario of eachgrade with each judgment was significantly higher than that in the companion scenario.(3)The score of assessment of responsibility of seventh grade was significantly higher than thatof eighth grade; gender and the judgment did not significantly affect the score of assessmentof responsibility; the score of assessment of responsibility in the family scenario wassignificantly higher than that in the companion scenario; the score of assessment ofresponsibility of each grade in the family scenario was significantly higher than that in thecompanion scenario.(4) The score of self-evaluation of seventh grade was significantly higherthan that of ninth grade; the score of self-evaluation of girls was significantly higher thanboys; judgment did not significantly affect the score of self-evaluation; the score ofself-evaluation in the family scenario of each grade with each judgment was significantlyhigher than that in the companion scenario.(5) The score of compensation tendency ofseventh grade was significantly higher than that of ninth grade; gender and the judgment didnot significantly affect the score of compensation tendency; the score of compensationtendency in the family scenario was significantly higher than that in the companion scenario.(6) The guilt, violation of norms, assessment of responsibility, self-evaluation andcompensation tendency were closely related to each other, and violation of norms,assessment of responsibility, self-evaluation and compensation tendency had significantpositive effect on guilt.In study2, we used dictator game to explore fair behavior of120middle schoolchildren (evenly divided between boys and girls), with situation and emotional state asindependent variables. The results were as follows:(1) The quantity to the partner of theemotional arousal group was significantly higher than that of control group between twopersons.(2) In the guilt arousal group, the quantity to the partner between two persons wassignificantly higher than that between three persons, but there were not significantdifferences of the quantity to oneself between different situations.