The Characteristics Of Middle School Students' Moral Motives And Their Relationship With Prosocial Behavior

Moral motivation is the intrinsic motivation which promotes people to generate and complete moral behavior.The question about the relationship between moral motivation and pro-social behavior has been a hot issue in the field of moral psychology.Previous studies mostly focused on the theory of moral motivation and development of adolescent moral motivation.However these studies paid little attention to the moral motivation of' the middle school students.And these studies didn't show the characteristics of middle school students' moral motivation and the relationship with the pro-social behavior.Due to the lack of the moral motivation research,this study used questionnaires to study.The main research tools concluded Moral Motivation Rating Scale,Prosocial Tendencies Measure,and Moral Judgment Test.The subjects of this research were 336 high school students.The purpose of the study was to investigate the characteristics of middle school students' moral motivation and its effect to pro-social behavior.In the meantime,this study investigated the characteristics of middle school students' moral motivation and the relationship with the pro-social behavior.The research showed that:(1)The gender differences and grade differences about middle school students' moral motivation were notable.Moral motivation levels of girls were higher than boys'.Moral motivation levels of junior high school students were higher than high school students.(2)There was a positive correlation between middle school students' moral motivation and pro-social behavior,which included disclosed pro-social behavior,anonymous pro-social behavior,altruistic pro-social behavior,compliant pro-social behavior,emotional pro-social behavior and urgency pro-social behavior.Middle school students' moral motivation was the effective predictive factor to pro-social behavior.There was a positive correlation between middle school students' perception of school moral atmosphere and pro-social behavior,which included disclosed pro-social behavior,anonymous pro-social behavior,altruistic pro-social behavior,compliant pro-social behavior,emotional pro-social behavior and urgency pro-social behavior.(3)Middle school students' moral motivation played a partial mediating role in the relationship between middle school students' moral motivation and pro-social behavior.School moral atmosphere perception could effect on the pro-social behavior of middle school student directly.And School moral atmosphere perception could also effect on the pro-social behavior of middle school student by moral motivation.In conclusion,moral motivation was one of the most valid predictive factors of pro-social behavior of middle school student,and played a partial mediating role in the relationship between middle school students' moral motivation and pro-social behavior.