WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY MORAL COURAGE - APPRO ACHES TO A PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CORRECT PATH USING SUBJECTIVE THEORIES

Despite its social relevance, the phenomenon of the courage of one's o wn convictions ('Zivilcourage') has been examined in remarkably few ps ychological studies. It is the goal of this paper to initiate a psycho logical discussion on this topic and to open up possible perspectives for future study. Since there is no established construct of Zivilcour age in psychological literature, approaches towards related constructs (obedience/disobedience, altruism, moral action) were examined as an impetus for a future theory about Zivilcourage. Taking these results i nto account, the individual Subjective Theories of lay-psychologists w ere reconstructed in dialogue form and subjected to content-analysis. As a result, defining characteristics and empirical conditions useful for the elaboration of a future theory of Zivilcourage were put forwar d, bringing together the realms of altruism, disobedience and moral ac tion.