THE ROLE OF EMPATHY AND MORAL REASONING IN ADOLESCENTS PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOR

The purpose of the present study was to determine the relationship bet ween adolescents' empathy and maturity of moral reasoning with their s elf-reported prosocial behaviour. Fourteen-year-old adolescents (N=311 ) were administered scales measuring emotional empathy, fantasy and pr osocial behaviour. Kohlberg's structured moral dilemmas were used to m easure moral judgement maturity. Data were analysed by means of a hier archical regression analysis with emotional empathy, fantasy and moral reasoning and their interactions as predictors and prosocial behavior as a criterion variable. Intelligence, social desirability tendencies and sex of subjects were taken as control variables. The results show ed that higher prosocial behaviour could be best explained by higher e motional empathy. Moral reasoning was not related to prosocial behavio ur. Significant interaction of moral maturity and emotional empathy wa s found showing that the correlation of empathy and prosocial behaviou r was stronger at higher levels of moral reasoning. Significant sex di fferences in prosocial behaviour were also found. Additional analysis indicated that girls were found to be more altruistic than boys due to their higher emotional empathy. The implications of these findings ar e discussed in the context of the current debate on the role of moral cognitions and moral affects in determining moral behaviour.