Moral identity formation and its relationship to adolescent volunteer behavior

This study sought to determine the factors most central to moral identity and to determine the strength of relationship between moral identity and functions of self, schemas of moral character, and aspects of volunteerism. The main hypothesis was that moral identity would be correlated with volunteer frequency and justification as components of moral action. The hypothesis was tested with an adolescent and young adult population, using a Liken scale and open-ended survey from several existing measures of moral identity (Aquino & Reed, 2002; Hart & Fegley, 1995) and one measure of volunteerism (Reimer, Walker, DeWitt, & Clevenger, 2007). The general hypothesis was rejected, as it broadly refers to moral identity and volunteerism. However, an exploratory analysis and linear regression showed 8 significant outcomes for different aspects of moral identity (self and moral characteristic schemas) and for only a few aspects of volunteerism (frequency and justification). The results suggest that (a) moral character significantly contributes to volunteer frequency; (b) moral character influences the reasons for volunteering, if those reasons include (c) utilitarianism, (d) civic engagement, or (e) religious belief; (f) the moral identity factors peer continuity and (g) self consistency with external expectations significantly predicted volunteer frequency; and (h) the moral identity factor positive self regard is significantly antithetical to religious belief.