A Preliminary Study On The Moral Shame Across Adolescents

Moral shame is the emotional experience produced by the inconformity of the individual moral behavior with the social ethics and behavior norms in social interaction.In simple terms,it is a kind of shame experience in social ethics.Adolescents are the backbone of the country's future development,the study of adolescents' moral shame can not only enrich the theory of moral shame,but also provide reference for the adolescents' moral education.Based on the literature review,this study has compiled moral shame questionnaire with a certain reliability and validity,and investigated the present situation of 500 adolescents' moral shame,analyzed the adolescents' moral shame and its correlation with self-esteem and the perception of school moral atmosphere,and then explored the predictive role of moral shame on the adolescents' moral behavior.Main conclusions:(1)The structure of the adolescents' moral shame contains social moral shame,school moral shame,family moral shame and individual moral shame.(2)The score of moral shame and its four factor scores are all above 3,the highest score is individual moral shame,social moral shame is the lowest.There are differences on gender and family economic situation of the adolescents' moral shame,family moral shame and individual moral shame,the score of girls' moral shame is significantly higher than boys.(3)There is a significant positive correlation in adolescents' moral shame,self-esteem,and perception of school moral atmosphere.There is a significant positive correlation between perception of school moral atmosphere and its dimensions and the moral shame;there is a significant positive correlation between self-esteem and moral shame and perception of moral school atmosphere and its dimensions.(4)The perception of school moral atmosphere played a partial intermediary role between adolescents' self-esteem and moral shame.(5)Moral shame could predict the adolescents' moral behavior significantly.In conclusion,this study only made a preliminary exploration on moral shame,and need to be further explored in the scope of sample,related research and other aspects.