Multiple Mediating Mechanisms Of Personal Norms Activation For Predicting Pro-Social Behavior

Purposes:As a kind of moral behavior,pro-social behavior is significant to the social adaptation and socialization of college students.The Norm Activation Model(NAM),which emphasizes personal norms,is a theoretical model to predict prosocial behavior effectively,guilt and self-efficacy are important influencing factors of pro-social behavior,they may play an important role in the prediction of pro-social behavior by norm activation model.The aims of the study were:1)to compile the scale of pro-social awareness of consequence,ascription of responsibility and personal norms for Chinese college student groups.2)to explore the present situation of contemporary Chinese college students in pro-social behavior.3)to analyze the mediating effect of guilt and self-efficacy between personal norms and pro-social behavior,and construct the path of norm activation model in predicting pro-social behavior.Methods:The study included three parts:scales preparation,status analysis and mechanism discussion.The initial questionnaire was based on the literature review,and then 344 effectively recycled questionnaires were randomly divided into two parts:one part for item analysis,exploratory factor analysis,the other for confirmatory factor analysis,reliability and validity test.In the second part,three self-designed scales,guilt scale,general self-efficacy scale and prosocial tendencies measurement were used to investigate the status quo.650 questionnaires were sent out,627 questionnaires were actually recycled,and 603 valid questionnaires were collected.The effective rate is 96.2%.On this basis,the third part of the study was to explore the mediating effect of guilt and self-efficacy in the process of personal norms affecting pro-social behavior,by correlation analysis,regression analysis and Bootstrap mediation effect test.And using the structural equation model to explore the path of norm activation model in predicting pro-social behavior.Result:1)The author developed the four-item pro-social awareness of consequence scale,four-item ascription of responsibility scale and five-item personal norms scale.The three scales,which is composed of one dimension respectively,all have good reliability and validity in college students.2)Pro-social behavior of College students is roughly normal distribution,among which mentioned mostly by participants is altruistic,and then urgent,anonymous,obedient,emotional and public pro-social behavior from high to low.3)Personal norms,guilt,and self-efficacy were all significantly correlated with pro-social behavior(r=0.53,0.45,0.30,p<0.01).Guilt and self-efficacy partially mediated the influence of personal norms on pro-social behavior.Among them,the indirect effect of guilt accounted for 19.87%of the total effect,and that of self-efficacy accounted for 4.99%of the total effect.In addition,the results of the structural equation model showed that the model fitted well and all the indexes reached the acceptable level.Conclusion:The self-compiled pro-social awareness of consequence scale,ascription of responsibility scale,and personal norms scale have good reliability and validity,which can be used to investigate the activation of the norms about pro-social behavior of Chinese college students.Guilt and self-efficacy play a partial mediating role in the prediction of pro-social behavior by personal norms.The research proved that norm activation model is mediation model,and provides supportive evidence for the path of norm activation model in predicting pro-social behavior through guilt and self-efficacy.