The Influence Of Empathy On Moral Decision-making: The Mediating Effects Of Critical Thinking Disposition

Moral decision-making refers to the choice and action that individuals make in line with social norms according to their own moral values under the specific moral background.In today’s information explosion,people are used to expressing their views on various events with the help of the Internet.Moral events have frequently triggered heated public opinion through the Internet.Academia has actively explored the decision-making mechanism behind moral behavior.Greene’s dual processing model believe that moral decision-making is the result of the competition between cognition and emotion,two parallel and complementary systems.The rapid emotional process based on emotional system will tend to make deontological moral decision-making,and the slow and profound cognitive process based on cognitive system will tend to make utilitarian moral decision-making.Empathy is divided into trait empathy and state empathy.Many studies have proved that empathy is an important influencing factor of moral decision-making.In addition,critical thinking disposition has become a research hotspot in the field of cognition in recent years,and it is also a thinking quality advocated by the United Nations.Starting from the practical significance,the study selects critical thinking disposition and empathy as the research variables,takes college students as the test object,and comprehensively adopts the questionnaire method and experimental method to explore the impact of state empathy and trait empathy on moral decision-making,as well as the impact of critical thinking disposition on the relationship between them.In Study 1,to explore whether critical thinking disposition regulates the relationship between trait empathy and moral decision-making.Using the questionnaire method,the subjects’ trait empathy and critical thinking disposition were measured by the Chinese version of interpersonal response index scale(iri-c)and critical thinking ability measurement scale(ctdi-cv),and then let the subjects complete the moral dilemma decision-making task.Study 2explored whether critical thinking disposition also regulated the relationship between state empathy and moral decision-making.First,the starting materials of state empathy were screened,and then 2(critical thinking disposition: high / low)was adopted × 2(state empathy: high / low)experimental design,with the score of moral decision-making task as the dependent variable,to explore the differences of moral decision-making when individuals with high and low critical thinking disposition induce different levels of state empathy.In Study 3,explore the mechanism of trait empathy and state empathy affecting moral decision-making at the same time,use the emotion induction method to induce the subjects’ state empathy,measure their trait empathy and state empathy,and then let the subjects complete the task of moral decision-making.The results show that:(1)College Students’ critical thinking disposition,trait empathy,state empathy and moral decision-making had no significant differences in gender factors and whether they were the only child.(2)Video materials could effectively induce state empathy.The main effect of state empathy and trait empathy was significant.College students with high state empathy and high trait empathy were more inclined to make deontological decisions.(3)The main effect of critical thinking disposition was significant.The higher the critical thinking disposition was,the more inclined it was to make utilitarian decisions.(4)Critical thinking disposition significantly regulated the relationship between trait empathy and moral decision-making.At the level of high critical thinking disposition,trait empathy positively predicted the deontological disposition of moral decision-making,which was lower than that at the level of low critical thinking disposition.(5)The interaction between critical thinking disposition and state empathy was significant.Compared with the control group,the utilitarian disposition of moral decision-making tended to increase with the improvement of critical thinking disposition.(6)When induced state empathy,trait empathy could affect moral decision-making through the complete intermediary of state empathy.