The Mediating Role of Gratitude in the Influence of Children' and Adolescents' Empathy and Guilt on Helping Behavior

Abstract

Abstract>The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between children and adolescents' moral emotions -empathy, guilt and gratitude -and helping behavior. For this study, questionnaires on empathy, guilt, gratitude and helping behavior were administered to 938 students in the 4th, 5th, 7th, 8th, 10th and 11th grades attending elementary, middle and high school in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province. The data were analyzed through frequency analysis, mean, standard deviation, t-test, one-way ANOVA, Pearson's correlation, enter multiple regression analysis and hierarchical multiple regression analysis by using SPSS Win 12.0. The main findings of this study are as follows: Firstly, by gender, empathy, guilt and helping behavior differed significantly, also, by grade, empathy, guilt, gratitude and helping behavior differed significantly. In addition, religion made a significant difference in empathy, gratitude and helping behavior. Secondly, variables influencing helping behavior were found to differ by developmental stage. The variable influencing the helping behavior of elementary school students was found to be empathic concern. For middle school students, guilt was found to influence their helping behavior, while for high school students, perspective-taking was found to be the key variable. Thirdly, gratitude was found to have a partial mediating effect on the relation between empathy(or guilt) and helping behavior. ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯▲ 주요어