Moral dilemma in adolescence: The role of values, prosocial moral reasoning and moral disengagement in helping decision making

Abstract

The decision-making process was investigated in which a request for help was explicit but clearly not in the helper's personal interest. Based on Eisenberg's theory on prosocial moral reasoning, Schwartz's theory on basic human values and Bandura's moral disengagement theory it was hypothesized that personal values influence prosocial moral reasoning and moral disengagement, which in turn support or inhibit the propensity to help in a high-cost situation for the helper. Using moral dilemma scenarios, a sample of 171 adolescents (50% male) were asked to consider whether or not to offer their assistance. Adolescents also filled out the Prosocial Reasoning Objective Measure, the Portrait Values Questionnaire and the Moral Disengagement Scale. Results showed that despite internalization of other-oriented values and more internalized prosocial reasoning, moral disengagement contributed to the avoidance of moral responsibility and allowed potential helpers to prioritize their own needs.

Keywords:

• Personal values
• Moral disengagement
• Prosocial moral reasoning
• Omission
• Helping behaviour.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the editor and the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions to improve the quality of the manuscript. They are also extremely grateful to Prof. Eisenberg for her helpful and competent feedback.

Notes

¹ PROM was based on the Eisenberg prosocial moral interview and on self-reported measures of justice-oriented moral reasoning, with the aim of overcoming limits of previous measures such as susceptibility to experimenter and instrumentation biases, verbal skills, time intensive, lack of standardization (Carlo et al., 1992).

² The non-significant parameters were two covariances and two paths. Specifically, the covariances between MD and PMR and between self-enhancement values and self-transcendence values, the path from self-enhancement values to PMR and from gender to propensity to help.