Abstract: Moral disengagement is an individual predisposition to evoke cognitions that allow individuals to restructure their actions to appear less harmful, minimize their role in the outcomes of their actions, or attenuate the distress that they cause to others. Thereby, individual with high levels of moral disengagement may tend to report less prosocial behavior. But, the majority of research on moral disengagement has been conducted in Western cultures, and we have limited knowledge about the moral disengagement of Chinese counterparts. Moral identity is a key psychological mechanism that translates moral judgments, principles, or ideals into action. In other word, moral identity is an important source of moral motivation, leading to greater concordance between one’s moral principles and actions. For example, a stronger sense of moral identity predicts higher rates of volunteerism, and is positively related to perceptual and reflective “moral attentiveness”, empathy, and other forms of prosocial behavior. Therefore, the aim of this present study was to examine the relationship between moral disengagement and college students’ prosocial behavior, and the moderation of moral identity in contemporary China. The Moral Disengagement scale, the Prosocial Tendencies Measure, and the Moral Identity Scale were administered to 550 college students (218 boys and 332 girls) in Taiyuan City, Shanxi Province, using Structural Equation Model Analysis. Results were as follows: (1) Moral disengagement had a negative effect on the prosocial behavior (?=-.29, p<.001). Moral identity had a positive effect on the prosocial behavior (?=.42, p<.001), and significantly moderated the relationship between moral disengagement and prosocial behavior. (2) There was a significant positive relation between moral disengagement and prosocial behavior at high levels of moral identity, ?=-.45, p<.001. However, at low levels of moral identity, the relation between moral disengagement and prosocial behavior was nonsignificant, ?=-.10, p>.05. Finally, the theoretical and practical implications of the findings from the study were discussed. It was argued that findings enriched the theory of moral disengagement by confirming the moderating role of moral identity in the relationship between moral disengagement and prosocial behavior. It suggests, based on the findings, that we can nature individual’s prosocial behavior by reducing their moral disengagement, and improving their moral identity.

Key words: college student, moral disengagement, moral identity, prosocial behavior

摘要： 运用问卷调查的方法，以550名大学生为研究对象，探讨了道德认同在道德推脱影响大学生亲社会行为过程中的调节效应。采用潜变量调节效应模型的无约束估计方法研究发现：(1)道德推脱会对大学生的亲社会行为产生显著的负向影响，道德认同会对大学生的亲社会行为产生显著的正向影响，并且道德认同会对道德推脱与亲社会行为之间的关系产生显著的调节作用；(2)在高道德认同水平下，大学生的亲社会行为会随着道德推脱水平的升高而显著地减少，而在低道德认同水平下，大学生的亲社会行为并无明显的变化。

关键词: 大学生, 道德推脱, 道德认同, 亲社会行为