Moral Competence, Pro-social Behavior and Aggression in University Students

Abstract

The objectives of present research were to determine the relationship between moral competence, prosocial behavior and aggression, to determine whether prosocial behavior and aggression was predicted by moral competence in university students. To examine gender differences regarding all study variables was also an important objective. The present research was a cross-sectional-correlational study. A non-probability convenient sample of 365 participants, men (n= 159) and women (n= 206) with mean age of 20.76 (SD=1.81) were recruited. The present study used three scales, prosocial behavior scale (Caprara, Steca, Zelli & Capanna, 2005), physical and verbal aggression scale (Buss & Perry, 1992) and moral competence test (MCT) (Lind, 2014). Correlation analysis indicated significant relationship between aggression subscales but not able to determine its relationship with other study variables. For prediction, simple linear regression was implied and it was proved that moral competence was not a predictor for prosocial behaviour and aggression for present population. For gender differences, Multivariate analysis of variances (MANOVA) was used and results indicated that women got higher scores on pro social behaviour scale where as men scored high on physical aggression. Moral competence, prosocial behaviour and reduced aggression in emerging adults is really the need of the hour to prevail peace in the society.