The relationship between moral sense of life and prosocial behavior among medical students: the multiple mediating effects of meaning in life and empathy / 中华行为医学与脑科学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To explore the relationship between moral sense of life and prosocial behavior among medical students, and the multiple mediating effects of meaning in life and empathy.Methods:A total of 721 medical students from Weifang Medical University were tested with moral sense of life scale (MSLS), meaning in life questionnaire (MLQ), interpersonal reactivity index-C (IRI-C) and prosocial behavior tendency scale (PBTS). Common method bias test, Spearman correlation analysis and hierarchical regression analysis were conducted to analyze the data using SPSS 22.0 software, and PROCESS macro program was used to test the mediating effect of meaning in life and empathy between moral sense of life and prosocial behavior.Results:Moral sense of life, meaning in life, empathy and prosocial behavior were significantly positively correlated with each other( r=0.24-0.56, all P<0.01). Analysis of mediating effects revealed that moral sense of life affected prosocial behavior through three indirect pathways the separate meditating effects of both meaning in life and empathy (the effect size=0.11, 0.06), accounting for 57.89% and 31.58% of the total indirect effect respectively), the chain mediating effect of meaning in life and empathy (the effect size=0.02), accounting for 10.53% of the total indirect effect. Meaning in life and empathy play a full mediating role in the relationship between moral sense of life and prosocial behavior. Conclusion:Moral sense of life can indirectly increase medical students′ prosocial behavior through meaning in life and empathy. Meaning in life and empathy exert a chain-mediating effect between moral sense of life and prosocial behavior.