Research on altruism has found that persons experiencing either positive or negative moods are often more altruistically inclined than their counterparts experiencing neutral affective states. Prosocial behavior may become self-gratifying and altruism may be a form of hedonism. A field study investigated the effects of positive and negative moods…

Prosocial education consists of school experiences designed to promote prosocial behavior. This paper demonstrates that: (1) there is an absence of prosocial behaviors in educational goals; (2) educational tradition venerates rationality and objectivity associated with "masculine" thinking and denigrates emotionality and relatedness associated…

The construct of moral reasoning may be conceived of as having a dualistic nature, with moral decision-making termed either empirical morality or normative morality. Although it has been tacitly assumed that normative moral values can be inferred from empirical morality methods of investigation, there exists data to suggest that this may not be…

A study investigated students values to determine the regard in which today's students hold money and material possessions. Questionnaires, eliciting responses to 10 topics organized by a weighted scale, were administered to 150 students in two sections of a class in principles of public relations. Results revealed that money had minimal…

This study assessed the relationships between human values and the psychological construct of world-mindedness. Fifty-one college students and 58 high school students in a town in the Pacific Northwest completed the Values Questionnaire (Schwartz, 1992, 94) and the Cross-cultural World-mindedness Questionnaire (Der-Karabetian, 1992). A stepwise…

Character or values instruction has been relegated to the hidden curriculum since the decline of 1960s values programs. However, teachers are beginning to use character instruction in an organized way. The purpose of this study was to determine whether instruction using children's literature would effect student perceptions of value laden…

This study examines the influence of a role-taking training program on role-taking, altruism and competition in children. During a 12-week period (30 minutes a day, four days a week) 96 3- to 9-year-old children were enrolled in a social perspective-taking training program at school. A control group of 96 subjects attended a regular school…

A general discussion of the nature of ethical values of the specific issues related to teaching such values leads to several specific suggestions as to how to accomplish ethical value education in communication. Ethical values education should be integrated throughout the curriculum of higher education in general and communication education in…

The Prosocial Attitude Blank (PAB) was designed to assess interpersonal values and ethical awareness of elementary school children. PAB was administered to 405 elementary students as one component of the evaluation of an intervention program designed to reduce interpersonal conflicts, increase literacy skills, and enhance children's ethical…

The document describes a field study to investigate the relationship between altruism and blood donating behavior among members of a large midwestern college community. Altruistic behavior is interpreted as combining three motivations: (1) reward-cost, also referred to in terms of behavior as social exchange; (2) social responsibility and…

In most ways the island nations of Iceland and Singapore could not be more different from each other: Iceland is sparsely populated, located near the Arctic Circle, and a very free and individualistic democratic society; Singapore is densely populated, located near the equator, and a very regulated and collectivist meritocracy. But both nations…