The Moderating Role of Empathy in the Relationship between Moral Judgment and Moral Behavior

The aim of this study is to investigate the role of moderating of empathy in the relationship between moral judgment and moral behavior of students. For this purpose, 336 students (176 girls and 160 boys) at high school the eighth Grade students in Mashhad were selected using multistage cluster sampling. Tools used in this research were: 15 Questions Checklist Moral Behavior of Swanson and Hill (1993), the short form of Moral Stories of Rest and colleagues (1973), for Moral Judgment, and Empathy Questionnaire of Mark Davies (1994). Different analytical tests including Pearson correlation and hierarchical regression were used to examine the findings The results showed that there is a significant, direct but weak relationship between moral judgment and moral behavior. also there is a positive and significant relationship between empathy and moral behavior. Regression analysis showed empathy has a moderating effect on the relationship between moral judgment and moral behavior, also, the gender differences in two empathic concern and perspective-taking subscales was observed. According to the results, it can be said that not only students’ moral behavior is directly predictable from moral judgment, but also this relationship is being moderated through empathy.