華人青少年努力概念與道德及罪惡感之內隱連結

Abstract

Past research has shown that industry is a highly emphasized concept in culturally Chinese learning environment. Consequently, it seems inevitable for Chinese youngsters to eventually internalize the concept as more than a desired merit but an essence of morality. Meanwhile, sense of inadequate diligence may associate with the moral emotion of guilt as well. The current research was to test the above hypotheses. It was also anticipated that those who are more deeply engulfed in the Chinese value of academic achievement (i.e., older as opposed to younger adolescents; top-level as opposed to mediocre academic performers) are more likely to associate the concept of inadequate industry with immorality as well as guilt. Chinese adolescents from college, top-level and mediocre high schools (10th & 11th grade), and junior high school (7th grade) were recruited. Study 1 tested the implicit association between concepts of lacking diligence and immorality. Study 2 tested the implicit association between concepts of lacking diligence and guilt. To avoid adolescent tendency of giving answers with face value for the sake of impression management, instead of distributing questionnaires, paradigms of Implicit Association Test (IAT) and the Go/No-go Association Task (GNAT) were adopted. Significant implicit association was found between concepts of lacking diligence and immorality as well as lacking diligence and guilt, no matter whether it is for younger, older, top-level, or mediocre students. In addition, the association between lack of diligence and immorality was found to be stronger for 7th graders than college students. Contradictory to the original hypothesis, the present findings may imply that the association of diligence and morality peaks at early adolescence but remains connected through late adolescence. In addition, the discrepant finding of age differences in the two experiments may imply differentiated but interactive developmental pathways of moral effort-belief and laziness-induced guilty feelings among Chinese adolescents.