Moral Emotion of Adolescents in the Context of Decision-Making

Abstract

Adolescents need to have moral emotions as an effort to make moral decisions and anticipate the emergence of moral transgression. The moral emotions as those emotions that are linked to the interests or welfare either of society as a whole or at least of persons other than the judge or agent. Some people believe that making the morally right decision makes people feel good. However, not many studies in Indonesia have supported this statement. This study aims to find out the moral emotions that appear in the context of hypothetical moral dilemmas and the patterns of responses to hypothetical moral dilemmas. Methods: Participants were 852 adolescents living in Semarang, aged 11 to 16 years old. Data were collected using a questionnaire survey of hypothetical moral dilemmas with Malti's and Buchmann's instruments. Results. A descriptive analysis of the results showed that there were three forms of moral emotions: positive (i.e., happy, pride, calm, gratitude, sincere, sympathy, and not feeling guilty), negative (i.e., pity, shame, regret, guilty, anxious or worry, and emotional conflicts (there are positive and negative feelings), confuse, and bad feelings) and neutral (neither feeling good or bad). The patterns found in adolescents were 57. 2% happy moralist, 26.5% unhappy moralist; 5.9% happy victimizer; 3.6% unhappy victimizer; 5.4% pattern can not be categorized based on moral decisions; and 1,4% can not be categorized based on existing patterns based on selfish decisions. Conclusion. Overall, this study demonstrates that moral emotions develop during adolescence. Moral emotions can function during daily moral decision-making processes