DOI:10.6129/CJP.201809_60(3).0001
Chinese Journal of Psychology 2018, Vol.60, No.3, 151-172

Do Taiwanese Adolescents Believe in the Moral Significance of Effort and School Performance?

Tai-Chuan Chang（Department of Psychology, National Taiwan University）；Keng-Ling Lay（Department of Psychology, National Taiwan University）

Abstract

Prior empirical studies have argued that in culturally Confucian societies, academic effort and school performance are deemed role-based morality. Yet these studies have often arrived at their conclusions through inferences drawn from participants’ opinions of achievement related acts but not their direct judgement on whether lack of effort or academic performance is immoral. Based on Confucian ethics, Hwang (2012) hypothesized that studying hard and striving for academic achievement are role-based responsibilities and obligatory moral conduct for young learners. Fwu, Wei, Chen, and Wang (2014) further postulated that the role obligation of effort is not only a “positive” moral duty that requires individuals to act, but also an “unconditional positive” moral duty that calls for total dedication without temporary exceptions. Alternatively, under the social-cognitive domain theory, role obligation may simply be regarded as a social convention rather than a moral code. Therefore, this study directly investigated whether Taiwanese adolescents viewed effortful learning (EL) and academic performance (AP) as essential moral duties or only duties arising from social convention. Each type of duty was examined twice, first as an obligation that one had better follow and then as an obligation one ought to perpetually observe without exception (i.e., unconditional positive duties). Because filial piety (FP) has typically been construed as an unconditional positive moral obligation in culturally Confucian societies, belief in FP was simultaneously explored for comparison. Overall, 148 college students and 158 tenth graders from Northern Taiwan filled out three forms of questionnaires addressing the target concepts of EL, AP, and FP. Each questionnaire comprised four subscales: social convention, moral code, unconditional positive social convention, and unconditional positive moral code. Analyses of t tests did not support the prior inference that Taiwanese adolescents regarded EL as a moral code. Instead, both high school and college students agreed that EL was a duty arising from social convention. However, from the perspective of Taiwanese adolescents, the social convention aspect of EL was limited, given that it was not accepted as a duty ascribed to unconditional positive social convention. In contrast, the same group of adolescents viewed FP as an unconditional positive moral code that one should observe at all times. AP was construed to be neither a social convention nor a moral duty. In conclusion, no direct evidence supported prior postulations that students in Confucian societies perceive EL and AP as morality-based obligations, not to mention as unconditional positive moral duties. The implications of the findings for Confucian role-based ethics were discussed.

Keywords: effort, social-cognitive domain theory, morality, Confucianism, academic achievement