Moral responsibility and subjective well-being: A comparative analysis of economics students and educational psychology students

Abstract

The article presents the results of a comparative and correlational analysis of indicators of moral responsibility, empathy and subjective well-being among economics students lowing methods were used: The Moral and Ethical Responsibility Questionnaire (I.G. Tymoshchuk), The Ability to Empathize Questionnaire (I.M. Yusupov), The Individual SocioPsychological Attitudes Questionnaire (O.F. Potemkina), and the Mental Health Continuum instrument to measure subjective well-being (developed by C. Keyes, adapted by E.N. Osin and D.A. Leontiev). The results showed that educational psychology students have significantly higher scores of such moral responsibility indicators as ‘altruistic emotions’, ‘total moral and ethical responsibility’ and ‘empathy with children’. This suggests that educational psychology students, as compared to economics students, are more likely to experience altruistic feelings, have a stronger sense of moral and ethical responsibility, and show greater emIt was also found that educational psychology students and economics students differ in terms of the correlations between the indicators of subjective well-being and those of moral responsibility. In educational psychology students, significant positive correlations were found between the indicators of subjective well-being, general moral responsibility and expression of empathy with strangers and passing acquaintances. This means that the subjective well-being of educational psychology students is closely linked to the development of their professionally important qualities — such as general moral responsibility and empathy, which are essential for their future careers. In economics students, direct correlations were found between the indicators of subjective well-being and the indicators ‘reflection on moral and ethical situations (conflicts, collisions)’ and ‘existential responsibility’. The direct correlations suggest that high scores of existential responsibility and reflection on moral situations (these indicators can be considered to be professionally important qualities for economists) are directly linked to higher subjective well-being in economics students.