ABSTRACT
Moral development is an important aspect of psychological development in adolescence. A proper understanding of the factors influencing moral reasoning and moral behaviour can facilitate moral development and thus contribute to the well-being of adolescents. According to the social-cognitive approach to morality, moral reasoning is to a large extent determined by how one understands the relation between self and others and self and society. In other words, self-understanding and social judgment play a crucial role in moral reasoning. Empirical evidence (e.g. Colby and Damon, 1992; Hart and Fegley, 1995) has shown that care exemplars are prone to describe themselves in terms of moral personality traits and integrate moral goals into their sense of self. Hart and Fegley (1995) found that care exemplar adolescents not only emphasized moral goals, but also mentioned more academic goals than did their comparison adolescents. This finding suggests a possible link between achievement goals and prosocial behaviours. The relationship between moral goals and prosocial behaviours has been studied by some researchers (e.g. Bar-Tal et al, 1980; Raviv et al, 1980; Boehnke et al., 1989). However, the relationship between achievement goals and pro-
* Reprint requests and correspondence should be addressed to P. C. Cheung at the Department of Educational Psychology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong.
