关键词: 拥有生命意义 亲社会行为 因果关系 交叉滞后

Abstract: The presence of meaning (MLP) is individual's understanding of themselves, the world around them and their position in the world, as well as their missions, goals and purpose of life. According to the Self-determination Theory, individuals with higher MLP may have strong internal motivation to act in line with goals and conduct of prosocial behaviors (PB). This research aimed to examine the two-way relationship between the MLP and PB of college students. In Study 1, the presence sub-scale of Meaning in Life Questionnaire and Prosocial Tendencies Measure were administered for 2375 students from 15 universities within 10 provinces in China. The results showed that the MLP was significantly correlated with PB. After controlling gender and age, MLP could significantly predict PB, which can explain 8% of variation in PB. In turn, PB could also significantly predict MLP, which can explain 8% of variation in MLP. MLP could significantly predict dire, public, altruism, compliant, emotional and anonymous PB. That is to say, the higher the degree of MLP, the higher the individual's score in six different types of PB; public, altruism and anonymous PB had a significant positive predictive effect on MLP. In Study 2, cross-track lag analysis method was used to investigate reciprocal relationship between MLP and PB. This study was conducted three times on the MLP and PB of 878 students from a university in Sichuan. The second survey (T2) was scheduled 3 months after the initial survey (T1), and the last survey (T3) was placed 6 months after the completion of T2. After controlling gender and age, cross lagged analysis shows that MLP at T1 could positively predict their PB at T2, and MLP at T2 could also further positively predict their PB at T3. However, their PB at T1 could positively predict MLP at T2, while PB at T2 could not significantly predict MLP at T3. Specifically, after controlling gender and age，MLP at T1 had a significant positive predictive effect on dire, altruism, and emotional PB at T2；Except for public PB, MLP at T2 could positively predict the other five types of PB at T3. But in turn, only altruism PB at T1 had a significant positive effect on MLP at T2. The results of this study show that MLP and PB can promote each other, MLP can predict PB positively. To a certain extent PB can also predict MLP, but the predictive effect is not stable; MLP had a significant positive influence on altruism, emotional, anonymous, compliant and dire PB, but only altruism PB had a significant positive effect on MLP.

Key words: the presence of meaning, prosocial behavior, cross lagged analysis