Morality and Empathy

Name
Institution
Morality and Empathy
Morality and Empathy
Research Questions
The currency will be focused to address the following questions:
What is the relationship of morality and empathy?
How a higher level of one factor influences the other?
What underlying factors can affect this relationship in a direct and indirect way?
Statistical Analysis
For this analysis, a primary data analysis procedure will be used. Independent variable will be empathy while morality will be the dependent variable. The purpose of the study will be to observe how a higher level of empathy leads to better moral values of a person. In theory, there is a wide consensus that these two are strongly associated to each and there is more like a two-way relationship between them. This statistical analysis will use a Likert scale questionnaire that will be distributed in a group of people selected through snowball sampling. These questions will be used to gauge the possibility of a person having a higher level of morality with empathy. The questions in the survey will be something like the following:
I like children.
I like to comfort a crying kid.
I feel sad when I see a person being sad.
A set of 30 questions will be used and the purpose of these questions will be to analyze the behavior of the participants and the connection between empathy and morality. After collecting the data, primary data analysis techniques will be used to research about the topic and find out the extent of relationship between the two parameters.

The method will be effective in collecting useful data and ensuring that the validity of the variables is tested before the final outcome.
Introductory
Empathy and morality are two terms that are usually used interchangeably. However, there is a significant difference between the two and the behavior of people can assist in drawing that line. Morality is the tendency to differentiate between good and bad, right and wrong and fair or unfair. This tendency allows a person to do the right thing and ensure that his behavior is ethical towards the mankind. On the other hand, empathy is the ability to feel the suffering of someone who is sad without having to be in that situation.
An empathetic person can understand what the other person is going through. It sounds irrational and impossible to several people but this empathetic behavior is something that keeps the mankind humane and connected. On the other hand, morality allows people to differentiate between right and wrong. Morality is the reason there is justice in the world and people fight against the wrong doings of others.
There is a wide consensus in the literature that empathy and morality are strong connected to each other. It is argued that a moral behavior indicates that the person is empathetic towards people in need. The way this behavior is shaped matters a lot for the social lives and facilities social groups in interacting in a positive way. Moral behaviors pave the way for justice and sensitivity which is helpful for the social, economic, psychological and sociological fabric of the world CITATION Dec15 l 1033 (Decety & Cowell, 2015).
Decety & Cowell (2014), argued that empathy and morality are connected to each other on many levels. In a social, academic, cultural and moral structures of any given community, humans form their behaviors on the basis of the behavior they get from other people. The study argues that these moral and empathetic attitudes affect humans on the developmental, behavioral and social levels. When these two traits are integrated, they complement each other and perform better.
Some believe that morality and empathy have nothing to do each other as these are two entirely different human behaviors. If a person is moral and knows what is the right thing to do, it is possible that the person does not think about the emotions and sufferings of others CITATION Tan16 l 1033 (Tanner, 2016). On the other hand, an empathetic person who cares about others might not make the right decision just because he thinks too much about others and how they feel. The idea makes sense in a theoratical and practical way because people’s behaviors can be contradictory while changing circumstances can change these tendencies as well. In one situation, a person can be empathetic while in another, he can be just moral without being empathetic CITATION Hai10 l 1033 (Haidt, 2010).
Monso (2015), narrated in his study that these two traits are not dependnt on each other and it is not necessary for a person to have one to demonstrate the other. That is because the main reason behind showing any behavioral tendency is the morivation a person has for his action. If someone has the motivation to be empathetic towards someone, he will do it without being moral. Similarly, with enough motivation, a person does not have to be empathetic towards others to do the right thing.
Most of the studies conducted in the field have used primary data to analyze the relationship between the two variables. However, there is a gap in these research studies because of the constraints on the sample size and demographics. This study will follow the same path by analyzing primary data but will broaden the sample to a wider population. Also, a pilot study will be conducted before the actual research to carve out the best sample for the analysis.
The research question of the study will be:
What is the relationship between morality and empathy?
How a higher level of one factor influences the other?
What underlying factors can affect this relationship in a direct and indirect way?
The objectives of this research will be:
To scrutinize the connection between empathy and morality.
To explore the scenarios when the connection is stronger or weaker.
To observe any underlying factors influencing this connection and how one trait reciprocates the other.
To draw a logical conclusion from the study about the sociological framework of the community and see how the theory applies to the real world.
The data used for the analysis will be collected through a questionnaire and a group of 50 participants will be involved in this process. This is to make sure that the sample is general enough that the collected results represent the rest of the population. If the sample is very narrow, the results might not be in the best position to represent the rest of the community. The study will bridge the gap between theory and reality and will bring the existing studies to the real-life scenarios. While other studies provide details on if these traits are similar or different, this study will go one step ahead and provide detail on how and why these differences are there. After the data collection, primary data analysis techniques will be used to extract results from the set using SPSS software.
References
BIBLIOGRAPHY Decety, J., & Cowell, J. (2014). Is Empathy Necessary for Moral Behavior? Perspectives on Psychological Science, 3(1), 1-20. Retrieved February 18, 2018
Decety, J., & Cowell, J. (2015). Empathy, Justice, and Moral Behavior. AJOB Neuroscience, 6(3), 3-14. Retrieved February 18, 2018
Haidt, K. (2010). Handbook of Social Psychology (1 ed., Vol. 1). New York: Wiley. Retrieved February 18, 2018
Monso, S. (2015). Empathy and Morality in Behavior Readers. Biology and Philosophy, 30(5), 671-690. Retrieved February 17, 2018
Tanner, D. (2016). Statistics for the Behavioral and Social Sciences (Vol. 1). Boston: Bridgepoint Education. Retrieved February 18, 2018