Teen moral reasoning is oriented toward social agreements and law to achieve social orderliness and prosperity. Moral reasoning is able to guide the adolescent to have pro-social behaviour as a manifestation of social responsibility.
According to Drs. Muhammad Farid, M.Sc., lecturer of Faculty of Psychology Darul Ulum University, Jombang, the teenager who has experience as a volunteer, helping the elderly, handicapped, and sick people, has higher moral reasoning than adolescents who do not have experience as volunteers. "Whereas, by having the emotional intelligence that is rooted in the concept of social intelligence, a skill to understand and manage the underlying emotions, a teenager is able to connect in wide human relations," he said in Auditorium G-100 Faculty of Psychology Universitas Gadjah Mada on Wednesday (23/3), at his open doctoral exam of psychology science.
Emotional intelligence, according to Farid, became the foundation in building good social relations. Someone who has high emotional intelligence has more social relationships with others and a much better relationship quality. "Emotional intelligence is able to reduce negative and antisocial behavior, capable of empathy, willing to work together, and make the teenagers have an altruistic personality," he said.
In a dissertation entitled Relation among Moral Reasoning, Emotional Intelligence, Religiosity, and Authoritative Parent’s Parenting with Adolescent’s Pro-social Behavior, Farid explained that gender influences and forms the different behavior patterns. In this case, women are judged as more empathetic and able to control their emotions when dealing with other people, whereas men tend to be more physically aggressive. The men are considered to have strength when providing assistance to others when there is a risk or danger.
Therefore, from a random study of 189 male and 250 female adolescents aged 12-15 years, grade 9 in 12 junior high schools in Jombang, Farid concluded that each of the variables of moral reasoning, emotional intelligence, religiosity, and authoritative parent’s parenting is positively correlated with pro-social behavior of adolescents. The four predictors are contributing 25.30% to the social behavior of adolescents. "Forms of behavior are cooperating, helping, sharing and considering the rights and welfare of others," said Farid who passed with honours and became the 1356th doctor from UGM.