Applied evolutionary psychology in moral education: a quasi-experimental study exploring the longitudinal associations of compassion training with emotion regulation and prosocial ethical development.

INTRODUCTION: Moral education increasingly requires psychologically realistic approaches that explain how students transform moral knowledge into stable prosocial action. Drawing on applied evolutionary psychology, this longitudinal study examined whether compassion-training engagement in moral education was associated with students' emotion regulation, moral identity integration, and prosocial ethical development across one academic semester. METHODS: A total of 458 undergraduates enrolled in moral education modules in Sino-foreign cooperative university contexts completed baseline, mid-semester, and endline assessments. The intervention comprised 8 weekly sessions facilitated by trained instructors, focusing primarily on suffering awareness and action planning. A parallel mediation model was used to test whether emotion regulation and moral identity integration transmitted the association between compassion-training engagement and prosocial ethical development. RESULTS: Compassion-training engagement was positively associated with emotion regulation (β = 0.41, p < 0.001), moral identity integration (β = 0.36, p < 0.001), and prosocial ethical development (β = 0.19, p < 0.001). Both indirect paths were significant: through emotion regulation [β = 0.14, 95% CI (0.09, 0.20)] and moral identity integration [β = 0.10, 95% CI (0.06, 0.16)]. DISCUSSION: The findings suggest that compassion-training engagement may support moral education by facilitating students' shift from threat-reactive responses toward affiliative care, reflective self-regulation, and ethically consistent action.