THE ROLE OF MORAL SELF-AWARENESS IN ADOLESCENT PREVENTIVE HEALTH BEHAVIOR
Keywords:
Keywords: moral self-awareness, adolescence, preventive health behavior, moral identity, self-regulation, health responsibility.Abstract
Abstract: Adolescence is a developmental period in which young people gradually become more responsible for decisions that affect their own health. Choices related to nutrition, physical activity, sleep, substance use, personal safety, hygiene, and help-seeking are increasingly made outside direct parental supervision. At the same time, adolescents begin to think more deeply about personal values, responsibility, identity, and the consequences of their actions. This article considers moral self-awareness as a possible psychological factor in preventive health behavior. Moral self-awareness is understood as the adolescent’s capacity to recognize and evaluate personal values, motives, emotions, and behavior in relation to internal moral standards. Drawing on the works of Uchqun Mamanazarov on adolescent moral self-awareness and international research on moral identity and self-regulation, the article proposes that moral self-awareness may influence health-related behavior through responsibility, reflection, future-oriented thinking, and behavioral self-regulation. Existing research does not yet provide sufficient evidence to claim a direct causal relationship between moral self-awareness and preventive health behavior. Therefore, the article presents this relationship as a theoretically grounded model that requires further empirical testing.
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