Abstract
People's evaluation of law and morality, particularly the legal influence on helping behavior was the focus of this research. In the author's model, published in 1992, five different types of helping behavior were determined by the combination of three latent factors: evaluation of morality, evaluation of legal purpose, and evaluation of sanction. These five types were categorized as "compliant behavior with private acceptance", "compliant behavior without private acceptance", "psychological reactance", "anti-legal behavior", and "non-social behavior".
A mailing survey of 1000 registered voters was conducted in San Francisco from July to September in 1994 (response rate was 35.8%) to examine this model. The data was analyzed with LISREL and ordered probit methods. Three hypotheses were verified: (a) Helping behavior has several different genotypes, which are determined by the combinations of the three latent factors. (b) A perception of law is composed of evaluation of legal purpose and sanction. (c) Evaluation of morality and sanction are strongly correlated.
According to these results, sanction can be the main function of law with which people have substantial concern in their daily lives. Further research is now being conducted in Japan for a comparative study.
