Publication: Moral traits, crime knowledge, and willingness to help victims amongst generation Z in Malaysia
Date
2026-01
Authors
Zolman, Zarifah Zafirah Md
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Abstract
This study examines the relationship between moral traits, crime perception, and willingness to assist crime victims among Generation Z in Malaysia. A quantitative cross-sectional approach was adopted, involving 235 Malaysian Gen Z respondents aged between 19 and 28 years who completed a self-administered online questionnaire disseminated through social media platforms. Differences in crime severity rankings across age and residency categories were analysed using Kruskal– Wallis and Mann–Whitney U tests, while Pearson correlation and multiple regression analyses were employed to assess the relationships among moral traits, crime perception, and willingness to help victims. The results revealed that perceptions of most crime types were largely consistent across groups, with statistically significant differences identified only for murder, incest, defamation, and robbery across age categories, and for receiving stolen property between urban and suburban respondents. A moderate positive association was observed between moral traits and willingness to assist crime victims. Furthermore, regression findings demonstrated that moral traits emerged as the primary predictor of helping behaviour, whereas crime perception did not show a significant predictive effect. These findings indicate that helping intentions among Gen Z are shaped more strongly by internal moral capacity than by evaluations of crime severity, underscoring the importance of fostering moral development and personal responsibility in crime prevention and victim support programmes
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