Abstract
The objective of the present study was to investigate the role of caring thinking on the degree of prosocial behaviors of the students. It was applicative with quantitative approach and descriptive-correlational in case of administration. The statistical population was all undergraduate students (5282) in the University of Kashan in 2022-23. This study was conducted via stratified random sampling method proportional to the sample size. Two questionnaires including caring thinking by Hedayati (2018) and prosocial tendencies by Carlo et al. (2003) have been used. According to the findings, caring thinking and its components (valuative, affective, active, empathetic and normative) have positive significant effect )0/643) on the degree of prosocial behaviors (altruistic, complant, emotional, critical and anonymous) of the students and affective thinking had the highest correlation, (0/460) valuative thinking had the lowest correlation (0/373) and active (0/422), empathetic (0/418) and normative thinking (0/374) were in the middle. Valuative thinking, as one of the components of caring thinking, had the highest average and active thinking, too, had the lowest average and altruistic prosocial behaviors had the highest average and emotional prosocial behaviors had the lowest average among different kinds of prosocial behaviors. As a result, caring thinking and its components should be reinforced instead of forcing people to show prosocial behaviors and avoiding them to show antisocial behaviors.
Keywords: caring thinking, prosocial behaviors, antisocial behaviors, students, university.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Introduction
Caring thinking originates from our emotions and feelings and is formed in the framework of the individual's values, beliefs and personal feelings; it is the foundation of human's judgments and every person's value system influences his/her decision makings, choices and judgments; since it is attempted in every judgment to find an appropriate explanation for the one or the others' attention to the affairs and to state more standard and meticulous judgements through giving value to it. Therefore, caring thinking is a kind of faith and belief in values and addresses the values hidden in all affairs and emphasizes the reason of one's affairs, the effect of these values on the human's decisions and moral judgments (Hedayati, 2019). Therefore, caring thinking which means thinking morally depends on humanistic relationships and it has provided an environment for the growth in order for every human to acquire social competencies as an active member in the society and show more prosocial behaviors in communication with the self and the others and downplays the emergence of many undesirable behaviors. Therefore, the main objective of the present study was to investigate the role of caring thinking on the degree of prosocial behaviors of the students in the University of Kashan.
 
Materials & Methods
It was applicative with quantitative approach in case of purpose and descriptive-correlational in case of administration. The statistical population was all undergraduate students in the University of Kashan in 2022-23. Morgan table was used to determine the sample size. Total number of statistical population was estimated 5282, So according to the morgan table, total number of statistical population was estimated 361. The present study was conducted via stratified random sampling method proportional to the sample size (according to the students in every faculty and based on gender). Two questionnaires including caring thinking by Hedayati (2018) and prosocial tendencies scale by Carlo et al. (2003) have been used to evaluate caring thinking and prosocial behaviors. In addition, content and construct validity methods were used in order to investigate the validity of the questionnaires and so was Cronbach's alpha coefficient to investigate the reliability. The results of the collected data were revealed in the form of descriptive and inferential statistics via SPSS₂₂ and AMOS₂₂ software.
 
Discussion & Result:
The findings show that in examining the aspects of prosocial behaviors, philanthropic behaviors have the highest factor load and emotional behaviors enjoy the lowest factor load and in examining caring thinking, the aspect of empathic thinking has the highest factor load and after that active thinking has the lowest factor load. And according to the standard regression coefficients achieved in the model, the coefficient of the effect of caring thinking on the prosocial behaviors equals 0.643. So, according to the findings of the study, caring thinking and its components have positive significant effect on the degree of prosocial behaviors of the students in the university of Kashan, while the effect of different kinds of caring thinking was not the same on the students' prosocial behaviors in a way that the highest degree of correlation related to the affective thinking with the effect coefficient of )0.460( and the lowest correlation was related to the valuative thinking with the effect coefficient of )0.373( and active, empathetic and normative thinking were in the middle with the effect coefficients of 0.422, 0.48 and 0.374 respectively. Valuative thinking, as one of the components of caring thinking, had the highest average with )20.83(and active thinking, too, had the lowest average (19.28) and altruistic prosocial behaviors had the highest average (28.55) and emotional prosocial behaviors had the lowest average (10.17) among different kinds of prosocial behaviors. 
 
Conclusion
It is necessary for every society to decrease its undesirable behaviors for its survival and pave the way for the opportunities to promote motivational orientation of prosocial behaviors among its members. Hence, caring will bring about a valuative system for the individual and helps him/her judge more conscientiously and attentively and makes people pay more attention to moral behaviors through increasing moral attention and attending to the outcomes of moral behaviors and the effects of each person's behavior on the others. As a result, caring thinking and its components should be reinforced instead of forcing people to show prosocial behaviors and avoiding them to show antisocial behaviors in order for people to be inclined to show prosocial behaviors without any force. Therefore, many antisocial and undesirable behaviors will decrease and the motivation to emerge prosocial behaviors will be reinforced in the people and it paves the way for the perfection-seeking in the people and society and the emergence of desirable behaviors. Therefore, nurturing caring thinking and its components can be an efficient approach to persuade people to show positive and acceptable behaviors.