Moral foundation theory deemes that human groups have constructed moral virtues, narratives and institutions based on at least five innate psychological foundations:care, fairness, loyalty, authority and sanctity. Moral values are reflected in the degree of endorsement of each moral foundation. In the context of the COVID-19 in China, to examine the changing trend of college students' moral values, the study used a moral foundations questionnaire to survey two groups of Chinese college students before (November 26-December 7, 2017), during (February 29-April 30, 2020) and after the COVID-19 outbreak (July 14-16, 2020). The results show that college students attached more importance to both individual foundations (care and fairness) and collective foundations (loyalty, authority and sanctity) after the COVID-19 outbreak than before. When the epidemic was basically under control, the college students'overall endorsement of individual and collective foundations did not immediately fall or rise significantly. The results suggest that compared with 2017, college students' endorsement of moral foundations had increased significantly after the outbreak of the epidemic; the reasons behind it need to be further explored.

COVID-19  /  moral foundations  /  moral values  /  pathogen threat