Abstract: The expansion and popularization of higher education aggravates academic competition and anxiety, accordingly produces an impact on people's character and temperament. Individuals face the trend and risk of "atomization", therefore how to cultivate students' social personality, making them integrate their own development into social traditions, customs and rituals to establish a harmonious relationship with others and the collective, has become an important topic of higher education. Based on Durkheim's discourse on moral education, the outdoor association Mountaineering Association of Peking University (MAPKU) is taken as an example to analyze the role of sports associations in cultivating social personality. It is believed that in the practice of MAPKU, the spirit of discipline has shaped the identity of the collective and individual; the attachment to the group has been formed in the common life experience. As a natural education, rock climbing and mountaineering make people become independent with internal firmness. The cultivation of social personality faces conflicts between nature and society, reality and ideals. The root cause is the lack of sacredness in secular life, which should be brought it back to human secular life through educational activities and collective life.