The effects and mechanism of dispositional empathy and victim identifiability on college students’ pro-social behavior

Journal of Psychological Science ›› 2015, Vol. 38 ›› Issue (4) : 870-875.

PDF(455 KB)
PDF(455 KB)
Journal of Psychological Science ›› 2015, Vol. 38 ›› Issue (4) : 870-875.

The effects and mechanism of dispositional empathy and victim identifiability on college students’ pro-social behavior

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Abstract

Pro-social behaviors are the important contents for college students to cultivate and practice the socialist core values. Previous studies have found that identified victims will increase people’s pro-social behaviors,researchers named this phenomenon as the identifiable victim effect. In other words,the identifiability of victim is an important factor affecting people’s pro-social behaviors,while previous research on the effects of the victims on pro-social behaviors were taken mainly in the western individualistic culture background,but in our more collectivist and interdependent cultural background,the existence of this phenomenon has not confirmed through the empirical research. Based upon,this study explored whether there’re still exists identifiable victim effect and potential psychological mechanism in China,which donations behaviors of college students was the indicators of pro-social behavior. Our study randomly chosen 83 college students from 2 universities in Beijing,adopting Dispositional Empathy Scale and Empathy Response Adjective Scale to measure subject’s dispositional empathy and empathy response,and also using audio and picture materials to operate the level of identifiability of victim,to investigate the interactive effects of the college student’s dispositional empathy and victim’s identifiability on their willingness of donation and the potential psychological mechanism. Specific research procedures included:firstly,a professionally trained graduate student of psychology instructed participants completed Dispositional Empathy Scale. Secondly,after the completion of Dispositional Empathy Scale,the college students would be randomly divided into two groups,and then respectively listened to and read the materials of the identifiable and unidentifiable victim conditions. Once again,after listening to and reading the materials,the college students were asked to evaluate their emotional reactions. Finally, the experimenter let the participants to assess their willingness of donation on a 7-point score. The results shows that:(1)the identifiability of victims affected pro-social behaviors of college students,that is,under our collectivist cultural backgrounds,identifiable victim effect still existed;(2) for the students with low level of empathic tendency,the victim’s identifiability could not influence their willingness of donation,while for those students with high level of empathic tendency,the willingness of donation under the identifiable victim conditions was significantly higher than that under the unidentifiable victim conditions. (3) Mediating effect analysis showed that the identifiability of victim can increase the level of sympathy the college students with high level of empathic tendency,which could predict their willingness of donation. The innovation of our study had mainly two points. Firstly,culture is an important factor affecting the social behaviors of individuals,previous research on identifiable victim effect mainly concentrated in the western cultural context,but in our more collectivist and interdependent cultural background,few studies have examined this issue. Secondly,previous studies investigated the effect of victim’s identifiability on individual empathic response,but have not directly investigated its mediating effects,this study directly discussed the empathic response as the mediating process between dispositional empathy and pro-social behaviors.

Key words

victim identifiability / dispositional empathy / empathy response / pro-social behaviors

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The effects and mechanism of dispositional empathy and victim identifiability on college students’ pro-social behavior[J]. Journal of Psychological Science. 2015, 38(4): 870-875
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