Study On The Impact Of Empathy And Motivation On The Helping Behavior

Scale survey and lab experiment were used in this study to investigate the positive and negative effects of helping behavior induced by empathy and/or motivation, and the interact effects of the empathy and helping motivation on it. The study found that:(1) empathy is helpful for positive and negative effect of helping behavior, helping behavior affects people with high empathic ability positively significantly; (2) motivation to help others is one of the factors leads to helping behavior, effects of helping behavior induced by medium intensity of motivation is most useful for recipients, while high-intensity helping motivation is much more likely to inspire the positive effects for helpers; (3) empathy and motivation to help others evoke the positive effects of helping behavior and/or the negative effect significantly together. These findings indicate that the negative effect of helping behavior affects both the recipients and the helpers, empathy is not a determinant factor of helping behavior, and motivation to help others as well as empathy also affects it. The study has its meaning in both theory and practice.