The Relationship Between Interpersonal Independence And Emotional Empathy:the Mediating Effects Of Social Exclusion

Empathy helps individuals better understand and predict others" mood and behavior, so it plays a very important role in interpersonal communication. Many factors can influence empathy, among them, personality is considered to be an important factor affecting empathy.Reviewing the studies of personality and empathy, we find that neuroticism, as negative personality traits, in some studies can positively predict empathy and in some studies can negatively predict empathy,but in other studies can’t predict empathy.This results suggest that the relationship between personality and empathy is complex and deserves further research. Interpersonal independence refers to the tendency and ability to deal with interpersonal activities orproblems independently, and it is similar to neuroticism, so our study focus on the relationship between interpersonal independence and empathy. In addition to personality,past experience is also considered to be the important factors affecting empathy, however, the relationship between past experience and empathy will be affected by different understandings and feelings of the same experience.Because that individual’understandings and feelings of the same experience is closely related to individual’personality, past experience and personality together may be better predict empathy. The study hypothesize that (1) interpersonal independent traits can negatively predict personal distress after controlling neuroticism, (2)after controlling neuroticism, interpersonal independent traits and whether experienced social exclusion can jointly affect the level of individual" personal distress when they watch others confronted with social exclusion, (3) after controlling neuroticism, interpersonal independent traits and whether experienced social exclusion can jointly affect the level of individual’emotional empathy when they watch others confronted with social exclusion.This research includes three studies, In study 1, the Interpersonal Self-Support Scale (ISSS), the Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) and the Interpersonal Reactivity Index(IRI)were administered to 1366studentsrecruited from six universities. In study 2,Participants were asked to play a ball game online firstly, then watch others play thesame game (player in the game only is included in the beginning 10 throws), finally do a set questionnaire measuring state-personal distress.Subjects assigned to the experimental group was excluded for the entire round after being included for only 10 throws, and the other subjects assigned to the control groupwas included equally.The procedure of study 3 is similar to study 2.The results of sthudyl reveal that interpersonal independent traits can negatively predict personal distress after controlling neuroticism and gender (β=-0.22, p< 0.001,R2=0.41).In study2, analysis of variance shows that the interactional effect of interpersonal independence and experimental conditions is significant (F (1,65)= 8.72, p<.01). Further simple effect analysis shows that in the control group, the difference between high score group and low score group is not significant (F (1.65)=.77. p>.05), but in the experimental group, the difference between high score group and low score group is significant (F (1,65)= 10.80, p< 0.01). In study3, analysis of variance shows that the interactional effect of interpersonal independence and experimental conditions is significantly (F (1,64)=5.21, p<.05). Further simple effect analysis shows that in the control group, the difference between high score group and low score group is not significant(F(1,64)=.57, p>.05), but in the experimental group, the difference between high score group and low score group issignificant (F (1,64)=6.54, p<0.05)This conclusions as follows:(1) Though it is similar to neuroticism,interpersonal independencehas its unique composition.(2) Personal distress is a part of emotional empathy.(3)Interpersonal independence could predict individual’personal distresswhen they face the misfortunes of others.(4) Past experience can modulate the relationship berween interpersonal independence and personal distress, past experience also can modulate the relationship berween interpersonal independence and emotional empathy.