The Influence Of Self-construction Of College Students On Empathy

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between the degree of empathy and the level of self-construals among college students. We explored the study from the perspective of chronic self-construal and the situational self-construal.In study one, participants consisted of 436 students enrolled in this program.The participants were administered the Interpersonal Reactivity Index, used to measure three types of empathy, and the Self-Construal Scale, used to measure independent and interdependent self-construals. The aim of study one was to investigate the influence of chronic self-construal on empathy. In study two and three, we hoped to investigate the influence of situational self-construal on empathy. The participants watched the stimulus after they had been primed in two conditions (independent self-construal priming, interdependent self-construal priming),the stimulus including the static stimulus and dynamic stimulus.The study two A, we used the picture stimulus ,in study two B ,we used the narrative stimulus and in study three ,we used the video stimulus.Participants consisted of 208 students enrolled in this program. In study two A and study three,we adopted the experiment design of 2 self-construal(independent self-construal, interdependent self-construal)*2 emotional valence(positive stimulus,negative stimulus). The attributive variable was the participants'rating of the others' feeling and their own feeling. In study two B,we adopted the experiment design of 2 self-construal (independent self-construal, interdependent self-construal)*2 emotional valence(positive stimulus,negative stimulus) *2 empathy object(empathy yourself, empathy stranger).The attributive variable was the participants' rating of the feeling when they imagined themselves or the stranger experiencing something.The results showed that: (1) In chronic self-construal aspect, the empathy levels of interdpendent selves were significantly higher than those of the indpendent selves.Besides,the empathic concern and perspective taking levels of interdpendent selves were significantly higher than those of the indpendent selves. (2) In situational self-construal aspect,in both the others' feeling and the own's feeling rating of the interdpendent selves were significantly higher than those of the indpendent selves. (3)In situational self-construal aspect, except for the others' feeling of study two A, the participants's rating scores of negative stimulus were significantly higher than those of the positvie stimulus. (4) In situational self-construal aspect, in dynamic stimulus,there was a significant interaction between self-construal and emotional valence in both the others' feeling and the own's feeling rating. with the further analysis, we found that the the empathy abilities of interdepent self-construals of college students on positive emotional were significantly higher than those of the independent self-construals.but there was no significant differences between these two groups on the negative emotional stimulus.We showed our conclusion that in both chronic and situational self-construal,the empathy levels of interdenpendent selves were significantly higher than those of the independent ones.the formers were good at considering questions from others'perspective and concerning about others' feeling. But the emotional valence may affected self-construct in some extent,when dealing with the positive emotion,the empathy levels of the interdependent students were higher than those of the independent ones.