A Study On The Relationship Among Neuroticism, Empathy And Altruistic Behavior Of College Students

With the rise of positive psychology,researchers began to focus on the advantages of human nature.Under the influence of this positive research perspective,this study intends to explore the adaptive value of neuroticism as a personality trait.Neuroticism is an important dimension of the big five personality,which reflects the individual's emotional stability.Previous studies have shown that neuroticism has negative effects on individuals' psychology and behavior,and there is no discussion on their personality adaptability.Studies have confirmed that there is a positive correlation between neuroticism and empathy,that is,individuals with high neuroticism are more capable of perceiving the emotions of others.Meanwhile,empathy is a strong predictor of altruistic behavior,which can be specifically divided into trait empathy and state empathy.This leads to the question:does neuroticism positively predict altruistic behavior? How does empathy work in between? According to the existing literature,there are few studies on the effects of trait empathy and state empathy on altruistic behavior combined with neurotic personality characteristics.In this paper,the effects of neurotic personality,trait empathy and state empathy on altruistic behavior/tendency of college students were investigated by questionnaire and experiment.The first study investigated the relationship and current situation of college students' neurotic personality,trait empathy and altruistic behavior,and the second study explored the influence of neurotic personality and state empathy on altruistic behavior in college students.The main conclusions are as follows:(1)college students' neurotic personality,trait empathy and altruistic behavior have some differences in gender,grade,major and whether they are student cadres;(2)there is a correlation between neurotic personality,trait empathy and altruistic behavior of college students.Among them,neuroticism is negatively correlated with altruistic behavior,trait empathy is positively correlated with altruistic behavior,and neuroticism is positively correlated with trait empathy;(3)gender differences exist in the regulation of trait empathy on the relationship between neurotic personality and altruistic behavior in college students,the individual pain dimension of trait empathy plays a regulating role in the influence of neuroticism onaltruistic behavior;(4)state empathy can improve the individual's altruistic behavior tendency;(5)there is an interaction between neurotic personality and state empathy.In the high neurotic group,the willingness to help was significantly higher in the empathy priming group than in the empathy control group,while in the low neurotic group,the priming level of state empathy had no significant influence on the willingness to help.