The Influence Of Empathy On The Prosocial Behavior Of Interpersonal Sensitive Individuals

High interpersonal sensitivity is a personality trait that is "overly aware and sensitive to the emotions and behaviors of others." And Individuals with high interpersonal sensitivity will engage in more prosocial behaviors with egoistic motivations.But individuals with high interpersonal sensitivity are overly sensitive to other people’s emotions.The empathic altruism hypothesis proposes that the changes in the individual’s own emotions in the process of empathy for others will make the individual spontaneously help others.So when people with high interpersonal sensitivity encounter someone in difficult situations,do they experience greater empathy for them?Do individuals with high interpersonal sensitivity help others with altruistic motives?This study will explore the influence of empathy on the prosocial behavior of interpersonal sensitive individuals.The participants of this study were all college students from a university in Wuhan.Interpersonal sensitivity,trait empathy,and subjective prosocial propensity were measured using a questionnaire in Study 1.In study 2,about 61 high(28 men,33 women)subjects and 60 low(29men,31 women)interpersonal sensitivity individuals participants were randomly recruited from study 1.The participants were randomly divided into state empathy control group and state empathy induction group.The two groups read state empathy materials according to different reading instructions.In order to test whether the manipulation of state empathy is effective,after reading the materials,the participants need to fill in the state empathy measurement scale and operation test questionnaire.After filling out the questionnaire,the charity donation task was carried out immediately,and the willingness and amount of donation were recorded.After the above tasks were completed,the implicit prosocial behavior test was carried out on the computer.The results show that,(1)Interpersonal sensitivity is positively correlated with trait empathy.Both interpersonal sensitivity and trait empathy positively predicted the subjective prosocial tendency.Trait empathy mediated the relationship between interpersonal sensitivity and subjective prosocial tendency.(2)State empathy affects the objective prosocial behavior of individuals with different interpersonal sensitivity.The induction of state empathy promotes the high interpersonal sensitivity individuals to show a higher level of prosocial behavior.In the low interpersonal sensitivity group,the manipulation of state empathy has no significant effect on the prosocial behavior.(3)There is no significant difference in the implicit prosocial behavior of individuals with different interpersonal sensitivity.State empathy does not affect individuals’implicit prosocial behavior.