A Study On The Relationship Between Perceived Social Support, General Self-efficacy, Empathy, And Prosocial Behavior In Middle School Students

Prosocial behavior refers to any behavior that meets social expectations and benefits others and society,which plays an important role in promoting individual physical and mental health,interpersonal adaptation,and promoting the harmonious development of society.Adolescence is a very important period of life,and a critical period for the formation of high-level moral emotions,moral principles and moral values.The prosocial behavior of adolescents is an important measure of their moral development level,and the cultivation of their prosocial behavior habits and prosocial personalities is an important part of moral education.Through literature review,it can be seen that perceived social support,general self-efficacy,empathy and prosocial behavior are closely related to each other,but few studies have explored the relationship and mechanism of all the four variables.In light of the shortcomings of the previous studies,this research adopted the Child and Adolescent Social Support Scale,the General Self-Efficacy Scale,the Basic Empathy Scale and the Prosocial Tendencies Measure to conduct an in-depth study on the relationship among perceived social support,general selfefficacy,empathy and prosocial behavior with a sample of 324 students in Grades 7 through 12 from two schools in Beijing.The main conclusions are as follows:(1)Perceived social support,general self-efficacy and empathy positively predicted adolescents' prosocial tendencies.Perceived social support was the strongest predictor and then empathy.The general self-efficacy was the weakest one.(2)Empathy had direct,positive effects and indirect,positive effects on adolescents' prosocial tendencies.Perceived social support played a part mediating role between empathy and adolescents' prosocial tendencies.(3)General self-efficacy hadn' t direct effects on adolescents' prosocial tendencies.Its effects was fully mediated by perceived social support.(4)Affective empathy played a moderating role between perceived social support and adolescents' prosocial tendencies.In conclusion,results of this study indicate that both perceived social support and empathy are good predictors,which can affect prosocial tendencies of middle and high school students directly and indirectly.Therefore,it is feasible to foster adolescents' prosociality by enhancing their perceived social support and empathy.