The Relationship Between Empathy And Online Altruism Among High School Students: The Mediating Role Of Interpersonal Trust

Network altruistic behavior is a kind of autonomous behavior that individuals show in the network environment with the help of network media for the purpose of benefiting others,do not expect any form of return,and may lose a certain amount of time,material and energy.But after the behavior,individuals who implement network altruistic behavior often have a sense of achievement and pleasure.Network altruistic behavior is a kind of projection of real behavior.The study of network altruistic behavior is helpful to purify the network environment and help to establish harmonious interpersonal relationship.Empathy is an emotional ability to place oneself in others.Interpersonal trust is a kind of generalized expectation established by the individual in the process of interpersonal communication to other people's words,oral or written commitment,which will affect the individual's behavior to others.Interpersonal trust and empathy,as important variables in interpersonal communication,are positively correlated with network altruism.This paper discussed the relationship between the two variables and the altruism in network situation.This paper aims to explore the relationship among empathy,interpersonal trust and network altruism of senior high school students,and explore the mediating role of interpersonal trust in empathy and network altruism.In the first study,30 participants were selected and divided into empathy-induced combination control groups to test the effectiveness of empathy-induced operation and the relationship between empathy and network altruistic behavior.The second study introduced the variable of interpersonal trust based on the first study,and selected 269 middle school students in Nanjing as the participants through a questionnaire survey,using the "Empathy Response Scale",the "Interpersonal Trust Scale",and the "Network Altruistic Behavior of College Students Scale" was tested and the three-part relationship model was established.The results are as follows:(1)Comic materials could effectively arouse the subjects' empathy.Empathy was significantly related to network altruistic behaviors.Empathy could significantly predicted the occurrence of individual network altruistic behaviors.The subjects with high empathy level were more likely to have network altruism.(2)The level of interpersonal trust was positively correlated with online altruistic behavior.Individuals with higher levels of interpersonal trust were more likely to trust others,and when empathy is aroused,they were more likely to have online altruistic behavior.(3)In empathy-induced situations,interpersonal trust played a mediating role between empathy and network altruistic behavior.Although empathy was positively related to network altruistic behavior,it was not the only factor that directly affects network altruistic behavior,because individuals with a higher level of interpersonal trust were more likely to believe in others and when empathy is aroused,they were more prone to network altruistic behavior.