Effect of adolescents’ cognitive and emotional empathy and altruistic behavior on psychological well-being

Abstract

Objectives: This study sought to determine the mediating effect of altruism behavior in the relationship between cognitive and emotional empathy of adolescents affecting psychological well-being. In order to improve adolescents’ psychological well-being, which is a time when they experience rapid changes emotionally and physically, useful information on factors that affect psychological well-being can be provided.Methods: The subjects of the study were 282 teenagers aged 16 to 18 living across the country (136 men and 146 women) through online survey companies. Adolescents responded to questions on empathy, altruism, and psychological well-being. The collected data used Pearson's right-rate correlation analysis and structural equation models using SPSS 22.0 and AMOS 23.0 programs. After that, the statistical significance of the mediating effect was confirmed using the direct and indirect effect verification and bootstrapping method between variables.Results: The main findings are as follows. First, analysis of the correlation between research variables revealed a static correlation between emotional empathy and altruism behavior, altruism behavior and cognitive empathy, and psychological well-being and altruism. Next, as a result of examining the structural path between research variables, cognitive empathy and emotional empathy showed a significant correlation with altruistic behavior, and altruistic behavior showed a significant correlation with psychological wellbeing. Finally, cognitive empathy and emotional empathy influenced psychological well-being through altruistic behavior.Conclusion: Adolescents’ cognitive and emotional empathy affect psychological well-being through altruistic behavior. These results indicate that both cognitive and emotional empathy are not only helpful to others, but also play an important role in one’s own psychological adaptation and well-being. Adolescents not only express sympathy and empathy, but also pay attention to others’ feelings, which can become a factor that can actually lead to actions for others; furthermore, such actions can improve the happiness of individual adolescents. These findings revealed efforts to understand and sympathize with others is meaningful to enhance the happiness of ordinary adolescents in public education sites where competition is overheated, and happiness is reduced.