Effects of Adolescent Empathy on Emotional Resilience: The Mediating Role of Depression and Self-Efficacy and the Moderating Effect of Social Activities.

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the role of empathy in fostering emotional resilience and the impact of social activity on adolescents' mental health. A survey was conducted on 1666 adolescents aged from 11 to 15 across seven cities in China, including Beijing, Shanghai, etc. Results: Empathy is significantly positively related to emotional resilience (β = 0.128; p < 0.001). Moreover, depression acts as a mediator between empathy and emotional resilience (ab = 0.106, SE = 0.021, 95% confidence interval [0.065, 0.146]), while self-efficacy plays an incomplete mediating role (ab = 0.286, SE = 0.020, and a 95% confidence interval of [0.246, 0.326]). Additionally, social activity was able to modulate the relationship between empathy and depression (β = 0.004; p < 0.001), as well as the relationship between empathy and self-efficacy (β = 0.003; p < 0.001). For adolescents, (1) greater emotional resilience is associated with higher levels of empathy; (2) improving empathy can indirectly enhance their emotional resilience by reducing their depression level; (3) the relationship between empathy ability and depression is modulated by social activity, and the predictive effect of empathy on depression is reduced when adolescents have high social activity levels; and (4) the relationship between empathy and self-efficacy is also modulated by social activity, and the predictive effect of empathy on self-efficacy is enhanced when adolescents have higher levels of social activity.