Abstract
This study examined the relationship between emotional intelligence (EI) and prosocial behavior (PSB) and constructed a model for their interaction by examining the mediating effect of social support (SS) and the moderating effect of self-esteem (SE) in this relationship. A total of 742 college students aged from 18 to 20 in Northeast China (Mage =19.42 ± 0.53 years) completed a survey measuring the Emotional Intelligence Scale, Prosocial Tendencies Measurement Scale—Chinese Version, Perceived Social Support Scale, and Self-Esteem Scale. The results showed that: (1) EI positively predicted PSB; (2) SS partially mediated the relationship between EI and PSB; and (3) SE moderated the direct effect of EI on PSB and the relationship between SS and PSB. That is, when the SE of college students was higher, the effect of SS in promoting PSB was enhanced. Therefore, our results suggested that under the influence of both internal and external factors, there is an indirect effect of EI on PSB. This finding may potentially provide a theoretical basis for designing college students' mental health courses and cultivating PSB in college.
Highlights
Prosocial behavior (PSB) refers to all behaviors that are favorable to others and conducive to social harmony, such as helping, cooperating, sharing, and comforting (Eisenberg et al, 2006)
The result of Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) showed a total of 16 factors with eigenvalues greater than one, and the first factor to explain the variance accounted for 19.17%, which was less than
The results of this study showed that social support (SS) is significantly positively correlated with PSB, indicating that the more SS college students receive, the more obvious their tendency to engage in PSB is, as suggested by previous studies (Tian et al, 2016; Wouter et al, 2018; Li et al, 2019)
Summary
Prosocial behavior (PSB) refers to all behaviors that are favorable to others and conducive to social harmony, such as helping, cooperating, sharing, and comforting (Eisenberg et al, 2006). PSB can promote positive social adaptation, which is an important indicator of individual socialization development; for society, PSB can help people maintain a good relationship with each other, which is conducive to justice, harmony, and the development of the entire society (Penner et al, 2005; Wittek and Bekkers, 2015; Ding and Lu, 2016; Ding et al, 2016). Some results showed that college students are lack a sense of security in real life, far away from social groups, self-centered and lack a sense of responsibility for PSB. When they faced situations requiring helps, they are willing to have PSB but the duration is relatively short (Xia and Li, 2016; Xiu, 2018).
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