Empathy and Motivation to Control Prejudiced Behaviour among College Students

Abstract

This study was conducted on college students in India and its main objective was to find a relationship between Empathy and Motivation to Control Prejudiced Behaviour. The study also evaluated the gender differences in the study between males and females. The study was conducted on 122 students, out of which, 49.2% were female, 41% males, and 9.8% trans/non-binary. The tools used in this study was The Basic Empathy Scale in Adults (BES-A), by Jolliffe & Farrington, 2006, and Measure of Motivation to Control Prejudiced Behavior, by Dunton, B. C., & Fazio, R. H. (1997), and the tests were administered through online questionnaires. Most of the participants belonged to urban and semi-urban regions and came from middle-income groups. The results of the study found that there was a significant relationship between empathy and motivation to control prejudice. The study also showed that there was a gender difference in empathy and motivation to control prejudice as females were more empathetic and had higher motivation to control prejudice as opposed to their male counterparts. Trans/non-binary student data were excluded from this study. There were challenges faced while selecting an appropriate tool for this study as it hasn’t been studied in the Indian context as much. The study implied that females were more empathetic and less likely to engage in prejudiced behaviors when compared to their male counterparts. Overall, the study was a great learning experience in the understanding of how an individual’s emotional skill can be related to a negative social cognition in society.