Interplay between Empathy and Pro-Social Behavior among Undergraduate University Students

Abstract

This quantitative study examined the interplay between empathy and prosocial behavior among undergraduate university students. A sample of (N=220) undergraduates from 11 public and private universities of Punjab, Pakistan participated through the online survey. These undergraduate students (ages between 18 to 25 years), were chosen from diverse academic disciplines of selected universities. Prosocial behavior was measured using the Prosocial Behavior Scale (Caprara et al., 2005), and Toronto Empathy Questionnaire (Spreng et al., 2009) was utilized to measure empathy. The study employed convenience sampling technique and utilized SPSS (version 25) for data analysis. Results indicated a significant positive correlation (r =.453**) between prosocial behavior and empathy among undergraduate university students, which means that higher empathy will aid escalation in prosocial behavior. Furthermore, significant gender difference (p=.002**) was found in the level of empathy, female students exhibited higher level of empathy as compared to male students. Conversely, no gender difference was found in the level of pro-social behaviors. moreover, students belonging to the urban areas showed significantly greater level (p=.001**) of pro-social behavior as compared to rural student, while the insignificant difference was seen regarding level of empathy among urban and rural students. These findings will contribute to induce the empathy and pro-social behaviors to create a sustainable society.