Cultivate adolescent empathy and perceived social support to promote prosocial behavior¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · 5 claims (5 for) · 1 study (1 associational), q3 · 1 of 1 report an effect size · 5 claims rest on one study

Description¶

The article's practical implication is that education should focus on "cultivating the empathy ability of children and adolescents, especially for adolescents learning in boarding schools", using stories and learning content from Chinese culture, while school administrators strengthen the school's support system so students feel a positive psychological atmosphere. The strategy pairs empathy cultivation with building peer and teacher support environments.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• School administrators and teachers able to select culturally grounded empathy content and build support systems

Constraints¶

• The supporting evidence is cross-sectional self-report data from one province, so causal effectiveness of the strategy is not established by this study

Target Learners¶

• Chinese adolescents, especially boarding-school students

Target Learning Goals¶

• Social competence and prosocial behavior

Claims¶

• Adolescents' empathy is significantly positively correlated with prosocial behavior (r = 0.333) [+W]
• Adolescents' empathy is significantly positively correlated with social support (r = 0.164) [+W]
• Social support partially mediates the relationship between empathy and prosocial behavior [+W]
• Social support is significantly positively correlated with adolescents' prosocial behavior (r = 0.206) [+W]
• Only the subjective (perceived) support dimension of social support mediates empathy and prosocial behavior [+W]

Related Strategies¶

Examples¶

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Key Sources¶

• Fu W, Wang C, Chai H, Xue R. (2022). Examining the relationship of empathy, social support, and prosocial behavior of adolescents in China: a structural equation modeling approach. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01296-0