AI Insight
This study of 1,549 Chinese university students found that empathy is associated with prosocial behavior through two distinct pathways: a stronger capability-oriented route via self-efficacy and a weaker existential-motivational route via meaning in life, specifically through searching for meaning. The parallel mediation model accounted for 37.9% of variance in prosocial behavior, with self-efficacy showing a significantly larger indirect effect than meaning in life. Both pathways operated alongside a direct relationship between empathy and prosocial behavior.
Why it matters
The findings suggest that interventions aimed at increasing prosocial behavior may benefit from addressing multiple dimensions beyond empathy training alone, including building self-efficacy and supporting meaning-making processes. However, the cross-sectional design limits causal interpretation, and prospective intervention studies are needed to validate whether combining these approaches produces meaningful improvements in prosocial engagement.
Understand the Science
ObjectiveThis study examined a parallel mediation model in which empathy was hypothesized to be associated with prosocial behavior through two theoretically distinct pathways: a capability-oriented pathway via self-efficacy and an existential-motivational pathway via meaning in life, among Chinese university students.MethodsA cross-sectional survey was conducted with 1,549 university students (M age = 19.47 years, SD = 1.05, range 18–23; 71.7% female). Participants completed validated Chinese-language measures of empathy, self-efficacy, meaning in life, and prosocial behavior. Parallel multiple mediation analysis using PROCESS Model 4, adjusting for age and gender, with bootstrap confidence intervals (5,000 resamples) was employed to examine direct and indirect associations among variables.ResultsEmpathy showed a significant positive direct association with prosocial behavior (c′ = 0.175, p < 0.001). Both self-efficacy (indirect effect = 0.192, 95% CI [0.147, 0.238]) and meaning in life (indirect effect = 0.075, 95% CI [0.044, 0.110]) showed significant positive indirect associations with prosocial behavior. A formal bootstrap contrast indicated that the self-efficacy pathway was associated with a significantly larger indirect effect than the meaning-in-life pathway (contrast = 0.117, 95% CI [0.061, 0.173]). The overall model accounted for 37.9% of variance in prosocial behavior (R2 = 0.379). A supplementary analysis decomposing meaning in life indicated that this pathway was carried specifically by search for meaning rather than presence of meaning, an exploratory finding not anticipated a priori.ConclusionThese findings are consistent with a model of prosocial motivation in which empathy is associated with prosocial behavior through both a capability-oriented (self-efficacy) and a smaller, more tentative existential-motivational (meaning in life) indirect pathway. Given the cross-sectional design, these results should be interpreted as patterns of association rather than causal mechanisms; interventions incorporating both capability-building and meaning-making components alongside empathy training may offer complementary benefits for fostering prosocial engagement, pending validation through prospective intervention research.