The Impact of Social Identity and Empathy on Helping Behavior: The Moderator Role of Empathy

Abstract

Social identity, empathy and helping behavior are some of the most interesting topics in psychology. It is the volunteer behavior which is shown to meet the needs of an individual is called helping behavior. Also empathy, which is one of the best predictors of prosocial behaviors, is that the individual expresses this situation by understanding feelings and thoughts. Aim of this studies are to examine the relationship between social identity, empathy and helping behavior. The sample group of the study consisted of university students in Bolu Abant Izzet Baysal University. In an experimental study, social identity manipulation was carried out in two different ways: Turkish and Syrian group. In order to measure the empathy scores of the participants, Basic Empathy Scale (TEO) was used. In the first study, the helping behavior was measured by the Help Text prepared by the researchers; in the second study, the participants were given the participant fee and the helping behaviors were measured by asking the amount of financial aid if they would give to UNICEF. When the findings were examined, only the helping behavior differed from the group according to the social identity in the first study, while in the second study that the helping behavior and empathy scores of the participants differed significantly between the groups. In addition, in both studies, empathy had a moderator role in the impact of social identity on helping behavior. lt is adviced that research design can be tested with other samples.

Key Words: Social identity, empathy, helping behavior, prosocial behavior.

DOI: 10.7176/JSTR/5-12-35