Who Cares about Others?: Empathic Self-Efficacy as an Antecedent to Prosocial Behavior.

Abstract

Two studies tested associations among self-efficacy and prosocial behavior. In Study 1 we measured academic self-efficacy, emotional self-efficacy and self-reported prosocial behavior. The study showed that academic but not emotional self-efficacy was positively correlated with prosocial behavior. Study 1 included only self-oriented emotions, and the absence of empathic emotions may explain the lack of association between emotional self-efficacy and prosocial behavior. In Study 2 we included empathic as well as self-oriented emotions, because previous research (C. D. Batson, 1991) has shown that empathic emotions generate altruistic helping. As expected, empathic self-efficacy had a positive association with prosocial behavior. Empathic self-efficacy appears to be an important, largely overlooked antecedent to prosocial behavior.