Association of compassion and empathy with prosocial health behaviors and attitudes in a pandemic.

ABSTRACT: This investigation examined how dispositional compassion and empathy were associated with prosocial behaviors and attitudes in the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Every two weeks from March 22 to June 15, 2020, we fielded a survey to a new cohort of adults in the U.S. Compassion related to whether one stayed home to protect others, more hours spent staying home and distancing from others, and more frequent mask wearing in public, in the past two weeks. Compassion also related to greater perceived ability to help others who were negatively affected. Empathy related to more endorsement of understanding others' fear of COVID-19, and less endorsement of the view that others were overreacting to COVID-19. There was an interaction between empathy and political ideology, suggesting that empathy may matter f

SUBMITTER: Karnaze MM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9307157 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature