Empathy moderates the relationship between cognitive load and prosocial behaviour.

ABSTRACT: Cognitive load reduces both empathy and prosocial behaviour. However, studies demonstrating these effects have induced cognitive load in a temporally limited, artificial manner that fails to capture real-world cognitive load. Drawing from cognitive load theory, we investigated whether naturally occurring cognitive load from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic moderated the relationship between empathy and prosocial behaviour (operationalised as support for public health measures). This large study in an Australian sample (N = 600) identified negative relationships between pandemic fatigue, empathy for people vulnerable to COVID-19, and prosocial behaviour, and a positive relationship between empathy and prosocial behaviour. Additionally, we found that the negative effect of the pandemic on proso

SUBMITTER: Gamble RS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9841498 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature