Empathy and gratitude as indicators of pro-social behaviour among adolescents

Pages: 1594-1599
Aanshika Puri, Kritika Mohan, and Neelam Panday (Amity Institute of Psychology and Allied sciences, Amity University, Noida, Uttar Pradesh)

The young minds of today are seen to have multiple behavioural issues which weren’t so rampant in the past. Most of these problems in the daily lives of adolescents are said to be due to lack of empathetic skills and a definitive absence of being grateful for the resources they have. As psychologists, we make an attempt at enhancing empathy and gratitude among adolescents to inculcate pro-social behaviour. Empathy involves understanding, perceiving the situation from another person’s perspective and these two together are essential traits in order to comprehend pro-social behavior. Gratitude is feeling thankful of what one has and feeling optimistic about what life has offered. Pro-social behavior is a voluntary behaviour to benefit others. The main objective of this study was to under stand the effect of empathy and gratitude on pro-social behaviour among Indian adolescents. The sample for the said study had 120 adolescents within the age bracket of 15-17 years. 60 out of these belonged to a nuclear family and 60 were from joint families. The tools used were Empathy Situational Test, GQ-6 and PTM-R. Scoring and statistical analysis followed and it was found that there is a significant effect of gratitude and empathy on pro-social behaviour. The results also showed that gender had a significant difference where males scored higher than females and there was no significant difference in terms of family type as a predictor of pro-social behaviour in the current study. The study emphasizes on further work in this topic and a strong need for the counsellors in schools and parents to take part in effective utilization of resources and improving positive behaviours in children.