Relationship of altruism and empathy among rural and urban adolescents of Ludhiana district

Pages:46-51
Pooja Kaushik, Asha Chawla, and Deepika Vig (Department of Human Development and Family Studies, Punjab Agriculture University, Ludhiana, Punjab)

The present study was carried out on 240 adolescents (120 rural & 120 urban) in the age group of 16-18 years from government schools of Ludhiana District to understand relationship of altruism and empathy among rural and urban adolescents. For data collection, socio-personal information sheet, Altruism Scale (Rai & Singh, 2004) and Empathy Scale (Dubey & Tandon, 2014) were used. The results revealed that rural adolescents were highly altruistic and empathetic as compared to urban adolescents. Large proportion of the rural and urban adolescents had high level of altruism and empathy. Rural adolescents had significantly better mean scores as compared to urban adolescents at average level as well as overall altruism and empathy. Significant and positive correlation existed between altruism and empathy among rural adolescents indicating higher was the altruistic attitude, more was the empathy in adolescents.