Can Empathy Help Individuals and Society? Through the Lens of Volunteering and Mental Health

(1) Background: Empathy affects an individual’s decision to participate in volunteering, and volunteering, in turn, influences mental health. Intriguingly, studies have been limited in exploring underlying mechanisms and boundary conditions for the relationship between empathy and mental health. Fur...

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Autores principales:	Yang Woon Chung, Seunghee Im, Jung Eun Kim
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	MDPI AG 2021
Materias:	mental health volunteering cognitive empathy affective empathy gender Medicine R
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/4fd50bf5241b4206b415ba9c580650f0
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:4fd50bf5241b4206b415ba9c580650f02021-11-25T17:43:32ZCan Empathy Help Individuals and Society? Through the Lens of Volunteering and Mental Health10.3390/healthcare91114062227-9032https://doaj.org/article/4fd50bf5241b4206b415ba9c580650f02021-10-01T00:00:00Zhttps://www.mdpi.com/2227-9032/9/11/1406https://doaj.org/toc/2227-9032(1) Background: Empathy affects an individual’s decision to participate in volunteering, and volunteering, in turn, influences mental health. Intriguingly, studies have been limited in exploring underlying mechanisms and boundary conditions for the relationship between empathy and mental health. Furthermore, volunteering studies have overlooked the multi-dimensionality of empathy. Therefore, this study seeks to contribute to extant literature by investigating the mediating effect of volunteering for the relationships between cognitive and affective empathy and mental health and the moderating effect of gender for the relationship between empathy and volunteering. (2) Methods; Data were collected using a survey in South Korea and consisted of 301 full-time employees who voluntarily engaged in their corporate volunteer programs. Furthermore, they voluntarily participated in the study. The hypotheses were tested with path analysis and a group comparison was also conducted. (3) Results: Volunteering was found to mediate the relationships between cognitive empathy and affective empathy with mental health. In addition, gender moderated the relationship between empathy and volunteering. (4) Conclusions: As the study found empathy to increase individuals’ engaging in volunteering activities which then improved mental health, the study supports extant theoretical frameworks on empathy and volunteering. Moreover, the study found gender differences on empathy and volunteering; thereby supporting and contributing to extant literature.Yang Woon ChungSeunghee ImJung Eun KimMDPI AGarticlemental healthvolunteeringcognitive empathyaffective empathygenderMedicineRENHealthcare, Vol 9, Iss 1406, p 1406 (2021)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	mental health volunteering cognitive empathy affective empathy gender Medicine R
spellingShingle	mental health volunteering cognitive empathy affective empathy gender Medicine R Yang Woon Chung Seunghee Im Jung Eun Kim Can Empathy Help Individuals and Society? Through the Lens of Volunteering and Mental Health
description	(1) Background: Empathy affects an individual’s decision to participate in volunteering, and volunteering, in turn, influences mental health. Intriguingly, studies have been limited in exploring underlying mechanisms and boundary conditions for the relationship between empathy and mental health. Furthermore, volunteering studies have overlooked the multi-dimensionality of empathy. Therefore, this study seeks to contribute to extant literature by investigating the mediating effect of volunteering for the relationships between cognitive and affective empathy and mental health and the moderating effect of gender for the relationship between empathy and volunteering. (2) Methods; Data were collected using a survey in South Korea and consisted of 301 full-time employees who voluntarily engaged in their corporate volunteer programs. Furthermore, they voluntarily participated in the study. The hypotheses were tested with path analysis and a group comparison was also conducted. (3) Results: Volunteering was found to mediate the relationships between cognitive empathy and affective empathy with mental health. In addition, gender moderated the relationship between empathy and volunteering. (4) Conclusions: As the study found empathy to increase individuals’ engaging in volunteering activities which then improved mental health, the study supports extant theoretical frameworks on empathy and volunteering. Moreover, the study found gender differences on empathy and volunteering; thereby supporting and contributing to extant literature.
format	article
author	Yang Woon Chung Seunghee Im Jung Eun Kim
author_facet	Yang Woon Chung Seunghee Im Jung Eun Kim
author_sort	Yang Woon Chung
title	Can Empathy Help Individuals and Society? Through the Lens of Volunteering and Mental Health
title_short	Can Empathy Help Individuals and Society? Through the Lens of Volunteering and Mental Health
title_full	Can Empathy Help Individuals and Society? Through the Lens of Volunteering and Mental Health
title_fullStr	Can Empathy Help Individuals and Society? Through the Lens of Volunteering and Mental Health
title_full_unstemmed	Can Empathy Help Individuals and Society? Through the Lens of Volunteering and Mental Health
title_sort	can empathy help individuals and society? through the lens of volunteering and mental health
publisher	MDPI AG
publishDate	2021
url	https://doaj.org/article/4fd50bf5241b4206b415ba9c580650f0
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Can Empathy Help Individuals and Society? Through the Lens of Volunteering and Mental Health

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