Gender and cultural differences in the empathy-altruism hypothesis among university students in Hong Kong

Abstract

This study aims to examine the authenticity of empathy-altruism hypothesis in university students of Hong Kong, and whether gender and cultural factors would determine its effectiveness. One hundred and eighty-eight year one university students in Hong Kong participated and were categorized by gender and language major as it related to cultural values. Participants were asked to fill in a questionnaire to measure their empathy level after watching a video clip that portrayed a message of encouraging help by feeling for others. Independent t-test, chi-square and comparison of frequency percentage were employed to determine the difference in empathic score and the corresponding relation to the hypothetic situational altruistic behavior. Results showed no significant differences between male and female’s empathy scores. Except for categorizing the participants by willingness to be a volunteer worker, a marginal significant difference was found, with female participants’ empathy score higher than male participants. No statistical significant result was obtained in all kinds of classification in cultural dimension. For the investigation of the relation of empathic level and altruistic behavior, significant result was found only in female participants, who were willing to participate in hypothetic altruistic behavior. Implications, limitations and improvements of the present study were explained in discussion for suggesting future investigation.