The Influence Of Adolescent Empathy And Self-other Control On Prosocial Lying

Prosocial lying is a behavior with prosocial motivations.Compared with other lies,prosocial lying is a low-risk behavior for social interaction,it has less negative impact,and more of it promotes human interaction.Previous studies have found that the empathy ability of adolescents with rapid physical and mental development can affect prosocial behavior,but little has been done to study the effect of trait empathy and state empathy on the special prosocial behavior of prosocial lying.Furthermore,the effects of self-other control that play an important role in social interaction have not been considered in research on prosocial lying.Therefore,this article examines the effects of adolescent empathy and self-other control on prosocial lying through three studies.Study one was a single-factor between-subject design,using the Chinese revised version of the Interpersonal Response Index Scale and a quasi-interpersonal design to examine the effects of high and low trait empathy on prosocial lying.The results showed that the prosocial lying level of adolescents with high trait empathy significantly higher than adolescents with low trait empathy.The second study was a two-factor between-subject design,using the Chinese revised version of the Interpersonal Response Index Scale,reading state empathy texts and a quasi-interpersonal design to examine the effects of adolescents’ trait empathy and state empathy on prosocial lying.The results showed that,When state empathy was activated,adolescents with high trait empathy had significantly higher levels of prosocial lying than adolescents with low trait empathy.Study three was a three-factor mixed design,using an adapted version of the imitation inhibition task for self-other control training,reading state empathy texts,and a quasi-interpersonal design to study the effects of state empathy and self-other control on prosocial lying,The results showed that reinforcement training could increase prosocial lying and weakening training would reduce prosocial lying,but the level of prosocial lying did not change significantly between reinforcement training and weakening training initiated by state empathy.Combining three studies,the following conclusions are drawn:(1)Trait empathy has an effect on prosocial lying,and adolescents with high trait empathy show higher levels of prosocial lying than adolescents with low trait empathy;(2)Trait empathy and state empathy have an impact on prosocial lying.When state empathy is activated,adolescents with high trait empathy have more prosocial lying behaviors than adolescents with low trait empathy;(3)Self-training-other control affects adolescents’ prosocial lying,intensive training adolescents’ ego-other control can increase prosocial lying,and weak training adolescents’ ego-other control reduces prosocial lying.