Moderating effects of gender on relationship between love relationship satisfaction and empathy in college students / 中国心理卫生杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To explore the moderating effect of gender between love relationship satisfaction and empathy in college students.Methods:Totally 175 pairs of college couples were enrolled.They were assessed with the Quality of Relationship Index (QRI) and Interpersonal Reactivity Index-C (IRI-C) to evaluate love relationship satisfaction and empathy.IRI-C included 4 dimensions named perspective taking (PT),personal distress (PD),fantasy (FS) and empathetic concern (EC).Multiple regression analysis was used to investigate the moderating effects of gender on relationship between love relationship satisfaction and empathy in college students.Results:The scores of QRI and PT were higher in the males than in the females,but the PD scores were lower in the males [(36.6 ±5.9) vs.(35.2 ±6.0),(10.9 ±3.4) vs.(9.9 ± 3.4),(6.0 ±4.1) vs.(8.1 ±4.3),Ps ＜0.01].The QRI scores were the lowest in the students who were in love for less than 3 months (33.1 ±7.1).The PT scores positively predicted the QRI scores (3 =-0.19),the PD scores multiplied by gender negatively predicted the QRI scores (β =-0.17),and the EC scores multiplied by gender positively predicted the QRI scores (β =-0.21).Conclusion:Male students may experience higher love relationship satisfaction than females.The gender plays a moderating role to the influence of empathy on love relationship satisfaction in college students.