Empathy as a predictor of prosocial behavior and the perceived seriousness of delinquent acts: a cross-cultural comparison of Argentina and Spain

Abstract

Empathy is relevant to sociomoral development, especially in relation toprosociality and the penalization of acts as faults and crimes (sociomoraljudgment). The objective of this research was to test whether empathy isa predictor of prosociality and of perceptions of seriousness of delinquentacts among research participants in Argentina and Spain. The Argentiniansample comprised 215 high school and university students (67 males;average age 18.57,SD= 0.81). The Spanish sample comprised 199 universitystudents (50 males; average age 20.48,SD= 2.75). The proposed theoreticalmodel showed good fit in both countries. Although empathy was found topredict prosocial conduct more than the perception of the seriousness actsas offenses and crimes, empathy was a significant of both prosocial conductand perception of the seriousness acts as faults and crimes. Thus, theimportance of empathy in morality was supported for both countries,supporting the influence of in different cultural context.