Does empathy mediate the relationship between neuroticism and depressive symptomatology among college students?

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Abstract

Traditionally, researchers have focused on the positive outcomes associated with empathy-related traits. However, in the present study, empathy-related traits were examined as possible mediators in the relationship between neuroticism and depressive symptoms among a sample of 204 college students. As expected, fantasy acted as a partial mediator in the neuroticism–depression connection. Although personal distress was not a mediator, it did interact with neuroticism to influence depression scores. Overall, these findings point to the importance of considering empathy not only in terms of positive, but negative outcomes as well.

Introduction

Personality traits have long been identified as important predictors of psychopathology (Maher & Maher, 1994). Neuroticism, in particular, has been recognized by such perspectives as the Five Factor (McCrae & Costa, 1985), biological (Eysenck, 1967), and hierarchical integrative (Mineka, Watson, & Clark, 1998) models, as the personality trait that predisposes individuals to experience symptoms of depression. Research has also revealed that this relationship can be mediated by other factors. For instance, variables such as rumination (Roelofs, Huibers, Peeters, Arntz, & Os, 2008), daily hassles (Hutchinson & Williams, 2007), and physical activity (Gallant & Connell, 2003) have been found to mediate the relationship between neuroticism and depression. However, what is not well understood is the role emotional dispositions, particularly empathy-related traits, play in this relationship. Therefore, the aim of the current study was to examine the influence of personal distress, fantasy, empathic concern, and perspective taking on the relation between neuroticism and depressive symptoms among a sample of college students.

One of the most common psychiatric disorders affecting college students is depression (Vazquez & Blanco, 2008). Epidemiological studies indicate that roughly 1 in 4 young adults will experience depression by the age of 24 (Kessler and Walters, 1998, Klerman and Weissman, 1989). Depressive symptoms can pose a significant problem for college students because they are not only associated with poor academic achievement (Hyenbegasi, Hass, & Rowland, 2005), they are also linked to serious health concerns such as alcohol abuse (Beck et al., 2008) and suicidal ideation (Garlow et al., 2008). Although some of the most frequently cited causes of depression among the college population are tied to their particular life circumstances as students such as problems with grades, money, and relationships (Westefeld & Furr, 1987), personality traits have also been explored as potential risk factors for depressive symptoms among this group (Hamid, 2004, Song et al., 2008, Wong and Whitaker, 1993).

Neuroticism is one of the most robust personality predictors of depressive symptomatology among the college population (Chioqueta and Stiles, 2005, Hutchinson and Williams, 2007, Roelofs et al., 2008). There is strong empirical evidence from the areas of neuroscience (e.g., Haas, Omura, Constable, & Canli, 2007), psychophysiology (e.g., Norris, Larsen, & Cacioppo, 2007), and genetics (e.g., Rettew et al., 2006) to support the long held view that neuroticism reflects a basic dimension of personality that is largely biologically based (see Eysenck, 1967). From a biological perspective, the characteristic tendency to experience negative emotional states is due to a highly sensitive limbic system that tends to be especially reactive to stress and aversive stimuli (Eysenck, 1967). Accordingly, neurotics tend to experience greater depression related symptoms such as somatic complaints, worry, and negative affect compared with their more emotionally stable counterparts (Watson, 2000). Neuroticism is so intimately connected to depression that it has been found to distinguish individuals with varying levels and types of the disorder (Harkness et al., 2002, Trull and Sher, 1994). However, despite neuroticism’s importance in predicting depressive symptoms, mediators have also played a significant role in this relationship (Gallant and Connell, 2003, Hutchinson and Williams, 2007, Roelofs et al., 2008).

Psychologists have traditionally associated empathy with positive mental health. For example, healthy psychological development is often characterized by the presence of empathy (Adler, 1927/1998, Hoffman, 1979) while deficiencies in empathy characterize such disorders as autism (Hobson, 2007), schizophrenia (Lee, 2007), and psychopathy (Blair, 2007). Researchers have recognized stable, individual differences in one’s capacity to experience a range of empathic emotions (Davis, 1983, Eisenberg, 2000). One of the most widely accepted models of empathy-related traits based on the college population comes from Davis, 1980, Davis, 1983 who identified four distinct types: Personal distress, fantasy, empathic concern, and perspective taking. Although research examining these empathy-related traits among university students have traditionally focused on the positive outcomes associated with these dispositions such as forgiveness (Burnette, Davis, Green, Worthington, & Bradfield, 2009), relationship satisfaction (Davis & Oathout, 1987), and prosocial behavior (Carlo, Allen, & Buhman, 1999), there is evidence to suggest that some of these traits may mediate the relation between neuroticism and depression.

Personal distress is the empathy-related trait most conceptually linked with both neuroticism and depression. Personal distress refers to one’s tendency to become uncomfortable and anxious when others are distressed (Davis, 1980, Davis, 1983). Accordingly, this trait shares many core features with neuroticism and depression in that it is characterized by negative emotions (Davis, 1980), reflects an inappropriate level of emotional arousal (Eisenberg, 2000), and is self-focused (Batson, Fultz, & Schoenrade, 1987). The results of Davis, Luce, and Kraus’ (1994) study of over 800 sets of twins suggest that the heritability of personal distress may be influenced by neuroticism. In addition, studies demonstrate that those high in personal distress tend to be more neurotic (Bartholow et al., 2005, Guarino et al., 2007, Mooradian et al., 2008) and depressed (Berthoz et al., 2008, O’Conner et al., 2002) than their less sensitive peers.

Fantasy reflects a propensity to imaginatively transpose oneself into the emotional lives of characters found in books and movies (Davis, 1980, Davis, 1983). Similar to personal distress, there is evidence to suggest that it may also be linked to maladjustment. For instance, fantasy has been found to be positively associated with guilt (Ishikawa and Uchiyama, 2000, Tangney, 1991) and neuroticism (Bartholow et al., 2005, Guarino et al., 2007). In addition, and similar to neuroticism, individuals high in fantasy tend to be emotionally sensitive to negative stimuli, particularly to provocative movies (Calvert et al., 2006, Eisenberg et al., 1991, Hoekstra et al., 1999). For instance, compared to the other three empathy-related traits, fantasy is the strongest correlate to the amount of distress one experiences while watching a horror film (Eisenberg et al., 1991, Hoekstra et al., 1999) and the level of depressed feelings that follow from viewing a dramatic movie (Calvert et al., 2006). Conversely, fantasy has shown weak (O’Conner et al., 2002) to non-significant correlations (Chan, 2008) with symptoms of depression. Although these limited findings do not support an emotional vulnerability perspective on fantasy, the stability of these results is questionable due to the inconsistent results.

The least conceptually related traits with neuroticism and depression are empathic concern and perspective taking. Empathic concern is defined by one’s tendency to feel sympathy for the misfortune of others, while perspective taking refers to a propensity to perceive the point of view of others in everyday life (Davis, 1980, Davis, 1983). Because both of these traits are conceptually related to altruism, they are perceived as being signs of positive mental health (Adler, 1927/1998; Eisenberg, 2000). Accordingly, empathic concern (Berthoz et al., 2008, Burnette et al., 2009, O’Conner et al., 2002) and perspective taking (Berthoz et al., 2008) have been found to be uncorrelated with depression. Empathic concern (Bartholow et al., 2005, Guarino et al., 2007) and perspective taking (Bartholow et al., 2005) have also been found to be uncorrelated with neuroticism. In fact, two studies demonstrated that perspective taking can even be negatively associated with neuroticism (Guarino et al., 2007, Mooradian et al., 2008).

The purpose of the present study was to explore empathy-related traits as possible mediators of the relationship between neuroticism and depression. Based on previous research, it was hypothesized that both personal distress and fantasy will: (1) correlate positively with neuroticism, (2) correlate positively with depression, and (3) mediate the relationship between neuroticism and depression. In addition, both empathic concern and perspective taking are expected to be either negatively correlated or uncorrelated with neuroticism and depression.

Section snippets

Participants and procedures

Data from 204 students from an American university were used in the current study. The predominately White sample (92%) consisted of 153 women and 51 men with a mean age of 20.93 (SD = 2.67). Participants completed informed consent forms and a series of measures in the form of take home surveys.

Measures

Basic information. Participants were asked to report their age in years, gender, and race/ethnic background.

Depressive symptoms. To assess depressive symptoms, participants completed the Beck Depression

Data screening

Before any of the analyses were conducted, an initial screening was initiated to examine the appropriateness of the data for multivariate statistical analyses (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2001). To avoid biased results data from five participants were discarded for deviant scores (2 univariate and 3 multivariate outliers).

Bivariate analyses

Table 1 displays the descriptive statistics and the intercorrelations between the variables. Depression was positively correlated with fantasy, personal distress, and neuroticism.

Discussion

The purpose of the current study was to examine the influence of four empathy-related traits on the relation between neuroticism and depressive symptoms among a university sample. The results generally supported the hypotheses that empathic traits play a role in the neuroticism–depression process. As predicted, fantasy was positively correlated with both neuroticism and depression. Although the finding with depression was not consistent with previous studies (Chan, 2008, O’Conner et al., 2002),

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