Effect of psychology education on prosocial behavior among undergraduate and postgraduate psychology students.

Abstract

The present research aimed to find the effect of psychology education on prosocial behavior among undergraduate, graduate and post-graduate psychology students. Purposive sampling as used to select participants who were enrolled in undergraduate, graduate and post graduate psychology programs. 102 participants were selected from private and government universities in Karachi city. Prosocial behavior was measured using the Prosocial Personality Battery (Penner, Fritzsche, Craiger & Freifeld, 1995). ANOVA was applied to test the hypothesis and results demonstrated significant differences in some traits of the prosocial behaviors i.e. social responsibility, personal distress and self-reported altruism among undergraduates, graduates and post-graduates. Helpfulness was found to be higher in both undergraduate and graduate psychology students than post-graduate psychology students whereas other-oriented empathy was found to be the highest in post-graduate psychology students. Limitations and recommendations of the study were discussed and more research onthe topic was emphasized.