A quantitative study: To examine whether religiosity, empathy, gender and age play a role in prosocial behaviour in students

The current study aimed to investigate the dependent variable, prosocial behaviour and the independent variables, religiosity, empathy, age and to identify any gender differences that may be evident. The study also aimed to discover which predictor variables were strongly predictive of prosocial behaviour. Questionnaires were posted online and data was gathered via a stratified random sampling from undergraduate male and female students aged between 18 years and above. Pearson’s correlation coefficients indicated positive correlations between the variables of religiosity, empathy and age. Independent-samples t-test established no significant gender differences and gender was the weakest factor that contributed to prosocial behaviour. Multiple regression analysis indicated that empathy was the strongest predictor of prosocial behaviour, followed by religiosity and age and gender again contributed minimally towards prosocial behaviour. These findings were consistent with past research with some inconsistencies regarding gender and prosocial behaviour. Results are discussed and further implications of research are considered