Comparison of social intelligence and prosocial personality in medical students with and without internet addiction

Introduction: Internet addiction can have a negative impact on the social and emotional function of peoples. Therefore, the present study was carried out to compare the social intelligence and prosocial personality in the medical students with and without internet addiction. Materials and Methods: The study has a causal-comparative design. The study population included all students of Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences in 2013-2014 academic years. A random cluster sampling procedure was done and following the initial screening, 120 students with and without Internet addiction (60 persons for each group) were selected. The data collection was carried out by Yang Internet Addiction, Thet Social Intelligence, and Penner Prosocial Personality Questionnaires. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) and SPSS software version 20. Results: The results showed there is significant difference between the groups in social intelligence (P=0.001) and prosocial personality (P<0.0005). The levels of both variables were lower in the college students with internet addiction. Furthermore, there is a significant difference between the groups in terms of the ascription of responsibility (P<0.0005), perspective taking (P=0.007), mutual-concerns moral reasoning (P=0.002), other-oriented moral reasoning (P=0.036), and personal distress (P=0.007) subscales. Conclusion: Due to the lower level of social intelligence and prosocial personality in the medical students with internet addiction, social and communication skills training could possibly lead to improvements in mental health of this group.