The mediating role of attentional control in the relationship between problem solving and empathy

Empathy is an inseparable part of social-emotional people. It plays a positive role in society, throughout people's lives, and recognizing that it forms the basis of empathy is essential. This research was conducted in order to investigate the mediating role of attention control in the relationship between problem solving and empathy. The research method of this study was descriptive-correlation. The participants of this research included 500 students of Zahedan city who were selected by cluster sampling method. In order to collect data, Hepner and Petersen's problem solving questionnaire, attention control scale, Jolliffe and Farrington's empathy questionnaire were used. Descriptive and inferential statistical methods such as Pearson correlation and structural equation modeling were used to analyzethe data using spss and Amos software. The findings showed that the direct path of problem solving to attention control (-0.458) is negative and significant. The direct path of controlling attention to cognitive emotional empathy (-0.141) is negative and significant. The direct path of problem solving to cognitive emotional empathy (-0.440) is negative and significant. Also, the mediating effect of problem solving on cognitive emotional empathy through attention control is equal to 0.072, which is positive and significant. Therefore, the research results show that it is important to pay attention to the mediating role of attention control in the relationship between problem solving and empathy, and it is necessary to pay attention to the limitations that may be caused by increasing attention control for problem solving and empathy. Theoretically, investigating the effects of increasing thesecognitive functions on empathy requires more investigation and research.