The Role of Emotional Empathy and Assertiveness in Interpersonal Success: Mediating Effects of Conflict Management

The current study investigated the effects of emotional empathy and self-assertiveness on interpersonal success through the mediating role of managing interpersonal conflicts using structural equation modeling (SEM). The sample of this study was 294 young adults in Yasuj City, Iran, who were selected using the purposive sampling method in a cross-sectional study. The Emotional Empathy Scale (EES), the Assertion Inventory (AI), the Rahim Organizational Conflict Inventory-Form A (ROC-II), and the Basic Adlerian Scales for Interpersonal Success-Adult Form (BASIS-A) were utilized for data collection. The results indicated that emotional empathy, self-assertiveness, and conflict management significantly correlate with interpersonal success. Emotional empathy and self-assertiveness show a significantly indirect correlation with interpersonal success, which is mediated by managing interpersonal conflicts. Also, emotional empathy, self-assertiveness, and management of interpersonal conflicts collectively accounted for 74.9% of the variance in interpersonal success within this sample. The findings demonstrated a well-structured SEM that depicts the effects of emotional empathy and self-assertiveness on interpersonal success, mediated by managing interpersonal conflicts. These findings have implications for psychological interventions targeting interpersonal issues in adults.