The effect of exercise intervention on prosocial behavior in junior high school students: the chain mediation effect of empathy and interpersonal relationships

Exercise intervention can improve empathy, interpersonal relationships, and prosocial behavior among junior high school students. Specifically, basketball exercise yielded significantly greater benefits than conventional physical education. Exercise indirectly promotes prosocial behavior through the separate mediating roles of empathy and interpersonal relationships, which also form a sequential mediation pathway between exercise intervention and prosocial behavior.