Kontakt X:X | DOI: 10.32725/kont.2026.038

Personality, empathy, and students' attitudes toward wheelchair usersSocial Sciences in Health - Original article

Liudmila Vilchynskaya ORCID...¹, Andriej Szpakow ORCID...^{2, *}, Rafał Modzelewski ORCID...³, Dorota Sokołowska ORCID...⁴, Ľubica Bánovčinová ORCID...⁵, Lucia Demjanovič Kendrová ORCID...⁶, Jozef Babečka ORCID...⁷, Jana Juříková ORCID...⁸, Andrea Pokorná ORCID...⁹, Yelena Loginovich ORCID...¹⁰, Aliaksandr Shpakau¹¹

¹ Małopolska Occupational Medicine Center, Kraków, Poland

² International Academy of Applied Sciences in Lomza, Łomża, Poland

³ Medical University, Department of Foreign Languages, Białystok, Poland

⁴ Eastern European University of Applied Sciences in Bialystok, Białystok, Poland

⁵ Jessenius Faculty of Medicine in Martin, Comenius University in Bratislava, Martin, Slovak Republic

⁶ University of Prešov, Faculty of Health Care, Prešov, Slovak Republic

⁷ Catholic University in Ružomberok, Ružomberok, Slovak Republic

⁸ Masaryk University, Faculty of Sports Studies, Department of Physical Activities and Health Sciences, Brno, Czech Republic

⁹ Masaryk University, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Health Sciences, Brno, Czech Republic

¹⁰ Lithuanian University of Health Sciences, Institute of Biology System and Genetic Research, Kaunas, Lithuania

¹¹ Independent Researcher, Kraków, Poland

Introduction: This study investigates the relationship between personality traits (extraversion, introversion, neuroticism), empathy levels, and attitudes toward wheelchair users among 4,474 university students from Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, and Slovakia.

Methods: Data were collected via an anonymous online survey (2024-2025) using the Eysenck Personality Inventory (EPI) for personality, the KRE-II Scale for empathy, and the Multidimensional Attitudes Scale toward Persons with Disabilities (MAS) for social attitudes.

Results: Extraversion was significantly associated with higher empathy, while neuroticism correlated with specific aspects of emotional sensitivity. High empathy (62% of respondents) was linked to more positive attitudes toward wheelchair users; overall, 70% of students reported positive attitudes. Notably, Ukrainian students exhibited higher empathy (75%) and more positive attitudes toward wheelchair users (78%).

Conclusion: These findings suggest that personality traits, particularly extraversion and neuroticism, significantly influence empathy and attitudes toward wheelchair users. Cross-national variations highlight the interplay between individual dispositions and broader sociopolitical contexts, underscoring the potential for educational interventions to foster empathy and supportive attitudes toward individuals with mobility limitations.

Keywords: Central and Eastern Europe; Disability; Empathy; Personality traits; Social attitudes; Students

Conflicts of interest:

The authors have no conflict of interest to declare.

Received: December 11, 2025; Revised: March 27, 2026; Accepted: June 15, 2026; Prepublished online: June 15, 2026