Purpose The purpose of this paper is to inspect the potential mediation pathways among emotional empathy, personality traits and coping strategies in orphan and non-orphan students. Additionally, it designed to investigate the association of coping strategies with emotional empathy and personality traits. Design/methodology/approach Purposive sampling technique and cross-sectional design were employed in current study. The data of 130 adolescents (institutionalized orphans, n= 62; school students, n=68) were included from different high schools and orphanages of Rawalpindi and Islamabad, Pakistan, in 2017. Three instruments, emotional empathy scale (Mehrabian and Epstein, 1972; Shazia, 2004), coping of problem experience (Carver, 1989; Akhtar, 2005), and Eysenck personality questionnaire (Naqvi and Kamal, 2010; Eysenck, 1964; Eysenck and Eysenck, 1994), were employed to measure personality traits, emotional empathy and coping strategies in orphan and non-orphan students. Findings Mediation analyses illustrated that personality traits relegated active avoidance coping strategy through emotional empathy in orphan students. On contrary, the study findings demonstrated that neurotic personality promoted positive coping strategy through emotional empathy in non-orphan students. Research limitations/implications The methodological limitations of this study are that the sample is of 130 participants that limits the generalizability of its results; furthermore, it was done on only the male orphans students of only one institute. Further research can be done on different orphanages to enhance the generalizability of results. This study included orphan and non-orphan students from the two cities of Pakistan; consequently, its findings may not be generalizable to the whole population. In the future, cross-sectional and experimental researches working with more assorted data could help elucidate the mechanisms by which interpersonal factors affect and stimulate coping strategies in orphans and high school students. Practical implications This paper exposes a number of ways for upcoming future studies. This study findings can be employed to enhance knowledge and offer assistance for orphans, on how to identify and get help from coping resources to tackle various problems and how to build new psychological preventions and interventions strategies in the Pakistani society. There still exists a need to find out the effect of emotion, empathy on personality types in relation to different environmental conditions. The findings have implications for pedagogical intervention as such improvements can be initiated in the pedagogical context. Social implications This study comprised only orphan and non-orphan students from two twin cities of Pakistan; consequently, its findings may not be applicable to the whole population. In future, cross-sectional and experimental researches with more assorted data will assist clarify the mechanism that interpersonal factors affect and stimulate coping strategies in high school students. Originality/value Study findings proposed that coping strategies can be promoted by interpersonal factors such as personality traits and empathy to tackle different orphan’s psychological problem in various negative situation.

Existent research bears scarce evidence of the influence of personality traits on the school dropout tendency of students, particularly indicating the need for a focus on how a combination of various personality traits might precipitate dropout. Furthermore, there is a gap in terms of how personality traits interact with the circumstance of being an orphan student to affect drop-out decisions. Addressing this gap, the current research was designed to investigate the influence of various personality traits on the school dropout tendency of orphan and non-orphan students. Two hundred participants (orphan students, n = 100; non-orphan students, n= 100) were included from different orphanage schools and high schools of Rawalpindi and Islamabad, Pakistan. The age of the participants ranged from 12-18 years. Purposive sampling was conducted based on cross-section design. Two scales, the Eysenck personality questionnaire (EPQ: Eysenck, Eysenck, & Barrett, 1985;Naqvi, 2001) and School Refusal Assessment Scale-revised (SARS-R:Kearney, 2002)were employed to respectively measure extraversion-introversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism traits of personality, and students? dropout tendency. This study found that extraversion-introversion was linked to a greater likelihood of school dropout tendency in orphanage students. Furthermore, the study revealed that low prevalence of neuroticism increased probabilities of an early exit. On the other hand, the investigation also indicated that psychoticism and lie traits of personality were associated with higher probabilties of school dropout tendency in orphanage and ordinary students. Notably, the study demonstrated that parental care or its absence (being an orphan or non-orphan)was playing a moderating role in the relationship between personality traits and dropout tendency. Orphan students who exhibited higher levels of extroversion-introversion and psychoticism had the highest tendency of dropout as compared to non-orphan students. This study implicates that personality traits area more important factor for triggering dropout tendency in orphanage students than in ordinary school students. Therefore, the research recommends special intervention by clinical and pedagogical settings in the case of orphanage students to help resolve personality conflicts in order to prevent dropouts. These findings could have profound impact on future policy and program planning for orphans in developing countries.