Eating the Vernacular, Being Cosmopolitan

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Tammi Jonas

2013-02-01

Full Text Available Using a mixed methodology of ethnography in Australia, Vietnam and India, auto-ethnography and textual analysis of Australian migrants' biographies, this article uses the stories of 'insiders' and 'outsiders' to explore the importance of the vernacular, and the implications of authenticity in the maintenance of homely identities and the development of cosmopolitan ones.

A cosmopolitan return to nature

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Emontspool, Julie; Georgi, Carina

2017-01-01

of the exotic. These processes combine in a cosmopolitan interest for one of the last unexplored foreign contexts: nature. The findings of this paper contribute to existing research by showing that moral cosmopolitanism reflects a more individualized and less engaged form of consumption than ethical consumption...... moral cosmopolitanism can support consumers who acknowledge the need for ethical consumption yet struggle with its adoption.......This paper investigates how foodies’ adoption of New Nordic Food enables them to combine aesthetic and moral cosmopolitanism ideals. It demonstrates that consumers integrate aesthetic and moral cosmopolitan discourses through two complementary processes: the re-aesthetization of nature and the re-moralization...

Cosmopolitan Narratives

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Bondebjerg, Ib

universal dimensions of human life and cultural differences in a more and more mediatized global media culture. How do individuals and groups imagine each other in this new, global media culture, in what Appadurai (1996) has called a new post-national political world with an emerging diasporic public sphere......Cosmopolitan Narratives: Documentary Perspectives on Afghanistan Cosmopolitanism is a concept discussed in relation to globalization in contemporary societies by sociologists, anthropologists and media scholars (Beck 2006, Delanty 2006, Appadurai 1996). The concept indicates the dialectic between...... close others in our everyday life. But the media play an increasingly strong and important role in developing a cosmopolitan imaginary through narratives that bring us closer to the various distant, global others. Through migration those earlier distant others are also more and more mixed in our daily...

Cosmopolitanisms in Kant's philosophy

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Georg Cavallar

2012-05-01

Full Text Available Interpretations of Kant usually focus on his legal or political cosmopolitanism, a cluster of ideas revolving around perpetual peace, an international organisation, the reform of international law, and what Kant has termed cosmopolitan law or the law of world citizens (Weltbürgerrecht. In this essay, I argue that there are different cosmopolitanisms in Kant, and focus on the relationship among political, legal or juridical, moral and ethico-theological cosmopolitanisms. I claim that these form part of a comprehensive system and are fully compatible with each other, given Kant's framework. I conclude that it is not self-evident that one can pick out some elements of this greater system as if they were independent of it.

Crippin’ the Flâneur: Cosmopolitanism, and Landscapes of Tolerance

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Fiona Kumari Campbell

2010-04-01

Full Text Available Cosmopolitanism, desire and the contracting of social relationships are enduring themes in both philosophy and social theory. In this paper I seek to explore these themes in order to ascertain what they might mean to disabled people and the ethos of ableism more generally. Modern Westernized life has since the Industrial Revolution been sited in cities fostering the growth of urban culture and an ethos of cosmopolitanism (Agamben, 2009; Beck, 2002; Cheah, 2006. The cosmopolitan outlook has become the signifier of that which is developed, advanced and civilized in society. The liberal project of the melting pot, of social tolerance is cast against the backdrop of city life (Brown, 2006.  The paper will first examine the trope of cosmopolitanism and disability including the place of ‘spaces’ for marginal peoples. Second, it will provide a perspective on the disabled flâneur (Campbell, 2009; Simmel, 1908; Young, 2005 who ambivalently claims ‘outsider-insidedness’ and finally the paper moves to consider the significant question of social inclusion and the government of aversion through the deployment of discourses of tolerance. Keywords: cosmopolitanism; social inclusion, community, flâneur, tolerance; biopolitics; disability

Education for Cosmopolitanism: Cosmopolitanism as a Personal Cultural Identity Model for and within International Education

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Gunesch, Konrad

2004-01-01

This article presents a model of cosmopolitanism, taken from the conceptual part of the author's research study into "The Relationship between Multilingualism and Cosmopolitanism". Cosmopolitan cultural identity is introduced as straddling the global and the local, encompassing questions of cultural mastery, metaculturality, mobility and…

Empathy – A Prosocial Tool Explored in a Therapeutic Group

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João Graça

2014-06-01

Full Text Available Introduction: Empathy is a multidimensional concept that encompasses the capacity to infer emotional states and respond to other people ́s emotions. It can be further divided in cognitive and emotional empathy and it is mainly influenced by early interaction with parental figures. Empathy is not exclusive of the human being and has been retained by evolution. It is the base of morality, socialization and pacifism. The empathic deregulation, which can be measured psychometrically, occurs in mental disorders, such as schizophrenia, affective diseases, and personality disorders, among others. Methods: It is a prospective longitudinal exploratory study that aims to evaluate the evolution of empathy, measured primarily by the Empathy Quotient (EQ at 0 months and at 9 months and secondarily the evolution of empathy in demographic and nosologic subgroups. For that purpose a convenience sample of 22 patients that participated in the psychiatric service’ day hospital in a suburban general hospital between September 2011 and June 2012 was used. In the day hospital, in addition to regular activities, the therapeutic activity “Empatias” was created. It consisted in the development of dyadic relations to promote empathy and a fortnightly therapeutic group focused on perspective taking. T-Student and ANOVA were used for statistical analysis.Results and Discussion: There were non-significant differences in EQ at 0 and 9 months (EQ=39,2 vs EQ=39,7, respectively, p=0,813 and stability of the empathic trait was observed. However, there are some limitations of this study, such as the presence of confounders, the short time of longitudinal observation and the absence of validation of the psychometric scale to the portuguese population.Conclusion: In this population of clinically stable patients enrolled in a Day Hospital programme, the empathic trait showed longitudinal stability. Although the role ascribed to empathy is well valued in the classification of

Exploring Empathy and Callous-Unemotional Traits as Predictors of Animal Abuse Perpetrated by Children Exposed to Intimate Partner Violence.

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Hartman, Christie; Hageman, Tina; Williams, James Herbert; Mary, Jason St; Ascione, Frank R

2016-07-01

We explored the relation between empathy, callous-unemotional (CU) traits, and animal abuse in a sample of 290 seven- to twelve-year-old children whose mothers were exposed to intimate partner violence (IPV). The sample comprises mostly Latino and White participants, and 55% of the children's mothers were born outside the United States (primarily Mexico). To our knowledge, among studies examining child-perpetrated animal abuse, this study is the first to examine empathy levels and one of only a few to examine CU traits. When comparing Griffith Empathy Measure (empathy) and Inventory of Callous-Unemotional Traits (callous-unemotional [CU] traits) scores with those from studies of White schoolchildren, our sample scored lower on affective empathy, higher on cognitive empathy, and lower for overall CU scores as well as Callous and Unemotional subscales. Of 290 children, 47 (16.2%) harmed an animal at least once according to either mother or child report. There were no significant sex or age differences between Abuse and No Abuse groups. The Abuse group scored significantly higher on affective empathy, CU, and Callousness/Unemotional subscales, and significantly lower on cognitive empathy. However, in regression analyses that controlled for income, only lower cognitive empathy and higher CU significantly predicted having abused an animal. In summary, low cognitive empathy (but not affective empathy) and CU traits may serve as reliable predictors of child animal abuse. However, replication of these results is necessary. A larger sample with a high percentage of Latino children whose mothers were exposed to IPV, along with a non-exposed comparison group, would be ideal.

Performing Cosmopolitan Entanglement in the Philippine Pista: Sariaya Agawan Festival

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Shirley V. Guevarra

2014-12-01

Full Text Available This essay proposes cosmopolitan entanglement as a conceptual framework for the understanding of the Philippine pista (fiesta. The pista is a cosmopolitan phenomenon because communities engage in a disposition of cultural openness with the strange and the stranger. It is a performance of entanglement because it is a complex cultural phenomenon projected to be solemn yet secular, a festivity that neither the State nor the Church is in an ultimate position of authority, a parade of divinity, and a procession of spectacle. In arguing for cosmopolitan entanglement in the pista, the essay explores the 2007 Agawan festivity in Sariaya, Quezon, some 120 km south of Manila, as a case study. The first part is a conceptualization of cosmopolitanism as related to the pista using the Catholic dogma as lens. The analysis of Catholic dogma is necessary because in the Philippines the pista has its origin in Catholicism, its celebrations often coinciding with the feast day of a community’s patron saint. The second part examines the pista as a performance of entanglement. The final section describes the Sariaya pista via the Agawan festival as a case of cosmopolitan entanglement. The pista in Sariaya is an exemplar of cosmopolitan entanglement because community members perform cultural openness, which is also a mixing and matching of different performance activities, a strategy of combining the secular and the sacred, and a welcoming gesture to both the familiar and the stranger.

Vogue and the possibility of cosmopolitics: race, health and cosmopolitan engagement in the global beauty industry

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Kuipers, G.M.M.; Chow, Y.F.; van der Laan, E.

2014-01-01

This article explores the possibility of cosmopolitics, using the global magazine franchise Vogue as our starting point. Drawing on Saito's conceptualizations of cosmopolitanism, we investigate whether Vogue promotes cosmopolitan engagement, which we define as promotion of human diversity, cultural

The Local-Cosmopolitan Scientist

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Barney G. Glaser, Ph.D., Hon. Ph.D.

2011-12-01

Full Text Available In contrast to previous discussions in the literature treating cosmopolitan and local as two distinct groups of scientists, this paperi demonstrates the notion of cosmopolitan and local as a dual orientation of highly motivated scientists. This dual orientation is derived from institutional motivation, which is a determinant of both high quality basic research and accomplishment of non-research organizational activities. The dual orientation arises in a context of similarity of the institutional goal of science with the goal of the organization; the distinction between groups of locals and cosmopolitans derives from a conflict between two goals.

Reason and Culture in Cosmopolitan Education

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Waks, Leonard J.

2009-01-01

In this essay, Leonard Waks reviews three recent books on cosmopolitan education: Kwame Anthony Appiah's "Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers"; Neil Burtonwood's "Cultural Diversity, Liberal Pluralism, and Schools: Isaiah Berlin and Education"; and Thomas Popkewitz's "Cosmopolitanism and the Age of School Reform: Science, Education and…

Visuality, mobility and the cosmopolitan: inhabiting the world from afar.

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Szerszynski, Bronislaw; Urry, John

2006-03-01

In earlier publications based on the research discussed in this article (e.g. Szerszynski and Urry 2002), we argued that an emergent culture of cosmopolitanism, refracted into different forms amongst different social groups, was being nurtured by a widespread 'banal globalism'--a proliferation of global symbols and narratives made available through the media and popular culture. In the current article we draw on this and other empirical research to explore the relationship between visuality, mobility and cosmopolitanism. First we describe the multiple forms of mobility that expand people's awareness of the wider world and their capacity to compare different places. We then chart the changing role that visuality has played in citizenship throughout history, noting that citizenship also involves a transformation of vision, an absenting from particular contexts and interests. We explore one particular version of that transformation--seeing the world from afar, especially in the form of images of the earth seen from space--noting how such images conventionally connote both power and alienation. We then draw on another research project, on place and vision, to argue that the shift to a cosmopolitan relationship with place means that humans increasingly inhabit their world only at a distance.

Inclusive cultural empathy for successful global leadership.

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Pedersen, Paul B; Pope, Mark

2010-11-01

Empathy is reported in the research literature as a necessary factor in counseling and psychotherapy, but psychologists have historically interpreted empathy through an exclusively individual focus. Most of the research on empathy has been predicated on a definition of empathy as occurring when one person vicariously experiences the feelings, perceptions, and thoughts of another. In Western cultures, the study of empathy focuses exclusively on the individual, whereas in traditional non-Western cultures, empathy more typically involves an inclusive perspective focusing on the individual and significant others in the societal context. This article explores the reframing of "empathy," based on an individualistic perspective, into "inclusive cultural empathy," based on a more relationship-centered perspective, as an alternative interpretation of the empathic process. Psychologists are both the problem and the solution to this dilemma, and the authors call upon the field to take leadership in applying this "inclusive cultural empathy" model. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved.

Variables Impacting Dispositional Empathy in Doctoral Psychology Students

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Micheli, Amelia C.

2014-01-01

The purpose of this study was to explore variables impacting dispositional empathy in doctoral psychology students. While there is a great deal of research regarding empathy in practicing psychologists and mental health professionals, little is known about empathy in psychology trainees. This is especially surprising given the importance of…

Exploring the contexts of urban science classrooms: Cogenerative dialogues, coteaching, and cosmopolitanism

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Emdin, Christopher

The body of work presented in this dissertation is a response to the reported association between poor outcomes in science achievement and students of color in urban schools. By presenting counterexamples to the cultural motif that urban students of color perform poorly in science, I argue that poor achievement cannot be traced to a group of people but can be linked to institutions promoting subject delivery methods that instill distaste for science and compel students to display an illusion of disinterest in school. There are two major goals of this study. First, I plan to demonstrate how plans of action generated by coteachers and cogenerative dialogue groups can coalesce under the ethos of making science and schooling accessible to populations that are traditionally marginalized from science achievement. My second aim is to develop mechanisms for transforming science learning contexts into cosmopolitan learning communities that develop student success in science. Through a three-year ethnographic study of physics and chemistry classrooms in a high school in New York City, I present explorations of the culture and context of the urban classroom as a chief means to meet my goals. In my research, I find that obstacles to identity development around science can be tied to corporate understandings of teaching and learning that are amenable to local efforts toward change. This change is facilitated through the use of transformative tools like cogenerative dialogues, coteaching, and cosmopolitanism. Through the application of these research tools, I uncover and investigate how various misalignments that present themselves in physics and chemistry classrooms serve as signifiers of macro issues that permeate science classrooms from larger fields. By utilizing cogenerative dialogues as a tool for investigating both micro enactments within classrooms and the macro structures that generate these enactments, I show how students and teachers can work together as co

Are empathy and concern psychologically distinct?

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Jordan, Matthew R; Amir, Dorsa; Bloom, Paul

2016-12-01

Researchers have long been interested in the relationship between feeling what you believe others feel-often described as empathy-and caring about the welfare of others-often described as compassion or concern. Many propose that empathy is a prerequisite for concern and is therefore the ultimate motivator of prosocial actions. To assess this hypothesis, the authors developed the Empathy Index, which consists of 2 novel scales, and explored their relationship to a measure of concern as well as to measures of cooperative and altruistic behavior. A series of factor analyses reveal that empathy and concern consistently load on different factors. Furthermore, they show that empathy and concern motivate different behaviors: concern for others is a uniquely positive predictor of prosocial action whereas empathy is either not predictive or negatively predictive of prosocial actions. Together these studies suggest that empathy and concern are psychologically distinct and empathy plays a more limited role in our moral lives than many believe. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

The Cosmopolitan Future: A Feminist Approach

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Sylvie Fogiel-Bijaoui

2016-08-01

Full Text Available This study questions the “clash of civilizations” thesis. Referring to the cosmopolitanization process as defined by Beck and Sznaider (2010, I analyze the cosmopolitanization of feminism, that is, the gradual recognition of “the others’ others”, the women, through the evolution of their political rights—the right to elect and be elected—at a global level. In this context, the descriptive representation of women, their substantive representation, and their voices within civil society in the North and the South highlight the fact that feminism is undergoing a process of cosmopolitanization, albeit in a slow and sporadic way. I present this argument from a postcolonial feminist perspective and base my research on NGOs’ data and on data provided by the Inter-Parliamentary Union and UN-Women. First, I analyze the cosmpolitanization process as applied to feminism. Then, following Beck and Sznaider (2010, I describe how this process is articulated ‘from above’ (top-down cosmopolitanization, referring to electoral data from around the world and to international law. Further, I relate to the cosmopolitanization of feminism ‘from below’, referring to feminist theories, cyberfeminism and the global civil/feminist society. In conclusion, I discuss the common future of feminism and cosmopolitanism.

Exploring the missing link - Empathy among dental students: An institutional cross-sectional survey

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Vikram Pal Aggarwal

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Background: Empathy plays an important role in healthy dentist and patient relationship. Hence, the aim of the study is to (a to measure the self-reported empathy levels among dental undergraduate and postgraduate students. (b To review the trend of changes in empathy level with experience, age, and gender among dental undergraduate and postgraduate students. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional, questionnaire-based study was carried out in two private dental institutions situated in Sri Ganganagar, India, with a sample size of 978. Data were obtained from the 1 st to final year (BDS, interns, and postgraduate students from January to March 2015. An empathy level of students was assessed by the Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy - Health Profession Students Version Questionnaire. An exploratory factor analysis using Kaiser′s criteria was undertaken to appraise the construct validity and dimensionality. Based on the results of the factor analysis, three factors were selected; labeled as "perspective taking," "compassionate care," and "standing in patient′s shoes." Results: The majority of the students was female in a equivalent  ratio of 1338:618. There were significant differences in empathy scores by gender and age (P < 0.01. The lowest and highest mean empathy scores were found in postgraduate (mean = 108.77, standard deviation [SD] =9.12 and 1 st year (mean = 117.23, SD = 14.19 dental students, respectively. Conclusion: Dental educators should consider the likely decline in empathy among students as early as possible and adopt communication teaching strategies to promote the development of empathy and reduce the risk of further decline.

Democratic Legitimacy, International Institutions and Cosmopolitan Disaggregation

OpenAIRE

Álvarez, David

2016-01-01

The paper explores Thomas Christiano’s conception of international legitimacy. It argues that his account fails to fully appreciate the instrumental constraints that international legitimacy imposes on national democracies. His model of Fair Voluntary Association articulates the transmission of political legitimacy through a double aggregation of political consent. First, it “pools” its authority from the foundational cosmopolitan claims of individuals involved in a deeply i...

Kant's Moral and Political Cosmopolitanism

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Kleingeld, Pauline

2016-01-01

In this essay, I first outline the contexts in which the idea of cosmopolitanism appears in Kant’s moral and political philosophy. I then survey the three main debates regarding his political cosmopolitanism, namely, on the nature of the international federation he advocated, his theory of

The Relevance of Cosmopolitanism for Moral Education

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Merry, Michael S.; de Ruyter, Doret J.

2011-01-01

In this article we defend a moral conception of cosmopolitanism and its relevance for moral education. Our moral conception of cosmopolitanism presumes that persons possess an inherent dignity in the Kantian sense and therefore they should be recognised as ends-in-themselves. We argue that cosmopolitan ideals can inspire moral educators to awaken…

Cognitive and Affective Empathy as Predictors of Proactive and Reactive Aggression

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Gordon, Gina M.

2013-01-01

This study examined cognitive and affective empathy as predictors of proactive and reactive aggression. This study also explored whether levels of cognitive and affective empathy differed among children who use proactive and reactive aggression. Cognitive and affective empathy were measured by the Basic Empathy Scale (Jolliffe & Farrington,…

Cosmopolitanism and Its Sociomaterial Construction in the Servicescape

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Figueiredo, Bernardo; Bean, Jonathan; Pico Larsen, Hanne

2018-01-01

to retail brand ideology, branded and themed spaces. By examining cosmopolitanism as an ideology that informs the servicescape, we suggest a shift away from understanding the consumption of cosmopolitanism as a descriptive inventory of consumer traits, preferences, and behaviors, to instead understanding......, and analysis of the floor plan and design of Samuelsson’s restaurant. By analyzing how the servicescape offers narrative templates and resources for cosmopolitan consumers’ experience and re-construction of identity, we link current thinking about cosmopolitanism with the sociomaterial construction...

FEMINISM AND COSMOPOLITANISM: SOME INEVITABLE CONNECTIONS

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DIANA ELENA NEAGA

2011-04-01

Full Text Available In this paper I will approach the issue of feminism and cosmopolitanism in order to give arguments in sustaining the fact that, today, feminism and cosmopolitanism are inevitable connected. In constructing my discourse I will begin by laying out the main ideas of cosmopolitanism, followed by a presentation of the construction of the feminist movement over time, inter-relating these two discourses at the end of the analysis. Connected with political ethics, political theory and political philosophy, the theoretical framework selected for this paper is based on the cosmopolitan theory developed by scholars like Martha Nussbaum, Fiona Robinson and Kwame Anthony Appaih who, underlining universality, define cosmopolitism as a universal concern with every human life and its well-being, but who are also giving value to the differences (seen as cultural or/ and of identity insofar as they are not harmful to people.

Exploring social influences on the joint Simon task: Empathy and friendship

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Ruth eFord

2015-07-01

Full Text Available Tasks for which people must act together to achieve a goal are a feature of daily life. The present study explored social influences on joint action using a Simon procedure for which participants (n=44 were confronted with a series of images of hands and asked to respond via button press whenever the index finger wore a ring of a certain colour (red or green regardless of pointing direction (left or right. In an initial joint condition they performed the task while sitting next to another person (friend or stranger who responded to the other colour. In a subsequent individual condition they repeated the task on their own; additionally, they completed self-report tests of empathy. Consistent with past research, participants reacted more quickly when the finger pointed towards them rather than their co-actor (the Simon Effect or SE. The effect remained robust when the co-actor was no longer present and was unaffected by degree of acquaintance; however, its magnitude was correlated positively with empathy only among friends. For friends, the SE was predicted by cognitive perspective taking when the co-actor was present and by propensity for fantasizing when the co-actor was absent. We discuss these findings in relation to social accounts (e.g., task co-representation and non-social accounts (e.g., referential coding of joint action.

Empathy and childhood maltreatment: a mixed-methods investigation.

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Locher, Simon C; Barenblatt, Lisa; Fourie, Melike M; Stein, Dan J; Gobodo-Madikizela, Pumla

2014-05-01

Impaired empathy is regarded as a psychological consequence of childhood maltreatment, yet few studies have explored this relationship empirically. We investigated whether empathy differed in healthy and maltreated individuals by examining their emotional responses to people in distress. Forty-nine individuals (age 20 to 60) viewed short film clips from the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission testimonies depicting dialogues between victims and perpetrators of gross human rights violations. Participants were divided into 3 groups based on their scores on the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire: control (n = 18), moderate maltreatment (n = 21), and severe maltreatment (n = 10). We employed a mixed-methods design to explore empathic responses to film clips both quantitatively and qualitatively. Quantitative results indicated that self-reported empathy was lower in the moderate maltreatment group compared to the control group, but of similar strengths in the severe maltreatment and control groups. However, qualitative thematic analysis indicated that both maltreatment groups displayed themes of impaired empathy. Our results support the notion that childhood maltreatment is associated with impaired empathy, and suggest that such impairment may differ depending on the level of maltreatment: moderate maltreatment was associated with emotional blunting and impaired cognitive empathy, whereas severe maltreatment was associated with emotional over-arousal and diminished cognitive insight.

An investigation into the multifaceted relationship between gratitude, empathy, and compassion

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Grace Y. Kim

2018-01-01

Full Text Available The virtues of gratitude, empathy, and compassion are associated with various psychological and relational benefits. Past research suggests that gratitude and empathy are correlated and that compassion is in fact derived from empathy. However, limited research exists concerning the direct relationship between gratitude and compassionate love (i.e., a more enduring form of compassion. This study examined the relationship between the two constructs, with empathy as a potential mediator in this relationship. Two hundred undergraduate students from a religiously affiliated university were recruited and completed an online, multi-section questionnaire that includes measures of gratitude, empathy, and compassionate love. Statistical analyses revealed a significant partial mediation effect, with gratitude being both directly and indirectly (via empathy associated with compassionate love. In other words, higher levels of gratitude produced greater compassionate love through increased feelings of empathy. Further analyses indicated that among the three types of empathy explored (cognitive empathy, emotional contagion, and emotional disconnection, cognitive empathy best mediated the relationship between gratitude and compassionate love. These findings have important implications in both a clinical and research context, including the utilization of gratitude and empathy interventions to increase protection against clinician burnout and improve client health and well-being. Future research is warranted in further exploring the relationship among these variables utilizing more objective forms of measurement.

Injecting Cosmopolitanism into the Geography Classroom

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Warf, Barney

2015-01-01

Cosmopolitanism is an ethical, moral, and political philosophy with profound geographical implications. In extending circles of compassion to a worldwide scale, it encourages respect for difference, including the concerns of distant strangers. This essay outlines the precepts of cosmopolitanism, its historical development, and the challenges it…

Empathy and nurse education.

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Williams, Julia; Stickley, Theodore

2010-11-01

It is widely accepted that the ability of nurses to empathise with their patients is a desirable quality. There is however little discussion of the implications of this for nurse educators. This article reviews the nursing and counselling literature related to empathy. We begin with an exploration of different perspectives of empathy; from its behavioural and measurable characteristics to its less tangible, intuitive qualities. By drawing upon both policy and research, it is clear that patients want empathic and emotionally competent nurses. Nurse educators therefore have a responsibility to provide an education that engenders empathic understanding. We explore the implications of these findings for nurse education, identifying key areas for consideration in the preparation of emotionally skilled, empathic student nurses. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Postcolonial Bombay : decline of a cosmopolitan city?

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McFarlane, C.

2008-01-01

Discussions of cosmopolitanism in Bombay often focus on the rubrics of communal tension, tolerance, and violence, and frequently report the decline of a once cosmopolitan city, especially as a result of the communal riots and bombings that occurred in the early 1990s. However, claims that the city has undergone a general social transformation since the 1990s need to be tempered by the multiple forms of cosmopolitan imaginations and practices that exist in the city. There is a wide variety ...

Learning Empathy Through Virtual Reality: Multiple Strategies for Training Empathy-Related Abilities Using Body Ownership Illusions in Embodied Virtual Reality

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Philippe Bertrand

2018-03-01

Full Text Available Several disciplines have investigated the interconnected empathic abilities behind the proverb “to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes” to determine how the presence, and absence, of empathy-related phenomena affect prosocial behavior and intergroup relations. Empathy enables us to learn from others’ pain and to know when to offer support. Similarly, virtual reality (VR appears to allow individuals to step into someone else’s shoes, through a perceptual illusion called embodiment, or the body ownership illusion. Considering these perspectives, we propose a theoretical analysis of different mechanisms of empathic practices in order to define a possible framework for the design of empathic training in VR. This is not intended to be an extensive review of all types of practices, but an exploration of empathy and empathy-related phenomena. Empathy-related training practices are analyzed and categorized. We also identify different variables used by pioneer studies in VR to promote empathy-related responses. Finally, we propose strategies for using embodied VR technology to train specific empathy-related abilities.

The Cosmopolitanization of Science1

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Zhang, Joy Yueyue

2013-01-01

It is commonly perceived that the ‘globalization of science’ may result in a ‘Westernization of science’. In this paper, however, I use the case of stem cell science in China to demonstrate that developing countries are sometimes able to effectively shape the norms of global/local scientific exchange. Based on interviews with 38 stem cell scientists in six Chinese cities in early 2008, this paper elucidates Chinese scientists’ outlook towards cross-border collaborations and the effects that the internationalization of science has had on everyday laboratory operations. Findings suggest that although there still exists an asymmetry of scientific influence, and in many aspects China is still ‘catching-up’ to the West, there is also a changing nature of communication beyond borders. One key aspect of recent international scientific development is the growing necessity for local stakeholders to acquire a global mindset and to compare, reflect and accommodate diverse interests. This is what I define as the ‘cosmopolitanization of science’. The study empirically examines the sociological and methodological implications of the cosmopolitanization process and further develops Ulrich Beck’s cosmopolitan theory by delineating four main features of the ‘cosmopolitanization of science’: shared future benefits, passive ethicization, reflexive negotiation, and continuous performance. PMID:24409002

Perceived empathy of teachers and students’ metacognitive strategies

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Sladoje-Bošnjak Biljana M.

2012-01-01

Full Text Available The aim of this research was to establish correlation between perceived empathy of teachers and students’ metacognitive strategies. To obtain a more comprehensive picture of this correlation, the aim was expanded to prediction of students’ metacognitive strategies based on components of teachers’ empathy. Teachers’ empathy was examined through presence of six different components: suffering, positive sharing, crying, emotional attention, feeling for others and identification, which were assessed by attribution theory. Students were the ones who evaluated teachers’ empathy. The following metacognitive strategies were explored: awareness of one’s own cognitive functioning, planning one’s own cognitive functioning and monitoring one’s own cognitive functioning. The research was conducted in two primary schools in the area of East Sarajevo on the sample of seventh-, eighth- and ninth-grade students, which yielded a total of 665 students. The obtained results show that there is a correlation between all variables used to examine teachers’ empathy and all variables used to explore students’ metacognitive strategies. Teachers’ suffering, as one of the components of teachers’ empathy, figures as an important predictor of metacognitive strategies as criterion variables. When it comes to development of metacognitive strategies, students preferred a positive attitude of teachers towards them, based on cognitive and affective balance. Since empathy plays an important role in application of learning strategies and promoting positive behaviour such as interpersonal understanding, helping others and inhibition of anti-social behaviour, empathy skills training should become an integral part of teacher education programmes. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 179020: Koncepcije i strategije obezbeđivanja kvaliteta bazičnog obrazovanja i vaspitanja

Gender performance and cosmopolitan practice

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Høy-Petersen, Nina; Woodward, Ian; Skrbis, Zlatko

2016-01-01

of discursive narrativization, it is likely to be navigated and applied through gender-ideologies. Applying the methodological concept of cognitive schema to a set of qualitative data, and focusing on expressions of hospitality towards others within local communities, we inductively assemble evidence to show...... that men and women have differently articulated cosmopolitan imaginations. In conclusion, we consider what our empirical attention to gender might mean for how we advance critical theories of cosmopolitanism....

The core and cosmopolitans

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Dahlander, Linus; Frederiksen, Lars

2012-01-01

Users often interact and help each other solve problems in communities, but few scholars have explored how these relationships provide opportunities to innovate. We analyze the extent to which people positioned within the core of a community as well as people that are cosmopolitans positioned...... across multiple external communities affect innovation. Using a multimethod approach, including a survey, a complete database of interactions in an online community, content coding of interactions and contributions, and 36 interviews, we specify the types of positions that have the strongest effect...... on innovation. Our study shows that dispositional explanations for user innovation should be complemented by a relational view that emphasizes how these communities differ from other organizations, the types of behaviors this enables, and the effects on innovation....

Caring Climate, Empathy, and Student Social Behaviors in High School Band

Science.gov (United States)

Lalama, Susana M.

2016-01-01

The purpose of this study was to explore connections among perceived caring climate, empathy, and student social behaviors in high school bands. Nine high school band directors (N = 9 schools), along with their students (N = 203), completed an electronic questionnaire for variables of caring climate, cognitive empathy, affective empathy, social…

If you want to be good or do good, empathy is a poor guide

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Austring, Bennye Düranc

2016-01-01

The article critically explores and refers to current psychological debate on empathy as a term.......The article critically explores and refers to current psychological debate on empathy as a term....

The relevance of cosmopolitanism for moral education

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Merry, M.S.; de Ruyter, D.J.

2011-01-01

In this article we defend a moral conception of cosmopolitanism and its relevance for moral education. Our moral conception of cosmopolitanism presumes that persons possess an inherent dignity in the Kantian sense and therefore they should be recognised as ends-in-themselves. We argue that

Acute empathy decline among resident physician trainees on a hematology-oncology ward: an exploratory analysis of house staff empathy, distress, and patient death exposure.

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McFarland, Daniel C; Malone, Adriana K; Roth, Andrew

2017-05-01

A reason for empathy decline during medical training has not been fully elucidated. Empathy may decrease acutely during an inpatient hematology-oncology rotation because of the acuity of death exposures. This study aimed to explore physician trainee empathy, distress, death exposures, and their attributed meaning for the trainee. Internal medicine interns and residents at a single academic center were evaluated before and after hematology-oncology ward rotations using Interpersonal Reactivity Index for empathy, previously cited reasons for empathy decline, Impact of Event Scale-Revised for distress, death exposures (no. of dying patients cared for) and attributed sense of meaning (yes/no) (post-rotation). Fifty-six trainees completed both pre-rotation and post-rotation questionnaires (58% response). Empathy averaged 58.9 (SD 12.0) before and 56.8 (SD 11.1) after the rotation (2.1 point decrease) (p = 0.018). Distress was elevated but did not change significantly during the rotation. Residents cared for 4.28 dying patients. Seventy-three percent reported that death was the most stressful event during the rotation, yet 68% reported that they derived a sense of meaning from caring for dying patients. Empathy and distress scales were positively correlated before the rotation (r = 0.277, p = 0.041) but not after (r = .059, p = 0.69). This study suggests that an acute drop in empathy can occur over several weeks in residents rotating through inpatient hematology-oncology, similar to empathy decline associated with years of training in other studies. Empathy decline may be associated with elevated distress and death exposures on the hematology-oncology ward and should be explored further in other medical training environments. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Empathy and universal values explicated by the empathy-altruism hypothesis.

Science.gov (United States)

Persson, Björn N; Kajonius, Petri J

2016-01-01

Research reports that empathy is on the decline in present-day society, together with an increasing trend in self-enhancing values. Based on the empathy-altruism hypothesis, we investigated whether these constructs are interlinked by analyzing the relationships between emotional and cognitive empathy and 10 universal values. In the first study, using a middle-aged U.S. sample, the results showed that empathy was strongly and positively related to altruistic values and negatively to self-enhancing values in a pattern that aligned with the empathy-altruism hypothesis. In a second confirmation study, these findings were replicated and extended, while also controlling for the Big Five personality traits, to discount that empathy is only captured by basic personality. Only emotional empathy, not cognitive empathy, accounted for up to 18% additional variance in altruistic values, which further confirmed the emphasis on feelings, as postulated by the empathy-altruism hypothesis.

Long-term relations among prosocial-media use, empathy, and prosocial behavior.

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Prot, Sara; Gentile, Douglas A; Anderson, Craig A; Suzuki, Kanae; Swing, Edward; Lim, Kam Ming; Horiuchi, Yukiko; Jelic, Margareta; Krahé, Barbara; Liuqing, Wei; Liau, Albert K; Khoo, Angeline; Petrescu, Poesis Diana; Sakamoto, Akira; Tajima, Sachi; Toma, Roxana Andreea; Warburton, Wayne; Zhang, Xuemin; Lam, Ben Chun Pan

2014-02-01

Despite recent growth of research on the effects of prosocial media, processes underlying these effects are not well understood. Two studies explored theoretically relevant mediators and moderators of the effects of prosocial media on helping. Study 1 examined associations among prosocial- and violent-media use, empathy, and helping in samples from seven countries. Prosocial-media use was positively associated with helping. This effect was mediated by empathy and was similar across cultures. Study 2 explored longitudinal relations among prosocial-video-game use, violent-video-game use, empathy, and helping in a large sample of Singaporean children and adolescents measured three times across 2 years. Path analyses showed significant longitudinal effects of prosocial- and violent-video-game use on prosocial behavior through empathy. Latent-growth-curve modeling for the 2-year period revealed that change in video-game use significantly affected change in helping, and that this relationship was mediated by change in empathy.

Addressing the empathy deficit: beliefs about the malleability of empathy predict effortful responses when empathy is challenging.

Science.gov (United States)

Schumann, Karina; Zaki, Jamil; Dweck, Carol S

2014-09-01

Empathy is often thought to occur automatically. Yet, empathy frequently breaks down when it is difficult or distressing to relate to people in need, suggesting that empathy is often not felt reflexively. Indeed, the United States as a whole is said to be displaying an empathy deficit. When and why does empathy break down, and what predicts whether people will exert effort to experience empathy in challenging contexts? Across 7 studies, we found that people who held a malleable mindset about empathy (believing empathy can be developed) expended greater empathic effort in challenging contexts than did people who held a fixed theory (believing empathy cannot be developed). Specifically, a malleable theory of empathy--whether measured or experimentally induced--promoted (a) more self-reported effort to feel empathy when it is challenging (Study 1); (b) more empathically effortful responses to a person with conflicting views on personally important sociopolitical issues (Studies 2-4); (c) more time spent listening to the emotional personal story of a racial outgroup member (Study 5); and (d) greater willingness to help cancer patients in effortful, face-to-face ways (Study 6). Study 7 revealed a possible reason for this greater empathic effort in challenging contexts: a stronger interest in improving one's empathy. Together, these data suggest that people's mindsets powerfully affect whether they exert effort to empathize when it is needed most, and these data may represent a point of leverage in increasing empathic behaviors on a broad scale. 2014 APA, all rights reserved

Dialogic Cosmopolitanism and the New Wave of Movements

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Agustin, Oscar Garcia

2017-01-01

cosmopolitanism to account for the kind of cosmopolitanism which characterizes this new cycle. Being dialogic entails connectivity between previous and forthcoming struggles in a process combining determination and anticipation with the constant (re)definition of the movement. This process is considered...... to be the combination of social local ruptures with global openness. Dialogic cosmopolitanism consists of 3 main features: the conflictual dimension, whereby the dominant consensus is questioned and spaces of conflict and dissent are generated; the shaping of translocal solidarities that are able to connect local...

Empathy in Medical Students: Exploring the Impact of a Longitudinal Integrated Clerkship Model

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Bergstresser, Kara

2017-01-01

Empathy is considered a significant factor in the physician-patient relationship. The current study examined the impact of a Longitudinal Integrated Clerkship (LIC) model on empathy and patient-centered attitude in medical students. Archival data were examined from 186 medical students at a medical college in the mid-Atlantic region of the United…

Empathy in Dentistry: How Attitudes and Interaction With Older Adults Make a Difference.

Science.gov (United States)

Waldrop, Deborah; Nochajski, Thomas; Davis, Elaine L; Fabiano, Jude; Goldberg, Louis

2016-01-01

The development of empathy and positive attitudes are essential elements of professional education. This study explored the nature of empathy and its association with attitudes about, and exposure to older patients in a sample of dental students. Students completed an adapted version of the Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy (JSPE), the Aging Semantic Differential (ASD) and answered questions about their exposure to older people. Factor analysis was used to identify four factors: (1) Empathy is Valuable, (2) Empathy is Demonstrated, (3) Empathy is not Influential, and (4) Empathy is Difficult to Accomplish. Higher empathy scores were related to the ASD subscale attitude of acceptability of aging and to greater exposure to older adults outside of clinical practice. There were no demographic predictors of higher empathy scores.

Chasing Butterflies without a Net: Interpreting Cosmopolitanism

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Hansen, David T.

2010-01-01

In this article, I map current conceptions of cosmopolitanism and sketch distinctions between the concept and humanism and multiculturalism. The differences mirror what I take to be a central motif of cosmopolitanism: the capacity to fuse reflective openness to the new with reflective loyalty to the known. This motif invites a reconsideration of…

Singer's Utilitarian Account of Cosmopolitan Obligations: A Critical ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

based conception of cosmopolitan obligations. Singer's thesis, simply put, is that from the perspective of utilitarian and cosmopolitan considerations, the affluent owe a moral obligation to provide aid to the masses of the poor irrespective of whether ...

Cosmopolitan cities: the frontier in the twenty-first century?

Science.gov (United States)

Sevincer, A Timur; Kitayama, Shinobu; Varnum, Michael E W

2015-01-01

People with independent (vs. interdependent) social orientation place greater priority on personal success, autonomy, and novel experiences over maintaining ties to their communities of origin. Accordingly, an independent orientation should be linked to a motivational proclivity to move to places that offer economic opportunities, freedom, and diversity. Such places are cities that can be called "cosmopolitan." In support of this hypothesis, Study 1 found that independently oriented young adults showed a preference to move to cosmopolitan rather than noncosmopolitan cities. Study 2 used a priming manipulation and demonstrated a causal impact of independence on residential preferences for cosmopolitan cities. Study 3 established ecological validity by showing that students who actually moved to a cosmopolitan city were more independent than those who either moved to a noncosmopolitan city or never moved. Taken together, the findings illuminate the role of cosmopolitan settlement in the contemporary cultural change toward independence and have implications for urban development and economic growth.

Cosmopolitan cities: The frontier in the 21st century?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

A. Timur Sevincer

2015-10-01

Full Text Available People with independent (vs. interdependent social orientation place greater priority on personal success, autonomy, and novel experiences over maintaining ties to their communities of origin. Accordingly, an independent orientation should be linked to a motivational proclivity to move to places that offer economic opportunities, freedom, and diversity. Such places are cities that can be called cosmopolitan. In support of this hypothesis, Study 1 found that independently oriented young adults showed a preference to move to cosmopolitan rather than noncosmopolitan cities. Study 2 used a priming manipulation and demonstrated a causal impact of independence on residential preferences for cosmopolitan cities. Study 3 established external validity by showing that students who actually moved to a cosmopolitan city were more independent than those who either moved to a noncosmopolitan city or never moved. Taken together, the findings illuminate the role of cosmopolitan settlement in the contemporary cultural change toward independence and have implications for urban development and economic growth.

Cosmopolitanism | Nielsen | South African Journal of Philosophy

African Journals Online (AJOL)

This essay explicates and defends a version of moral cosmopolitanism. It builds on the work of Martha Nussbaum and Kwame Anthony Appiah, who in turn build on Cicero and Kant. It is an update in a contemporary idiom of a classical cosmopolitanism. In a time when Enlightenment ideas are widely discounted, it gives ...

Empathy and reversed empathy of stress in mice.

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Shigeru Watanabe

Full Text Available Empathy is an emotional response to display of distress in others and reversed-empathy is an emotional response to non-distressed others in distressed subjects. Stress has memory enhancing effect on aversive experience. Here, I examine empathy and reversed empathy using the memory enhancing effects of stress in mice. Restrain stress enhanced aversive memory of a floor with electric shock, but restrain stress, with cage mates also restrained, reduced the enhancing effect. On the other hand, restrain stress with free-moving cage mates increased the memory enhancing effect, suggesting the stronger stress. This is the reversed-empathy. Level of corticosterone is the highest after the restrain with free-moving mates and lowest after the restrain with restrained mates.

Emotion regulation moderates the association between empathy and prosocial behavior.

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Lockwood, Patricia L; Seara-Cardoso, Ana; Viding, Essi

2014-01-01

Theory and evidence suggest that empathy is an important motivating factor for prosocial behaviour and that emotion regulation, i.e. the capacity to exert control over an emotional response, may moderate the degree to which empathy is associated with prosocial behaviour. However, studies to date have not simultaneously explored the associations between different empathic processes and prosocial behaviour, nor whether different types of emotion regulation strategies (e.g. cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression) moderate associations between empathy and prosocial behaviour. One hundred-and-ten healthy adults completed questionnaire measures of empathy, emotion regulation and prosocial tendencies. In this sample, both affective and cognitive empathy predicted self-reported prosocial tendencies. In addition, cognitive reappraisal moderated the association between affective empathy and prosocial tendencies. Specifically, there was a significant positive association between empathy and prosocial tendencies for individuals with a low or average tendency to reappraise but not for those with a high tendency to reappraise. Our findings suggest that, in general, empathy is positively associated with prosocial behaviour. However, this association is not significant for individuals with a high tendency for cognitive reappraisal.

The Nature and Role of Empathy in Public Librarianship

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Birdi, Briony; Wilson, Kerry; Tso, Hin Man,

2009-01-01

This article presents two recent studies, an AHRC-funded exploration of the role of empathy in community librarianship (Study 1) and an investigation of the role of empathy in service to minority ethnic users (Study 2). Qualitative elements of each methodology are presented, namely a series of focus groups with frontline staff, interviews with…

Cosmopolitanism, geographical imaginaries and belonging in North London.

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Devadason, Ranji

2010-01-01

Cosmopolitanism has been described as the cultural habitus of globalisation. It is therefore, albeit defined somewhat loosely, often associated with ethnically diverse, global cities. This paper considers the extent to which London engenders cosmopolitan values amongst its residents. It draws on survey data from the LOCAL MULTIDEM study of minorities' political participation to address these themes. The analysis examines perceptions of respect, belonging and geographical imaginaries - amongst established minorities and the ethnic majority - in north London. It is argued that cosmopolitan ethics are transformative and dialectical and, critically, cannot remain the preserve of the privileged in multi-ethnic neighbourhoods. The analysis presented demonstrates that a sense of belonging and cosmopolitan imaginaries are not evenly accessed by different ethnic groups; notably, that Bangladeshi Londoners who are born and bred in the city are less likely to appropriate these discourses than Caribbean, Indian or White residents.

Hypnosis and Empathy: A Complex Relationship.

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Barrett, Deirdre

2016-01-01

This article takes its inspiration from Wickramasekera II's empathic involvement theory of hypnosis. That model illuminates the mutual territory of hypnosis and empathy-common to much interaction between hypnotist and subject, and to the internal process of subjects as they enact suggestions of the hypnotist. However, the present article suggests that the overlap is not as ubiquitous as the empathic involvement theory asserts. Other aspects of hypnosis involve disengagement from real persons in the environment and dissociating from other ego states of the self. Amnesia and certain uses of focused attention in the hypnotic context run counter to empathy. The fantasizer type of high hypnotizables experiences hypnosis more empathically than do the equally hypnotizable dissociater type. This article also explores the relationship of hypnosis and empathy to other related states, including meditation, dreaming, and psychedelic drugs. The conclusion is that empathy is an important component of many hypnotic phenomena, but that the relationship is as partial and complex as the manner in which other traits, such as imagery ability and dissociation, map onto hypnosis.

The relationship between leadership styles and empathy among student nurses.

Science.gov (United States)

Gunther, Mary; Evans, Ginger; Mefford, Linda; Coe, Thomas R

2007-01-01

Much of the nursing literature on leadership describes the qualities of existing nursing leaders, while emphasizing the need for leadership development in student nurses for both managerial and clinical practice. However, there is a lack of research literature on the characteristics of current students. Conducted by the University of Tennessee College of Nursing Empathy Research Group, this pilot study explores the relationship between leadership styles and empathy (cognitive and affective) levels. This correlational descriptive study involved self-report using 3 instruments. Hogan Empathy Scale (HES) and Emotional Empathy Tendency Scale (EETS) measured cognitive and affective empathy levels. The Multifactoral Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ-5x) was used to determine leadership style. Data analysis yielded evidence of a weak positive correlation between the predominant transformational leadership style and empathy levels in both junior and senior students. This correlation has implications for both nurse educators and future employers.

Emotion Regulation Moderates the Association between Empathy and Prosocial Behavior

Science.gov (United States)

Lockwood, Patricia L.; Seara-Cardoso, Ana; Viding, Essi

2014-01-01

Theory and evidence suggest that empathy is an important motivating factor for prosocial behaviour and that emotion regulation, i.e. the capacity to exert control over an emotional response, may moderate the degree to which empathy is associated with prosocial behaviour. However, studies to date have not simultaneously explored the associations between different empathic processes and prosocial behaviour, nor whether different types of emotion regulation strategies (e.g. cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression) moderate associations between empathy and prosocial behaviour. One hundred–and-ten healthy adults completed questionnaire measures of empathy, emotion regulation and prosocial tendencies. In this sample, both affective and cognitive empathy predicted self-reported prosocial tendencies. In addition, cognitive reappraisal moderated the association between affective empathy and prosocial tendencies. Specifically, there was a significant positive association between empathy and prosocial tendencies for individuals with a low or average tendency to reappraise but not for those with a high tendency to reappraise. Our findings suggest that, in general, empathy is positively associated with prosocial behaviour. However, this association is not significant for individuals with a high tendency for cognitive reappraisal. PMID:24810604

Music, Empathy, and Affiliation: Commentary on Greenberg, Rentfrow, and Baron-Cohen

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jonna K Vuoskoski

2015-09-01

Full Text Available Empathy and social cognition arguably play a crucial role in our engagement with music. In response to the account offered by Greenberg, Rentfrow, and Baron-Cohen, this commentary considers an alternative—yet complementary—explanation for how music making and music listening might be able to evoke empathy and affiliation. This alternative explanation stems from the perception—action model of empathy, and the affiliation-evoking effects of mimicking and synchronized actions. In light of this alternative account, I will also explore the potential contribution of dispositional empathy to music preferences and music perception as suggested by Greenberg and colleagues.

Empathy and Theory of Mind in Deaf and Hearing Children.

Science.gov (United States)

Peterson, Candida C

2016-04-01

Empathy (or sharing another's emotion) and theory of mind (ToM: the understanding that behavior is guided by true and false beliefs) are cornerstones of human social life and relationships. In contrast to ToM, there has been little study of empathy's development, especially in deaf children. Two studies of a total of 117 children (52 hearing; 65 deaf children of hearing parents) aged 4-13 years were therefore designed to (a) compare levels of empathy in deaf and hearing children, and (b) explore correlations of ToM with empathy in deaf and hearing groups. Results showed that (a) deaf children scored lower in empathy than their hearing peers and (b) empathy and ToM were significantly correlated for deaf children but not for the hearing. Possible reasons for these divergent developmental patterns were considered, along with implications for future research. © The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

The psychology of cosmopolitan behaviour: emotions, norms and social identification

OpenAIRE

Faulkner, Nicholas

2017-01-01

Ethical cosmopolitanism has been the subject of substantial theoretical elaboration over its long history. However, until recently, very little attention had been given to the question of how individuals might be encouraged to behave as cosmopolitans in practice. Political theorists have recently identified a small number of factors – including certain social identities, collective guilt, and prosocial norms – that may increase cosmopolitan behaviour, but whether those factors actually do inc...

Industrial Citizenship, Cosmopolitanism and European Integration

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Zhang, Chenchen; Lillie, Nathan

2015-01-01

There has been an explosion of interest in the idea of European Union citizenship in recent years, as a defining example of postnational cosmopolitan citizenship potentially replacing or layered on top of national citizenships. We argue that this form of EU citizenship undermines industrial...... citizenship in its current ‘postnational’ form is realized through practices of mobility, placing it at tension with bounded class-based collectivities. Though practices of working class cosmopolitanism may eventually give rise to a working class consciousness, the fragmented nature of this vision impedes...

Citizens of the (Green) World? Cosmopolitan Orientation and Sustainability

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Grinstein, A.; Riefler, P.

2015-01-01

Contemporary consumer markets are characterized by both a heightened need for sustainability and an increasingly cosmopolitan lifestyle. This article bridges these two trends and studies two untapped questions: (1) How do cosmopolitan consumers relate to sustainable behavior? and (2) How should

Is the cosmopolitanization of science emerging in China?

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Joy Yueyue

2010-12-01

China is one among many other countries that have recognised the necessity in aligning national scientific progress with that of global development. As China is striding along the path of scientific development with determination and initial success, a key concern confronted by international scientific community is how China, a rising scientific power, will transform existing global scientific atlas. Based on a project carried out in six Chinese cities between 2006 to 2009, this paper mainly employs Ulrich Beck's cosmopolitan theory in examining China's life sciences' development in the last decade to investigate how Chinese stakeholders have developed a (cosmopolitan) sensibility to rival ways of scientific reasoning, and in what way, Chinese stakeholders have contributed to the cosmopolitanization of science.

From painkiller to empathy killer: acetaminophen (paracetamol) reduces empathy for pain.

Science.gov (United States)

Mischkowski, Dominik; Crocker, Jennifer; Way, Baldwin M

2016-09-01

Simulation theories of empathy hypothesize that empathizing with others' pain shares some common psychological computations with the processing of one's own pain. Support for this perspective has largely relied on functional neuroimaging evidence of an overlap between activations during the experience of physical pain and empathy for other people's pain. Here, we extend the functional overlap perspective to the neurochemical level and test whether a common physical painkiller, acetaminophen (paracetamol), can reduce empathy for another's pain. In two double-blind placebo-controlled experiments, participants rated perceived pain, personal distress and empathic concern in response to reading scenarios about another's physical or social pain, witnessing ostracism in the lab, or visualizing another study participant receiving painful noise blasts. As hypothesized, acetaminophen reduced empathy in response to others' pain. Acetaminophen also reduced the unpleasantness of noise blasts delivered to the participant, which mediated acetaminophen's effects on empathy. Together, these findings suggest that the physical painkiller acetaminophen reduces empathy for pain and provide a new perspective on the neurochemical bases of empathy. Because empathy regulates prosocial and antisocial behavior, these drug-induced reductions in empathy raise concerns about the broader social side effects of acetaminophen, which is taken by almost a quarter of adults in the United States each week. © The Author (2016). Published by Oxford University Press. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

French Fiction, Empathy, and the Utopian Potential of 9/11

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Tim Gauthier

2013-01-01

Full Text Available In From Solidarity to Schisms , Cara Cilano conceptualizes September 11 as a moment “characterized by unfathomable vulnerability and the possibility of a better future.” She argues the event, while traumatic, might have served as an impetus to reconfigure American self-perceptions and thoughts about its place in the world. Instead, she contends, the United States squandered the utopian potential of this moment. Cilano remains optimistic, however, because she sees European fictional discourse on 9/11 as emblematic of a desire for a melding of divergent perspectives. Their critique aims to keep America’s sense of itself unbalanced, thus providing fuel for self-reflection, analysis, and, most important, renewal. Taking the measure of current Franco-American relations, this essay tests the validity of this contention by examining works of French fiction published in the five years after the attacks. Four of these texts—Christian Garcin’s La jubilation des hasards , Didier Goupil’s Le jour de mon retour sur terre , Luc Lang’s 11 septembre, mon amour , and Frédéric Beigbeder’s Windows on the World —will be the focus of this essay. Are they being written to take advantage of the cosmopolitan potential of the moment, or grasping the opportunity to criticize a (weakened nation, and thereby expressing uniquely French concerns? The essay contemplates the extent to which self-interest and questions of identity—personal, political, national—interfere with empathy, thus posing a considerable challenge to the utopian dream of a cosmopolitan world.

Immigration, Cosmopolitanism, and the Opening of Borders .

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ciprian Niţu

2011-12-01

Full Text Available The paper critically examines the forms the idea of cosmopolitan hospitality takes both in the contemporary debate on the political rights of immigrants, and on the problem of global justice. Showing that the original Kantian meaning of hospitality presents some important limits in terms of the problems which contemporary political theory confronts with, the paper will also discuss some of the practical or normative difficulties faced by the contemporary cosmopolitanism, and how to address these difficulties.

The empathy impulse: A multinomial model of intentional and unintentional empathy for pain.

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Cameron, C Daryl; Spring, Victoria L; Todd, Andrew R

2017-04-01

Empathy for pain is often described as automatic. Here, we used implicit measurement and multinomial modeling to formally quantify unintentional empathy for pain: empathy that occurs despite intentions to the contrary. We developed the pain identification task (PIT), a sequential priming task wherein participants judge the painfulness of target experiences while trying to avoid the influence of prime experiences. Using multinomial modeling, we distinguished 3 component processes underlying PIT performance: empathy toward target stimuli (Intentional Empathy), empathy toward prime stimuli (Unintentional Empathy), and bias to judge target stimuli as painful (Response Bias). In Experiment 1, imposing a fast (vs. slow) response deadline uniquely reduced Intentional Empathy. In Experiment 2, inducing imagine-self (vs. imagine-other) perspective-taking uniquely increased Unintentional Empathy. In Experiment 3, Intentional and Unintentional Empathy were stronger toward targets with typical (vs. atypical) pain outcomes, suggesting that outcome information matters and that effects on the PIT are not reducible to affective priming. Typicality of pain outcomes more weakly affected task performance when target stimuli were merely categorized rather than judged for painfulness, suggesting that effects on the latter are not reducible to semantic priming. In Experiment 4, Unintentional Empathy was stronger for participants who engaged in costly donation to cancer charities, but this parameter was also high for those who donated to an objectively worse but socially more popular charity, suggesting that overly high empathy may facilitate maladaptive altruism. Theoretical and practical applications of our modeling approach for understanding variation in empathy are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Empathy, Sense of Power, and Personality: Do They Change During Pediatric Residency?

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Greenberg, Larrie; Agrawal, Dewesh; Toto, Regina; Blatt, Benjamin

2015-08-01

Empathy is a critical competency in medicine. Prior studies demonstrate a longitudinal decrease in empathy during residency; however, they have not included pediatric residents. The relations among the expression of empathy, sense of power (ability to influence other's behavior), and personality traits in residents also have not been addressed. Lastly, there are no data on how residents compare with the general nonmedical population in their expression of empathy. The purposes of our study were to assess whether empathy, sense of power, and personality type were statistically correlated; if resident empathy declines over time; and how resident empathy compares with that of nonmedical peers. In 2010, a cohort of individuals entering pediatric residency were given three validated survey instruments at the beginning of their first and third years of training to explore longitudinal changes in empathy, sense of power, and major personality traits. We found no decrease in resident empathy in 2 years of pediatric training, no changes in their sense of power, and no statistically significant correlation between empathetic tendencies and sense of power. When compared with the general nonmedical population, pediatric residents rated themselves higher in empathy. As expected, the two components of empathy (empathic concern and perspective taking) were moderately correlated. Of the major personality traits, only agreeableness showed significant correlation with empathy. Pediatric resident empathy did not decrease longitudinally, unlike studies in other residents. There was no inverse relation between self-perceptions of sense of power and empathy as is present in the business literature. Finally, pediatric resident empathy was significantly higher when compared with a general nonmedical population.

Chinese Cosmopolitanism and the System of Higher Education in 1970-2000

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A V Sidorova

2011-06-01

Full Text Available The article defines cosmopolitanism in China through the prisms of nationalism, multiculturalism and consumerism. This definition makes it possible to better understand the proliferation of interactive, or high-quality, cosmopolitanism through the activity of state agencies in modern China. In this article the system of higher education is presented as one of the most significant state agency, which has a strong, though indirect, influence on accepting the principles of cosmopolitan approach for further self-advancement of individuals. It is substantiated that the quantitative limitations of the opportunities in the higher education system can be overcome by developing a collective level of cosmopolitanism.

Cosmopolitan Education in Agonistic Morality: Epistemological Restraint, Discourse Ethics, and Agonistic Pluralism

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Hayden, Matthew J.

2018-01-01

Cosmopolitan education has been much theorized, discussed, and proposed, but what exactly might it look like and what specific processes might it involve? Cosmopolitanism's recognition of shared humanity and the subsequent entailment of democratic inclusion make explicit the moral and political nature of cosmopolitan education and philosophy. As…

The Borders of Historical Empathy: Students Encounter the Holocaust through Film

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Metzger, Scott Alan

2012-01-01

This case study explores potential educational tensions in historical empathy for learning about emotionally difficult topics through lessons that use dramatic feature films (movies). It investigates one case of historical empathy in the classroom by analyzing what a high-school teacher and her students do and talk about in class. The observed…

Taijiquan the “Taiji World” Way: Towards a Cosmopolitan Vision of Ecology

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David H. K. Brown

2014-07-01

Full Text Available In this article, we present a case study analysis of data gathered on the practice of the art of Taijiquan (Tai Chi Chuan in one UK context. Our interest in looking at this physical culture was in exploring if/how physical cultures of shared embodied experience and practice may help “sow the seeds of environmental awareness”. In so doing, we illustrate certain affinities between this interpretation of the art and Beck’s idea of a “cosmopolitan vision of ecology”. We present an analysis of documentary and interview data of one English Taijiquan organisation and how it currently promotes the idea of interconnectedness, wellbeing and an alternative meta-narrative for living through the practice of Taijiquan. We conclude that, while further research is needed, there is evidence that a cosmopolitan vision for ecology is emerging in physical cultures such as Taijiquan.

Empathy and stress in nurses working in haemodialysis: a qualitative study.

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Vioulac, Christel; Aubree, Colette; Massy, Ziad A; Untas, Aurélie

2016-05-01

To explore the concepts of empathy and stress in nurses working in haemodialysis units in France and their possible interactions. Nurses' work in haemodialysis is rather complex. It requires technical expertise, because of the peculiarity of the treatment, and emotional skills, to care for patients throughout a long-lasting therapy. Empathy is considered as a key in the concept of caring, which allows nurses to give appropriate answers to their patients' needs. In addition, nurses' work environment can generate stress. A qualitative descriptive design. Nurses (N = 23) working in haemodialysis units were interviewed in three different sites in 2014. The analysis of nurses' speech emphasized a predominance of the cognitive attributes of empathy: understanding, communication, adjusted response (43%), and a special feature of the relationship due to the chronicity of the care (23%). The main stressors highlighted were time management (14%), emergencies (12%) and technical nature of the task (8%). Nurses' experience in haemodialysis seemed to be a modulating factor regarding empathy and stress. The main stressors highlighted were time management (14%), emergencies (12%) and technical nature of the task (8%). Nurses' experience in haemodialysis seemed to be a modulating factor regarding empathy and stress. The results showed the special features of nurses' work in haemodialysis and the need for further studies to investigate these concepts. The influence of stress on empathy needs to be explored more precisely, especially regarding nurses' experience and its impact on patients. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Primate empathy: three factors and their combinations for empathy-related phenomena.

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Yamamoto, Shinya

2017-05-01

Empathy as a research topic is receiving increasing attention, although there seems some confusion on the definition of empathy across different fields. Frans de Waal (de Waal FBM. Putting the altruism back into altruism: the evolution of empathy. Annu Rev Psychol 2008, 59:279-300. doi:10.1146/annurev.psych.59.103006.093625) used empathy as an umbrella term and proposed a comprehensive model for the evolution of empathy with some of its basic elements in nonhuman animals. In de Waal's model, empathy consists of several layers distinguished by required cognitive levels; the perception-action mechanism plays the core role for connecting ourself and others. Then, human-like empathy such as perspective-taking develops in outer layers according to cognitive sophistication, leading to prosocial acts such as targeted helping. I agree that animals demonstrate many empathy-related phenomena; however, the species differences and the level of cognitive sophistication of the phenomena might be interpreted in another way than this simple linearly developing model. Our recent studies with chimpanzees showed that their perspective-taking ability does not necessarily lead to proactive helping behavior. Herein, as a springboard for further studies, I reorganize the empathy-related phenomena by proposing a combination model instead of the linear development model. This combination model is composed of three organizing factors: matching with others, understanding of others, and prosociality. With these three factors and their combinations, most empathy-related matters can be categorized and mapped to appropriate context; this may be a good first step to discuss the evolution of empathy in relation to the neural connections in human and nonhuman animal brains. I would like to propose further comparative studies, especially from the viewpoint of Homo-Pan (chimpanzee and bonobo) comparison. WIREs Cogn Sci 2017, 8:e1431. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1431 For further resources related to this article

Boundedness beyond reification: cosmopolitan teacher education as critique

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Claudia Schumann

2013-01-01

Full Text Available Certain strands of cosmopolitanism have been criticized on various occasions for merely mirroring the mental framework of a global elite that stresses positive attitudes to mobility, flexibility, and disinterested objective detachment to the detriment of ‘rooted’, local and national values. In this way, it is argued, it presents a one-sided opportunistic or naively affirmative picture of processes of globalization rather than taking seriously the challenges posed by the inherently normative dimension of cosmopolitan thought and practice. The present paper will argue for a return to the critical core of the cosmopolitan idea and proposes that the critique of reification, which recently received renewed interest by philosophers of the so-called third generation Frankfurt School, can serve as a vital tool for re-imagining cosmopolitan teacher education as critique. In particular, the discussion around the recent turn towards a standards and competencies oriented teacher education in Germany will be critically examined in this regard. Rather than presenting a mere factual description of our thinking, judgments and actions, a cosmopolitan orientation should be concerned with reminding us of the importance of a continuous critical challenge of their validity. Firstly, the concept of reification will be shown to provide the conceptual resources to describe and select relevant characteristics of contemporary social pathologies that cannot be adequately captured within liberal social philosophies. A closer analysis of reification as a deficient relation to oneself, to others, or to the world will then lead to the second question of how to conceive of non-reifying forms of relatedness, commitment and boundedness as enabling new forms of expressive freedom. Instead of one-sided, narrow and hasty reactions towards a perceived ‘global challenge’—either fetishizing borders or their transgression, an critical educational cosmopolitanism should bring

Subjective experience of emotions and emotional empathy in paranoid schizophrenia.

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Lehmann, Anja; Bahçesular, Katja; Brockmann, Eva-Maria; Biederbick, Sarah-Elisabeth; Dziobek, Isabel; Gallinat, Jürgen; Montag, Christiane

2014-12-30

Unlike the cognitive dimensions, alterations of the affective components of empathy in schizophrenia are less well understood. This study explored cognitive and affective dimensions of empathy in the context of the subjective experience of aspects of emotion processing, including emotion regulation, emotional contagion, and interpersonal distress, in individuals with schizophrenia and healthy controls. In addition, the predictive value of these parameters on psychosocial function was investigated. Fifty-five patients with paranoid schizophrenia and 55 healthy controls were investigated using the Multifaceted Empathy Test and Interpersonal Reactivity Index, as well as the Subjective Experience of Emotions and Emotional Contagion Scales. Individuals with schizophrenia showed impairments of cognitive empathy, but maintained emotional empathy. They reported significantly more negative emotional contagion, overwhelming emotions, lack of emotions, and symbolization of emotions by imagination, but less self-control of emotional expression than healthy persons. Besides cognitive empathy, the experience of a higher extent of overwhelming emotions and of less interpersonal distress predicted psychosocial function in patients. People with schizophrenia and healthy controls showed diverging patterns of how cognitive and emotional empathy related to the subjective aspects of emotion processing. It can be assumed that variables of emotion processing are important moderators of empathic abilities in schizophrenia. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

The Looming Shadows of the Walls. Is a Cosmopolitan Europe still Possible?

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Vincenzo Cicchelli

2015-01-01

Full Text Available In a Europe of many lights and shadows, cosmopolitan sociology provides a valid theoretical framework to distinguish one from the other. If cosmopolitan sociology is an attempt to understand how individuals, social groups and institutions deal with the challenges of ever more transnational social processes, then the European issue can be fully inserted within such an approach. From this point of view, following the austerity policies and recent events involving Syrian refugees and the attack by Daesh activists at the heart of Europe, sociology has started to enquire whether a cosmopolitan Europe is still possible. Conversaly, in the history of Europe and in its Constitutional Treaties, traces of cosmopolitanism are to be found almost everywhere. In this context, our study examines the crisis pervading Europe today and highlights the standing back to a certain extent of cosmopolitan sociology. At the same time, it stresses the hope that a change of direction will occur and the opportunity grasped of reflecting more deeply on the founding principles of cosmopolitan Europe.

Nursing education: in pursuit of cosmopolitanism.

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Petit dit Dariel, Odessa

2009-07-01

Changing demographics, globalization, and an increasingly complex health care system demands progressive approaches to reaching our goals of competent transcultural care. Despite original contributions made by pioneers in cultural appreciation, nursing curricula are still falling short in addressing these issues in both education and practice. Many nurses enter their fields with little knowledge of the societal injustices and educational inequities that haunt the populations they care for. A cosmopolitan approach to nursing education is proposed to assist students in recognizing the complexity and uniqueness of individual experiences, rather than merely attempting to place them into categories based on gender, culture, race, or age. Being a global citizen and a cosmopolitan nurse requires participation in, and valuing of, the common good of society as a whole. Practicing the profession outside of comfort zones can lead to an appreciation for how all our choices are part of a complex global network. Nursing education should be responsible for developing in students the deepest knowledge base as well as the highest degree of critical independence. Cosmopolitan nurses could be the model for 21st century practitioners and future nurse leaders.

Hegel’s Gesture Towards Radical Cosmopolitanism

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Shannon Brincat

2009-09-01

Full Text Available This is a preliminary argument of a much larger research project inquiring into the relation betweenHegel’s philosophical system and the project of emancipation in Critical International Relations Theory. Specifically, the paper examines how Hegel’s theory of recognition gestures towards a form of radical cosmopolitanism in world politics to ensure the conditions of rational freedom for all humankind. Much of the paper is a ground-clearing exercise defining what is ‘living’ in Hegel’s thought for emancipatory approaches in world politics, to borrow from Croce’s now famous question. It focuses on Hegel’s unique concept of freedom which places recognition as central in the formation of self-consciousness and therefore as a key determinant in the conditions necessary forhuman freedom to emerge in political community. While further research is needed to ascertain the precise relationship between Hegel’s recognition theoretic, emancipation and cosmopolitanism, it is contended that the intersubjective basis of Hegel’s concept of freedom through recognition necessitates some form of radical cosmopolitanism that ensures successful processes of recognition between all peoples, the precise institutional form of which remains unspecified.

Empathy Problems in Youth with Disruptive Behavior Disorders, with and without CU Traits

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Pijper, J.|info:eu-repo/dai/nl/369283414; de Wied, M.A.|info:eu-repo/dai/nl/089238672; van Goozen, S.; Meeus, W.H.J.|info:eu-repo/dai/nl/070442215

2017-01-01

This chapter first examines the nature of empathy problems in clinically referred disruptive behavior disorders (DBD) youth with callous unemotional (CU) traits. It then examines whether a lack of empathy contributes to a differentiation between DBD subtypes. The chapter also explores whether the

Empathy in general practice—the gap between wishes and reality: comparing the views of patients and physicians.

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Derksen, F.A.W.M.; Olde Hartman, T.C.; Bensing, J.; Lagro-Janssen, A.

2018-01-01

Background. Empathy is regarded by patients and general practitioners (GPs) as fundamental in patient–GP communication. Patients do not always experience empathy and GPs encounter circumstances which hamper applying it. Objective. To explore why receiving and offering empathy during the encounter in

Empathy Modulates the Evaluation Processing of Altruistic Outcomes

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Xin Liu

2018-04-01

Full Text Available Empathy plays a central role in social decisions involving psychological conflict, such as whether to help another person at the cost of one’s own interests. Using the event-related potential (ERP technique, the current study explored the neural mechanisms underlying the empathic effect on the evaluation processing of outcomes in conflict-of-interest situations, in which the gain of others resulted in the performer’s loss. In the high-empathy condition, the beneficiaries were underprivileged students who were living in distress (stranger in need. In the low-empathy condition, the beneficiaries were general students without miserable information (stranger not in need. ERP results showed that the FRN was more negative-going for self no-gain than self gain, but showed reversed pattern for other’s outcome (i.e., more negative for gain than no-gain in the low-empathy condition, indicating that participants interpreted the gain of others as the loss of themselves. However, the reversed FRN pattern was not observed in the high-empathy condition, suggesting that the neural responses to one’s own loss are buffered by empathy. In addition, the P3 valence effect was observed only in the self condition, but not in the two stranger conditions, indicating that the P3 is more sensitive to self-relevant information. Moreover, the results of subjective rating showed that more empathic concern and altruistic motivation were elicited in the high-empathy condition than in the low-empathy condition, and these scores had negative linear correlations only with the FRN, but not with the P3. These findings suggest that when outcomes following altruistic decisions involve conflict of interest, the early stage of the processing of outcome evaluation could be modulated by the empathic level.

Domain-Specific Creativity in Relation to the Level of Empathy and Systemizing

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Dostál, Daniel; Plháková, Alena; Záškodná, Tereza

2017-01-01

This study aimed to explore self-reported domain-specific creativity in relation to the level of empathy, systemizing, and the Big Five personality dimensions. The research sample consisted of 1112 college students to whom the Kaufman Domains of Creativity Scale (K-DOCS), the Creative Achievement Questionnaire (CAQ), Baron-Cohen's empathy and…

Aging, Empathy, and Prosociality

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Sheehan, Alexander H.; Dahlben, Brian; Gutchess, Angela H.

2015-01-01

Objectives. Although empathy is a well-established motivation in younger adults for helping others, it is not known whether this extends to aging. Prioritization of socioemotional goals with age may increase the salience of helping others (i.e., prosocial behavior), but older adults also experience decreased cognitive empathy. Thus, we investigated age-related differences in relationships among empathy and prosocial behavior. Method. Participants were 24 younger (M = 19.8 years) and 24 older (M = 77.9 years) healthy adults. Whereas participants believed the study involved playing the dictator game, in reality, state emotional empathy was induced implicitly through a note from an opponent describing their experience with cancer. Prosocial behavior was measured by participants’ monetary offers to that opponent. Results. Older adults showed greater prosocial behavior due to the empathy induction than younger adults. There was a positive association between state emotional empathy ratings and prosocial behavior in older, but not in younger adults, and preliminary evidence for higher state emotional empathy levels in older adults with higher trait cognitive empathy. Discussion. This suggests that in contexts relevant to socioemotional goals, older adults may be more motivated than younger adults to help others and state emotional empathy may be a potential mechanism for greater prosocial behavior in aging. PMID:24115776

Empathy in Adult Education

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Natalija Vrečer

2015-10-01

Full Text Available Empathy is an important part of emotional intelligence and the latter is crucial for human relations, whether they be interpersonal relations, relations among people at work, or in a wider community. Therefore, empathy is important for adult education, for guidance counsellors, and for other adult educators. Adult educators must be empathic in order to understand the perspectives and needs of the participants in the educational process and empathy is a precondition for understanding. The development of empathy as a competence is a lifelong learning process. Namely, despite some biological predispositions for empathy, the latter can be learnt. It is the contention of the article that empathy is one of the most important intercultural competencies, because if a person is not empathic, other intercultural competencies vary rarely cannot develop to their full extent. Thus empathy is a precondition for successful intercultural dialogue.

Cosmopolitanism in Context: Perspectives from International Law and Political Theory

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Werner, W.G.; Pierik, R.M.

2010-01-01

Is it possible and desirable to translate the basic principles underlying cosmopolitanism as a moral standard into effective global institutions. Will the ideals of inclusiveness and equal moral concern for all survive the marriage between cosmopolitanism and institutional power? What are the

Cosmopolitanism in context: perspectives from international law and political theory

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Pierik, R.; Werner, W.

2010-01-01

Is it possible and desirable to translate the basic principles underlying cosmopolitanism as a moral standard into effective global institutions. Will the ideals of inclusiveness and equal moral concern for all survive the marriage between cosmopolitanism and institutional power? What are the

Peer acceptance among Chinese adolescents: the role of emotional empathy, cognitive empathy and gender.

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Huang, Heqing; Su, Yanjie

2014-10-01

Previous studies have found mixed results on the relationship between empathy and peer acceptance. Emotional and cognitive components of empathy were hypothesised to play different roles in peer acceptance, and the relationship between empathy and peer acceptance differed across genders. In this study, 375 Chinese adolescents completed self-report measures of emotional and cognitive empathy. They also provided peer nominations that allowed for the determination of social preference and social impact scores. The results showed that a boy's cognitive empathy positively correlated with the extent to which he was liked by his male classmates, whereas a girl's cognitive empathy positively correlated with her social impact among her female classmates. This study suggests that empathy does not affect peer acceptance among adolescents uniformly; instead, gender plays a determinative role in the dialectics between social acceptance and empathy. © 2014 International Union of Psychological Science.

Empathy and Bullying: Exploring the Influence of Callous-Unemotional Traits

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Munoz, Luna C.; Qualter, Pamela; Padgett, Gemma

2011-01-01

Although knowing and feeling the emotions of other people might result in less bullying, we argue that not caring about these feelings will also be important. That is, what good is empathy, if one does not care about the feelings or values of others? We examined self-reports of callous-unemotional traits (CU: Inventory of Callous-Unemotional…

May Joseph,Fluid New York: Cosmopolitan Urbanism and the Green Imagination

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Marche, Guillaume

2015-01-01

In Fluid New York: Cosmopolitan Urbanism and the Green Imagination, May Joseph, a social science and cultural studies scholar, explores the history, experience, representations, and political implications of New York City’s relation to its natural environment, especially its aquatic surroundings –be they rivers, harbor or ocean. Of particular interest to Joseph, and the reader, is New York’s status as an archipelagic metropolis. While the book does not purport to provide a straightforward his...

Teaching for Cosmopolitan Citizenship

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Osler, Audrey

2016-01-01

"Teachers need to prepare young people for interdependence and diversity at all scales: in the school community, neighborhood, town or city, nation, and globe," writes Audrey Osler. "This is what I refer to as 'education for cosmopolitan citizenship.'" In this article, the founding director of the Centre for Citizenship and…

Cosmopolitan communication online: YouTube responses to the anti-Islam film Fitna.

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Mihelj, Sabina; van Zoonen, Liesbet; Vis, Farida

2011-12-01

In 2008, a Dutch member of parliament released a short anti-Islamic film entitled Fitna, which stirred a huge public controversy and provoked public condemnations around the world. In response to the film, hundreds of videos were uploaded on YouTube, mostly with the aim to provide a more positive representation of Islam, express support for the author and his views, or defend his freedom of speech. Drawing on interviews with YouTube users who posted the videos, this paper reflects on the capacity of the Internet to sustain cosmopolitan communication and examines how cosmopolitan attitudes and practices on-line differ depending on the participants' cultural and social background, especially their religious affiliations. Particular attention is paid to how the opportunities for cosmopolitan communication are shaped by the unequal distribution of cosmopolitan attitudes and practices among groups, and by global inequalities of power. In addressing these issues, the paper also engages with broader debates about cosmopolitanism, and argues for an understanding of cosmopolitanism as a quest for universalism, which remains anchored in the particular, but involves communication across difference, and requires openness to the possibility that the other is right. © London School of Economics and Political Science 2011.

Working memory capacity of biological movements predicts empathy traits.

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Gao, Zaifeng; Ye, Tian; Shen, Mowei; Perry, Anat

2016-04-01

Working memory (WM) and empathy are core issues in cognitive and social science, respectively. However, no study so far has explored the relationship between these two constructs. Considering that empathy takes place based on the others' observed experiences, which requires extracting the observed dynamic scene into WM and forming a coherent representation, we hypothesized that a sub-type of WM capacity, i.e., WM for biological movements (BM), should predict one's empathy level. Therefore, WM capacity was measured for three distinct types of stimuli in a change detection task: BM of human beings (BM; Experiment 1), movements of rectangles (Experiment 2), and static colors (Experiment 3). The first two stimuli were dynamic and shared one WM buffer which differed from the WM buffer for colors; yet only the BM conveyed social information. We found that BM-WM capacity was positively correlated with both cognitive and emotional empathy, with no such correlations for WM capacity of movements of rectangles or of colors. Thus, the current study is the first to provide evidence linking a specific buffer of WM and empathy, and highlights the necessity for considering different WM capacities in future social and clinical research.

Insights from industry: a quantitative analysis of engineers' perceptions of empathy and care within their practice

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Hess, Justin L.; Strobel, Johannes; Pan, Rui Celia; Wachter Morris, Carrie A.

2017-11-01

This study focuses on two seldom-investigated skills or dispositions aligned with engineering habits of mind - empathy and care. In order to conduct quantitative research, we designed, explored the underlying structure of, validated, and tested the reliability of the Empathy and Care Questionnaire (ECQ), a new psychometric instrument. In the second part, we used the ECQ to explore the perceptions of empathy and care of alumni/ae of an internationally ranked US institution, along with how perceptions differed by work experience and gender. Results show that participants perceived empathy and care to be important in multiple respects, most notably in relational aspects of engineering practice. Engineers with more engineering experience were more likely to perceive empathy and care as existing in engineering practice and as important to their work. While these phenomena are sometimes depicted as feminine qualities, we found no gender differences among our respondents.

[Applying Game-Based Learning in Nursing Education: Empathy Board Game Learning].

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Lu, Chueh-Fen; Wu, Shu-Mei; Shu, Ying-Mei; Yeh, Mei-Yu

2018-02-01

Attending lectures and reading are two common approaches to acquiring knowledge, while repetitive practice is a common approach to acquiring skills. Nurturing proper attitudes in students is one of the greatest challenges for educators. Health professionals must incorporate empathy into their practice. Creative teaching strategies may offer a feasible approach to enhancing empathy-related competence. The present article focuses on analyzing current, empathy-related curriculums in nursing education in Taiwan, exploring the concepts of empathy and game-based learning, presenting the development of an empathy board game as a teaching aid, and, finally, evaluating the developed education application. Based on the learner-centered principle, this aid was designed with peer learning, allowing learners to influence the learning process, to simulate the various roles of clients, and to develop diverse interpersonal dialogues. The continuous learning loops were formed using the gamification mechanism and transformation, enabling students to connect and practice the three elements of empathy ability: emotion, cognition and expression. Via the game elements of competition, interaction, storytelling, real-time responses, concretizing feedback, integrated peer learning, and equality between teachers and students, students who play patient roles are able to perceive different levels of comfort, which encourages the development of insight into the meaning of empathy. Thereby, the goals of the empathy lesson is achievable within a creative game-based learning environment.

The Basic Empathy Scale adapted to French middle childhood: Structure and development of empathy.

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Bensalah, Leila; Stefaniak, Nicolas; Carre, Arnaud; Besche-Richard, Chrystel

2016-12-01

We adapted the adult French version of the Basic Empathy Scale to French children aged 6-11 years, in order to probe the factorial structure underlying empathy. A total of 410 children (189 girls and 221 boys) were instructed to fill out the resulting Basic Empathy Scale in Children (BES-C). Results showed that, as in adulthood, the three-factor model of empathy (i.e., emotional contagion, cognitive empathy, and emotional disconnection) was more relevant than the one- and two-factor ones. This means that as early as 6 years of age, children's responses should reflect the same organization of the three components of empathy as those of adults. In line with the literature, cognitive empathy increased and emotional disconnection decreased in middle childhood, while emotional contagion remained stable. Moreover, girls exhibited greater emotional contagion than boys, with the reverse pattern being observed for emotional disconnection. No sex difference was found regarding cognitive empathy.

Reconciling Universality and Particularity through a Cosmopolitan Outlook on Human Rights

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Rebecca Adami

2012-08-01

Full Text Available Human rights are today criticized as not compatible with different cultural values and the debate has circulated around Asian values and Islamic values as in dichotomy with human rights as universal ethics (Ignatieff, 2003. The theoretical dichotomy between universality and particularity is questioned pragmatically in this paper through a historical study. The working process of drafting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR in 1946-48, which included thousands of people, is explored as a cosmopolitan space in which individuals from different cultural contexts met to negotiate human rights through cultural narratives. The process where particular values were negotiated with universal notion on human rights resulted in a common proclamation (UDHR without a common philosophical or ideological ground. This paper puts forth a thesis that human rights discourse can work as a cosmopolitan space, in which particular value systems meet in processes characterized by conflict and cohesion. Hence human rights can be understood as a master narrative compatible with different conflicting cultural narratives (Gibson & Somers, 1994.

Professional writers and empathy: Exploring the barriers to anticipating reader problems

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de Jong, Menno D.T.; Lentz, Leo

2007-01-01

Research has shown that professional writers cannot accurately predict the problems readers will experience when using functional documents. In this paper, we give an overview of reasons why it can be so hardfor writers to anticipate reader problems. We elaborate on the concept of empathy, and

Underlying construct of empathy, optimism, and burnout in medical students.

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Hojat, Mohammadreza; Vergare, Michael; Isenberg, Gerald; Cohen, Mitchell; Spandorfer, John

2015-01-29

This study was designed to explore the underlying construct of measures of empathy, optimism, and burnout in medical students. Three instruments for measuring empathy (Jefferson Scale of Empathy, JSE); Optimism (the Life Orientation Test-Revised, LOT-R); and burnout (the Maslach Burnout Inventory, MBI, which includes three scales of Emotional Exhaustion, Depersonalization, and Personal Accomplishment) were administered to 265 third-year students at Sidney Kimmel (formerly Jefferson) Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University. Data were subjected to factor analysis to examine relationships among measures of empathy, optimism, and burnout in a multivariate statistical model. Factor analysis (principal component with oblique rotation) resulted in two underlying constructs, each with an eigenvalue greater than one. The first factor involved "positive personality attributes" (factor coefficients greater than .58 for measures of empathy, optimism, and personal accomplishment). The second factor involved "negative personality attributes" (factor coefficients greater than .78 for measures of emotional exhaustion, and depersonalization). Results confirmed that an association exists between empathy in the context of patient care and personality characteristics that are conducive to relationship building, and considered to be "positive personality attributes," as opposed to personality characteristics that are considered as "negative personality attributes" that are detrimental to interpersonal relationships. Implications for the professional development of physicians-in-training and in-practice are discussed.

Empathy and Critical Thinking: Primary Students Solving Local Environmental Problems through Outdoor Learning

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Ampuero, David; Miranda, Christian E.; Delgado, Luisa E.; Goyen, Samantha; Weaver, Sean

2015-01-01

The present study explores the outcomes of teaching empathy and critical thinking to solve environmental problems. This investigation was done throughout the duration of an environmental education course within a primary school located in central Chile. A community-based research methodology was used to understand the formation of empathy and…

Cosmopolitan Utilitarianism and the Problem of Local Inaction in a Globalized World

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Fausto Corvino

2015-10-01

Full Text Available This article explores the problem of the public acceptability of political inaction as an extreme consequence of cosmopolitan utilitarianism. The case of political inaction as the utility-maximizing public policy option emerges more clearly in the globalized world, because of a misalignment between the electoral body and the persons that the government ought to consider while evaluating the consequences of a given policy. In this context, a situation can easily occur in which the only way to maximize utility in a global context is by renouncing action at the national or local level. However, the problem of inaction should not be interpreted simply as a by-product of globalization. Its origins can be traced to the basic structure of utilitarianism as a normative consequentialist theory. This drawback can even present itself at the local level in a less visible form. One example is that in which the performance of a supererogatory act in the exercise of public office leads to a reduction in overall utility. The aim of the article is to demonstrate that cosmopolitan utilitarianism can bind the decision maker to a series of inactions at the global and local levels that contradict his own mandate, generating a dangerous moral confusion in the implementation of public policies. This can seriously threaten the universal applicability of cosmopolitan utilitarianism as a normative political theory, especially in the age of globalization.

“All Them Aliens Had It”: Pinter’s Cosmopolitanism

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Elizabeth Sakellaridou

2012-06-01

Full Text Available Throughout his life Pinter always showed, both as artist and as social being, a profound respect for the rights of the individual and human dignity. His dramatic output as well as his overt political activity demonstrate his unbroken adherence to the ideology and behaviour of a citizen of the world. My endeavour in this paper will be to argue about what I shall call Pinter’s visceral cosmopolitanism. This approach, on the one hand, reads his political actions through the highly politicized agenda of the contemporary cosmopolitan discourse and, on the other hand, it adopts a more retrospective point of view, which seeks to find a fundamental correspondence between the Pinteresque uncertainty, fear and ambiguity and Immanuel Kant’s rather more ethical understanding of cosmopolitanism, especially his novel idea of hospitality.

Measuring Linguistic Empathy: An Experimental Approach to Connecting Linguistic and Social Psychological Notions of Empathy

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Kann, Trevor

2017-01-01

This dissertation investigated the relationship between Linguistic Empathy and Psychological Empathy by implementing a psycholinguistic experiment that measured a person's acceptability ratings of sentences with violations of Linguistic Empathy and correlating them with a measure of the person's Psychological Empathy. Linguistic Empathy…

Remapping Capricornia: Xavier Herbert’s Cosmopolitan Imagination

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Ellen Smith

2017-11-01

Full Text Available Since its publication in 1938 critics have generally read Xavier Herbert’s Capricornia as a nationalist novel, even when its nationalism is seen to be structured by contradiction. But little attention has been given to the ways in which Herbert’s complex, multifarious and heteroglossic novel exceeds and challenges the very possibility of coherent national space and a coherent national story. This essay considers moments and spaces in Herbert’s novel where the national is displaced and unravelled. Drawing on Rebecca Walkowitz’s idea of cosmopolitan style and Suvendrini Perera’s work on Australia’s insular imagination I identify a critical cosmopolitanism that inheres in the novel’s geographical imagination and its literary form, particularly the narrative voice which retains a critical distance from the nationalist sensibility of various characters and plot lines, performing a detached and restless homelessness that I identify with the cosmopolitan. Ultimately I ask how the novel’s spatial and environmental imagination displaces its nationalist agenda, making space for a different kind of social imagination—one that does not confine itself to the terms of the nation or organise itself around a central figure for the nation.

Testing the Link Between Empathy and Lay Theories of Happiness.

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Tullett, Alexa M; Plaks, Jason E

2016-09-20

Happiness is a topic that ignites both considerable interest and considerable disagreement. Thus far, however, there has been little attempt to characterize people's lay theories about happiness or explore their consequences. We examined whether individual differences in lay theories of happiness would predict empathy. In Studies 1a and 1b, we validated the Lay Theories of Happiness Scale (LTHS), which includes three dimensions: flexibility, controllability, and locus. In Study 2, higher dispositional empathy was predicted by the belief that happiness is flexible, controllable, and internal. In Studies 3 and 4, higher empathy toward a specific target was predicted by the belief that happiness is flexible, uncontrollable, and external In conjunction, Studies 2, 3, and 4 provide evidence that trait and state empathy are separable and can have opposing relationships with people's lay theories. Overall, these findings highlight generalized beliefs that may guide empathic reactions to the unhappiness of others. © 2016 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.

Using Augmented Reality and Virtual Environments in Historic Places to Scaffold Historical Empathy

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Sweeney, Sara K.; Newbill, Phyllis; Ogle, Todd; Terry, Krista

2018-01-01

The authors explore how 3D visualizations of historical sites can be used as pedagogical tools to support historical empathy. They provide three visualizations created by a team at Virginia Tech as examples. They discuss virtual environments and how the digital restoration process is applied. They also define historical empathy, explain why it is…

Mass extinctions drove increased global faunal cosmopolitanism on the supercontinent Pangaea.

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Button, David J; Lloyd, Graeme T; Ezcurra, Martín D; Butler, Richard J

2017-10-10

Mass extinctions have profoundly impacted the evolution of life through not only reducing taxonomic diversity but also reshaping ecosystems and biogeographic patterns. In particular, they are considered to have driven increased biogeographic cosmopolitanism, but quantitative tests of this hypothesis are rare and have not explicitly incorporated information on evolutionary relationships. Here we quantify faunal cosmopolitanism using a phylogenetic network approach for 891 terrestrial vertebrate species spanning the late Permian through Early Jurassic. This key interval witnessed the Permian-Triassic and Triassic-Jurassic mass extinctions, the onset of fragmentation of the supercontinent Pangaea, and the origins of dinosaurs and many modern vertebrate groups. Our results recover significant increases in global faunal cosmopolitanism following both mass extinctions, driven mainly by new, widespread taxa, leading to homogenous 'disaster faunas'. Cosmopolitanism subsequently declines in post-recovery communities. These shared patterns in both biotic crises suggest that mass extinctions have predictable influences on animal distribution and may shed light on biodiversity loss in extant ecosystems.Mass extinctions are thought to produce 'disaster faunas', communities dominated by a small number of widespread species. Here, Button et al. develop a phylogenetic network approach to test this hypothesis and find that mass extinctions did increase faunal cosmopolitanism across Pangaea during the late Palaeozoic and early Mesozoic.

Undergraduate medical students' empathy: current perspectives

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Quince T

2016-08-01

Full Text Available Thelma Quince, Pia Thiemann, John Benson, Sarah Hyde Primary Care Unit, Department of Public Health and Primary Care, Institute of Public Health, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK Abstract: Empathy is important to patient care. It enhances patients’ satisfaction, comfort, self-efficacy, and trust which in turn may facilitate better diagnosis, shared decision making, and therapy adherence. Empathetic doctors experience greater job satisfaction and psychological well-being. Understanding the development of empathy of tomorrow's health care professionals is important. However, clinical empathy is poorly defined and difficult to measure, while ways to enhance it remain unclear. This review examines empathy among undergraduate medical students, focusing upon three main questions: How is empathy measured? This section discusses the problems of assessing empathy and outlines the utility of the Jefferson Scale of Empathy – Student Version and Davis's Interpersonal Reactivity Index. Both have been used widely to assess medical students' empathy. Does empathy change during undergraduate medical education? The trajectory of empathy during undergraduate medical education has been and continues to be debated. Potential reasons for contrasting results of studies are outlined. What factors may influence the development of empathy? Although the influence of sex is widely recognized, the impact of culture, psychological well-being, and aspects of undergraduate curricula are less well understood. This review identifies three interrelated issues for future research into undergraduate medical students' empathy. First, the need for greater clarity of definition, recognizing that empathy is multidimensional. Second, the need to develop meaningful ways of measuring empathy which include its component dimensions and which are relevant to patients' experiences. Medical education research has generally relied upon single, self-report instruments, which have

Empathy, but not mimicry restriction, influences the recognition of change in emotional facial expressions.

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Kosonogov, Vladimir; Titova, Alisa; Vorobyeva, Elena

2015-01-01

The current study addressed the hypothesis that empathy and the restriction of facial muscles of observers can influence recognition of emotional facial expressions. A sample of 74 participants recognized the subjective onset of emotional facial expressions (anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, surprise, and neutral) in a series of morphed face photographs showing a gradual change (frame by frame) from one expression to another. The high-empathy (as measured by the Empathy Quotient) participants recognized emotional facial expressions at earlier photographs from the series than did low-empathy ones, but there was no difference in the exploration time. Restriction of facial muscles of observers (with plasters and a stick in mouth) did not influence the responses. We discuss these findings in the context of the embodied simulation theory and previous data on empathy.

When Empathy Matters: The Role of Sex and Empathy in Close Friendships.

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Ciarrochi, Joseph; Parker, Philip D; Sahdra, Baljinder K; Kashdan, Todd B; Kiuru, Noona; Conigrave, James

2017-08-01

Based on prior theory and research (Ciarrochi & Heaven, 2009; Eagly & Wood, 1999), we hypothesized that the link between empathy and friendship would be moderated by sex: Girls will nominate empathic boys as friends, whereas boys will not tend to nominate empathic girls. We collected measures of empathy, friendship social support, and close friendship nominations in grade 10 across 1,970 students in 16 schools (M age  = 15.70, SD = .44; males = 993, females = 977). Multilevel models revealed that boys high in cognitive empathy attracted an average of 1.8 more girl friendship nominations than did their low empathy counterparts, whereas empathic girls did not attract a greater number of opposite-sex friends. In addition, the more friendship nominations a boy received from either boys or girls, the more they felt supported by their friends; the number of friendship nominations received by girls, in contrast, had no effect on their felt support by friends. Regardless of the quantity of friendship nominations, empathy was linked to more supportive friendships for both males and females. These results inform a contextual understanding of the role of empathy in selecting and maintaining friendships. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Undergraduate medical students’ empathy: current perspectives

Science.gov (United States)

Quince, Thelma; Thiemann, Pia; Benson, John; Hyde, Sarah

2016-01-01

Empathy is important to patient care. It enhances patients’ satisfaction, comfort, self-efficacy, and trust which in turn may facilitate better diagnosis, shared decision making, and therapy adherence. Empathetic doctors experience greater job satisfaction and psychological well-being. Understanding the development of empathy of tomorrow’s health care professionals is important. However, clinical empathy is poorly defined and difficult to measure, while ways to enhance it remain unclear. This review examines empathy among undergraduate medical students, focusing upon three main questions: How is empathy measured? This section discusses the problems of assessing empathy and outlines the utility of the Jefferson Scale of Empathy – Student Version and Davis’s Interpersonal Reactivity Index. Both have been used widely to assess medical students’ empathy. Does empathy change during undergraduate medical education? The trajectory of empathy during undergraduate medical education has been and continues to be debated. Potential reasons for contrasting results of studies are outlined. What factors may influence the development of empathy? Although the influence of sex is widely recognized, the impact of culture, psychological well-being, and aspects of undergraduate curricula are less well understood. This review identifies three interrelated issues for future research into undergraduate medical students’ empathy. First, the need for greater clarity of definition, recognizing that empathy is multidimensional. Second, the need to develop meaningful ways of measuring empathy which include its component dimensions and which are relevant to patients’ experiences. Medical education research has generally relied upon single, self-report instruments, which have utility across large populations but are limited. Finally, there is a need for greater methodological rigor in investigating the possible determinants of clinical empathy in medical education. Greater

Relationships between medical student burnout, empathy, and professionalism climate.

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Brazeau, Chantal M L R; Schroeder, Robin; Rovi, Sue; Boyd, Linda

2010-10-01

Medical student burnout is prevalent, and there has been much discussion about burnout and professionalism in medical education and the clinical learning environment. Yet, few studies have attempted to explore relationships between those issues using validated instruments. Medical students were surveyed at the beginning of their fourth year using the Maslach Burnout Inventory, the Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy-Student Version, and the Professionalism Climate Instrument. The data were analyzed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences, and Spearman correlation analysis was performed. Scores indicative of higher medical student burnout were associated with lower medical student empathy scores and with lower professionalism climate scores observed in medical students, residents, and faculty. Investigators observed relationships between medical student burnout, empathy, and professionalism climate. These findings may have implications for the design of curriculum interventions to promote student well-being and professionalism.

"The empathy impulse: A multinomial model of intentional and unintentional empathy for pain": Correction.

Science.gov (United States)

2018-04-01

Reports an error in "The empathy impulse: A multinomial model of intentional and unintentional empathy for pain" by C. Daryl Cameron, Victoria L. Spring and Andrew R. Todd ( Emotion , 2017[Apr], Vol 17[3], 395-411). In this article, there was an error in the calculation of some of the effect sizes. The w effect size was manually computed incorrectly. The incorrect number of total observations was used, which affected the final effect size estimates. This computing error does not change any of the results or interpretations about model fit based on the G² statistic, or about significant differences across conditions in process parameters. Therefore, it does not change any of the hypothesis tests or conclusions. The w statistics for overall model fit should be .02 instead of .04 in Study 1, .01 instead of .02 in Study 2, .01 instead of .03 for the OIT in Study 3 (model fit for the PIT remains the same: .00), and .02 instead of .03 in Study 4. The corrected tables can be seen here: http://osf.io/qebku at the Open Science Framework site for the article. (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 2017-01641-001.) Empathy for pain is often described as automatic. Here, we used implicit measurement and multinomial modeling to formally quantify unintentional empathy for pain: empathy that occurs despite intentions to the contrary. We developed the pain identification task (PIT), a sequential priming task wherein participants judge the painfulness of target experiences while trying to avoid the influence of prime experiences. Using multinomial modeling, we distinguished 3 component processes underlying PIT performance: empathy toward target stimuli (Intentional Empathy), empathy toward prime stimuli (Unintentional Empathy), and bias to judge target stimuli as painful (Response Bias). In Experiment 1, imposing a fast (vs. slow) response deadline uniquely reduced Intentional Empathy. In Experiment 2, inducing imagine-self (vs. imagine

The Cosmopolitanization of Science: Experience from Chinese Stem Cell Scientists.

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Zhang, Joy Yueyue

2010-09-01

It is commonly perceived that the 'globalization of science' may result in a 'Westernization of science'. In this paper, however, I use the case of stem cell science in China to demonstrate that developing countries are sometimes able to effectively shape the norms of global/local scientific exchange. Based on interviews with 38 stem cell scientists in six Chinese cities in early 2008, this paper elucidates Chinese scientists' outlook towards cross-border collaborations and the effects that the internationalization of science has had on everyday laboratory operations. Findings suggest that although there still exists an asymmetry of scientific influence, and in many aspects China is still 'catching-up' to the West, there is also a changing nature of communication beyond borders. One key aspect of recent international scientific development is the growing necessity for local stakeholders to acquire a global mindset and to compare, reflect and accommodate diverse interests. This is what I define as the 'cosmopolitanization of science'. The study empirically examines the sociological and methodological implications of the cosmopolitanization process and further develops Ulrich Beck's cosmopolitan theory by delineating four main features of the 'cosmopolitanization of science': shared future benefits, passive ethicization, reflexive negotiation, and continuous performance.

Fixing the Problem With Empathy: Development and Validation of the Affective and Cognitive Measure of Empathy.

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Vachon, David D; Lynam, Donald R

2016-04-01

Low empathy is a criterion for most externalizing disorders, and empathy training is a regular component of treatment for aggressive people, from school bullies to sex offenders. However, recent meta-analytic evidence suggests that current measures of empathy explain only 1% of the variance in aggressive behavior. A new assessment of empathy was developed to more fully represent the empathy construct and better predict important outcomes--particularly aggressive behavior and externalizing psychopathology. Across three independent samples (N = 210-708), the 36-item Affective and Cognitive measure of Empathy (ACME) was internally consistent, structurally reliable, and invariant across sex. The ACME bore significant associations to important outcomes, which were incremental relative to other measures of empathy and generalizable across sex. Importantly, the affective scales of the ACME-particularly a new "Affective Dissonance" scale--yielded moderate to strong associations with aggressive behavior and externalizing disorders. The ACME is a short, reliable, and useful measure of empathy. © The Author(s) 2015.

Medical Students' Empathy for Vulnerable Groups: Results From a Survey and Reflective Writing Assignment.

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Wellbery, Caroline; Saunders, Pamela A; Kureshi, Sarah; Visconti, Adam

2017-12-01

As medical education curricula increasingly acknowledge the contributions of the social determinants of health to individual health, new methods of engaging students in the care of vulnerable groups are needed. Empathy is one way to connect students with patients, but little is known about how to nurture students' empathy on behalf of populations. This study examined the relationship between individual and social empathy as groundwork for cultivating students' empathy for vulnerable groups. In 2014-2015, first-year medical students completed the Social Empathy Index at the start and end of a two-semester population health course, and they completed a reflective writing assignment exploring the challenges of caring for vulnerable patients. Pre- and posttest mean survey scores were compared, and reflective writing assignments were analyzed for themes concerning social empathy. Data from 130 students were analyzed. Scores for the contextual understanding of systemic barriers domain increased significantly. There was a trend toward increased cumulative social empathy scores that did not reach statistical significance. Students' essays revealed three themes relating to individual empathy as the foundation for social empathy; civic and moral obligations; and the role of institutional practices in caring for vulnerable groups. This study extends understanding of empathy beyond care for the individual to include care for vulnerable groups. Thus, social empathy may function as a valuable concept in developing curricula to support students' commitment to care for the underserved. Educators first need to address the many barriers students cited that impede both individual and social empathy.

Varieties of second modernity: the cosmopolitan turn in social and political theory and research.

Science.gov (United States)

Beck, Ulrich; Grande, Edgar

2010-09-01

The theme of this special issue is the necessity of a cosmopolitan turn in social and political theory. The question at the heart of this introductory chapter takes the challenge of 'methodological cosmopolitanism', already addressed in a Special Issue on Cosmopolitan Sociology in this journal (Beck and Sznaider 2006), an important step further: How can social and political theory be opened up, theoretically as well as methodologically and normatively, to a historically new, entangled Modernity which threatens its own foundations? How can it account for the fundamental fragility, the mutability of societal dynamics (of unintended side effects, domination and power), shaped by the globalization of capital and risks at the beginning of the twenty-first century? What theoretical and methodological problems arise and how can they be addressed in empirical research? In the following, we will develop this 'cosmopolitan turn' in four steps: firstly, we present the major conceptual tools for a theory of cosmopolitan modernities; secondly, we de-construct Western modernity by using examples taken from research on individualization and risk; thirdly, we address the key problem of methodological cosmopolitanism, namely the problem of defining the appropriate unit of analysis; and finally,we discuss normative questions, perspectives, and dilemmas of a theory of cosmopolitan modernities, in particular problems of political agency and prospects of political realization.

Partners' Empathy Increases Pain Ratings: Effects of Perceived Empathy and Attachment Style on Pain Report and Display

Science.gov (United States)

Hurter, Sarah; Paloyelis, Yannis; de C. Williams, Amanda C.; Fotopoulou, Aikaterini

2014-01-01

Pain can be influenced by its social context. We aimed to examine under controlled experimental conditions how empathy from a partner and personal attachment style affect pain report, tolerance, and facial expressions of pain. Fifty-four participants, divided into secure, anxious, and avoidant attachment style groups, underwent a cold pressor task with their partners present. We manipulated how much empathy the participants perceived that their partners had for them. We observed a significant main effect of perceived empathy on pain report, with greater pain reported in the high perceived empathy condition. No such effects were found for pain tolerance or facial display. We also found a significant interaction of empathy with attachment style group, with the avoidant group reporting and displaying less pain than the secure and the anxious groups in the high perceived empathy condition. No such findings were observed in the low empathy condition. These results suggest that empathy from one's partner may influence pain report beyond behavioral reactions. In addition, the amount of pain report and expression that people show in high empathy conditions depends on their attachment style. Perspective Believing that one's partner feels high empathy for one's pain may lead individuals to rate the intensity of pain as higher. Individual differences in attachment style moderate this empathy effect. PMID:24953886

Art meets science: The Cosmopolitan Chicken Research Project.

Science.gov (United States)

Stinckens, A; Vereijken, A; Ons, E; Konings, P; Van As, P; Cuppens, H; Moreau, Y; Sakai, R; Aerts, J; Goddeeris, B; Buys, N; Vanmechelen, K; Cassiman, J J

2015-01-01

The Cosmopolitan Chicken Project is an artistic undertaking of renowned artist Koen Vanmechelen. In this project, the artist interbreeds domestic chickens from different countries aiming at the creation of a true Cosmopolitan Chicken as a symbol for global diversity. The unifying theme is the chicken and the egg, symbols that link scientific, political, philosophical and ethical issues. The Cosmopolitan Chicken Research Project is the scientific component of this artwork. Based on state of the art genomic techniques, the project studies the effect of the crossing of chickens on the genetic diversity. Also, this research is potentially applicable to the human population. The setup of the CC®P is quite different from traditional breeding experiments: starting from the crossbreed of two purebred chickens (Mechelse Koekoek x Poule de Bresse), every generation is crossed with a few animals from another breed. For 26 of these purebred and crossbred populations, genetic diversity was measured (1) under the assumption that populations were sufficiently large to maintain all informative SNP within a generation and (2) under the circumstances of the CCP breeding experiment. Under the first assumption, a steady increase in genetic diversity was witnessed over the consecutive generations, thus indeed indicating the creation of a "Cosmopolitan Chicken Genome". However, under the conditions of the CCP, which reflects the reality within the human population, diversity is seen to fluctuate within given boundaries instead of steadily increasing. A reflection on this might be that this is because, in humans, an evolutionary optimum in genetic diversity is reached. Key words.

Rejecting empathy for animal ethics

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kasperbauer, Tyler Joshua

2015-01-01

Ethicists have become increasingly skeptical about the importance of empathy in producing moral concern for others. One of the main claims made by empathy skeptics is a psychological thesis: empathy is not the primary psychological process responsible for producing moral concern. Some of the best...... evidence that could confirm or disconfirm this thesis comes from research on empathizing with animals. However, this evidence has not been discussed in any of the prominent critiques of empathy. In this paper, I investigate six different empirical claims commonly made about empathy toward animals. I find...... all six claims to be problematic, though some are more plausible than others, and argue that empathy is indeed not psychologically central to producing moral concern for animals. I also review evidence indicating that other moral emotions, particularly anger, are more strongly engaged with producing...

Skepticism, empathy, and animal suffering.

Science.gov (United States)

Aaltola, Elisa

2013-12-01

The suffering of nonhuman animals has become a noted factor in deciding public policy and legislative change. Yet, despite this growing concern, skepticism toward such suffering is still surprisingly common. This paper analyzes the merits of the skeptical approach, both in its moderate and extreme forms. In the first part it is claimed that the type of criterion for verification concerning the mental states of other animals posed by skepticism is overly (and, in the case of extreme skepticism, illogically) demanding. Resting on Wittgenstein and Husserl, it is argued that skepticism relies on a misguided epistemology and, thus, that key questions posed by it face the risk of absurdity. In the second part of the paper it is suggested that, instead of skepticism, empathy together with intersubjectivity be adopted. Edith Stein's take on empathy, along with contemporary findings, are explored, and the claim is made that it is only via these two methods of understanding that the suffering of nonhuman animals can be perceived.

Empathy

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Belzung Catherine

2014-07-01

Full Text Available When we see a child crying, the urge to help him and to comfort him comes to us spontaneously. We understand what he is experiencing, and feel in us something of his sadness, his distress: this is what we call empathy. This sense of the other is the fruit of our evolutionary history and is hardwired in our biology. Empathy has interested a lot of thinkers and in particular the Scottish philosophers of the Age of the Enlightenment such as Adam Smith or Hume. More recently, the philosophers Robert Gordon (St Louis, Missouri and Alvin Goldman (Tuscon, Arizona proposed the theory of simulation according to which when we understand the other, we simulate the other’s point of view and we use this prospective to understand the other and predict his behavior. The French neuropscyhologist Jean Decety adopted this point of view. He specifies that the empathy is the capacity to mentally simulate the subjectivity of the other, to put ourselves in the shoes of another: it lies on biological systems.

Music, empathy and cultural understanding

Science.gov (United States)

Clarke, Eric; DeNora, Tia; Vuoskoski, Jonna

2015-12-01

In the age of the Internet and with the dramatic proliferation of mobile listening technologies, music has unprecedented global distribution and embeddedness in people's lives. It is a source of intense experiences of both the most intimate and solitary, and public and collective, kinds - from an individual with their smartphone and headphones, to large-scale live events and global simulcasts; and it increasingly brings together a huge range of cultures and histories, through developments in world music, sampling, the re-issue of historical recordings, and the explosion of informal and home music-making that circulates via YouTube. For many people, involvement with music can be among the most powerful and potentially transforming experiences in their lives. At the same time, there has been increasing interest in music's communicative and affective capacities, and its potential to act as an agent of social bonding and affiliation. This review critically discusses a considerable body of research and scholarship, across disciplines ranging from the neuroscience and psychology of music to cultural musicology and the sociology and anthropology of music, that provides evidence for music's capacity to promote empathy and social/cultural understanding through powerful affective, cognitive and social factors; and explores ways in which to connect and make sense of this disparate evidence (and counter-evidence). It reports the outcome of an empirical study that tests one aspect of those claims, demonstrating that 'passive' listening to the music of an unfamiliar culture can significantly change the cultural attitudes of listeners with high dispositional empathy; presents a model that brings together the primary components of the music and empathy research into a single framework; and considers both some of the applications, and some of the shortcomings and problems, of understanding music from the perspective of empathy.

Music, empathy and cultural understanding.

Science.gov (United States)

Clarke, Eric; DeNora, Tia; Vuoskoski, Jonna

2015-12-01

In the age of the Internet and with the dramatic proliferation of mobile listening technologies, music has unprecedented global distribution and embeddedness in people's lives. It is a source of intense experiences of both the most intimate and solitary, and public and collective, kinds - from an individual with their smartphone and headphones, to large-scale live events and global simulcasts; and it increasingly brings together a huge range of cultures and histories, through developments in world music, sampling, the re-issue of historical recordings, and the explosion of informal and home music-making that circulates via YouTube. For many people, involvement with music can be among the most powerful and potentially transforming experiences in their lives. At the same time, there has been increasing interest in music's communicative and affective capacities, and its potential to act as an agent of social bonding and affiliation. This review critically discusses a considerable body of research and scholarship, across disciplines ranging from the neuroscience and psychology of music to cultural musicology and the sociology and anthropology of music, that provides evidence for music's capacity to promote empathy and social/cultural understanding through powerful affective, cognitive and social factors; and explores ways in which to connect and make sense of this disparate evidence (and counter-evidence). It reports the outcome of an empirical study that tests one aspect of those claims, demonstrating that 'passive' listening to the music of an unfamiliar culture can significantly change the cultural attitudes of listeners with high dispositional empathy; presents a model that brings together the primary components of the music and empathy research into a single framework; and considers both some of the applications, and some of the shortcomings and problems, of understanding music from the perspective of empathy. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Empathy Trumps Prejudice: The Longitudinal Relation between Empathy and Anti-Immigrant Attitudes in Adolescence

Science.gov (United States)

Miklikowska, Marta

2018-01-01

Although research has shown the effects of empathy manipulations on prejudice, little is known about the long-term relation between empathy and prejudice development, the direction of effects, and the relative effects of cognitive and affective aspects of empathy. Moreover, research has not examined within-person processes; hence, its practical…

Animal Poetry and Empathy

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tirza Brüggemann

2017-04-01

Full Text Available This article discusses how our ideas of empathy are influenced by the dichotomy of mind versus body, also known as Cartesian dualism. Within the aesthetic field, this dichotomy is seen when researchers define narrative empathy as imaginatively reconstructing the fictional character’s thoughts and feelings. Conversely, the empathy aroused by a non-narrative work of art is seen as an unconscious bodily mirroring of movements, postures or moods. Thinking dualistically does not only have consequences for what we consider human nature; it also affects our view on animals. To show the untenability of dualistic thinking, this article focuses on the animal poetry genre. Using the ideas of the French phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty, I analyze two animal poems: “Inventing a Horse” by Meghan O’Rourke and “Spermaceti” by Les Murray. The analysis of these two poems suggests that the presiding ideas about aesthetic empathy and empathy in general need re-evaluation.

Empathy and contextual social cognition.

Science.gov (United States)

Melloni, Margherita; Lopez, Vladimir; Ibanez, Agustin

2014-03-01

Empathy is a highly flexible and adaptive process that allows for the interplay of prosocial behavior in many different social contexts. Empathy appears to be a very situated cognitive process, embedded with specific contextual cues that trigger different automatic and controlled responses. In this review, we summarize relevant evidence regarding social context modulation of empathy for pain. Several contextual factors, such as stimulus reality and personal experience, affectively link with other factors, emotional cues, threat information, group membership, and attitudes toward others to influence the affective, sensorimotor, and cognitive processing of empathy. Thus, we propose that the frontoinsular-temporal network, the so-called social context network model (SCNM), is recruited during the contextual processing of empathy. This network would (1) update the contextual cues and use them to construct fast predictions (frontal regions), (2) coordinate the internal (body) and external milieus (insula), and (3) consolidate the context-target associative learning of empathic processes (temporal sites). Furthermore, we propose these context-dependent effects of empathy in the framework of the frontoinsular-temporal network and examine the behavioral and neural evidence of three neuropsychiatric conditions (Asperger syndrome, schizophrenia, and the behavioral variant of frontotemporal dementia), which simultaneously present with empathy and contextual integration impairments. We suggest potential advantages of a situated approach to empathy in the assessment of these neuropsychiatric disorders, as well as their relationship with the SCNM.

Classical sociology and cosmopolitanism: a critical defence of the social.

Science.gov (United States)

Turner, Bryan S

2006-03-01

It is frequently argued that classical sociology, if not sociology as a whole, cannot provide any significant insight into globalization, primarily because its assumptions about the nation-state, national cultures and national societies are no longer relevant to a global world. Sociology cannot consequently contribute to a normative debate about cosmopolitanism, which invites us to consider loyalties and identities that reach beyond the nation-state. My argument considers four principal topics. First, I defend the classical legacy by arguing that classical sociology involved the study of 'the social' not national societies. This argument is illustration by reference to Emile Durkheim and Talcott Parsons. Secondly, Durkheim specifically developed the notion of a cosmopolitan sociology to challenge the nationalist assumptions of his day. Thirdly, I attempt to develop a critical version of Max Weber's verstehende soziologie to consider the conditions for critical recognition theory in sociology as a necessary precondition of cosmopolitanism. Finally, I consider the limitations of some contemporary versions of global sociology in the example of 'flexible citizenship' to provide an empirical case study of the limitations of globalization processes and 'sociology beyond society'. While many institutions have become global, some cannot make this transition. Hence, we should consider the limitations on as well as the opportunities for cosmopolitan sociology.

Empathy in adolescence

NARCIS (Netherlands)

van der Graaff, J.

2014-01-01

Empathy is the ability to understand and to share another’s emotional state, and is seen as an important social skill to maintain relationships, to and to inhibit aggression. Yet, there has been little longitudinal research investigating the development of empathy, especially when it comes to

Empathy and the Big Five

OpenAIRE

Paulus, Christoph

2016-01-01

Del Barrio et al. (2004) haben vor mehr als 10 Jahren versucht, eine direkte Beziehung zwischen Empathie und den Big Five herzustellen. Im Mittel hatten in ihrer Stichprobe Frauen höhere Werte in der Empathie und auf den Big Five-Faktoren mit Ausnahme des Faktors Neurotizismus. Zusammenhänge zu Empathie fanden sie in den Bereichen Offenheit, Verträglichkeit, Gewissenhaftigkeit und Extraversion. In unseren Daten besitzen Frauen sowohl in der Empathie als auch den Big Five signifikant höhere We...

Empathy Variation in General Practice: A Survey among General Practitioners in Denmark

Science.gov (United States)

Ahnfeldt-Mollerup, Peder; Søndergaard, Jens

2018-01-01

Background: Previous studies have demonstrated that high levels of physician empathy may be correlated with improved patient health outcomes and high physician job satisfaction. Knowledge about variation in empathy and related general practitioner (GP) characteristics may allow for a more informed approach to improve empathy among GPs. Objective: Our objective is to measure and analyze variation in physician empathy and its association with GP demographic, professional, and job satisfaction characteristics. Methods: 464 Danish GPs responded to a survey containing the Danish version of the Jefferson Scale of Empathy for Health Professionals (JSE-HP) and questions related to their demographic, professional and job satisfaction characteristics. Descriptive statistics and a quantile plot of the ordered empathy scores were used to describe empathy variation. In addition, random-effect logistic regression analysis was performed to explore the association between empathy levels and the included GP characteristics. Results: Empathy scores were negatively skewed with a mean score of 117.9 and a standard deviation of 10.1 within a range from 99 (p5) to 135 (p95). GPs aged 45–54 years and GPs who are not employed outside of their practice were less likely to have high empathy scores (≥120). Neither gender, nor length of time since specialization, length of time in current practice, practice type, practice location, or job satisfaction was associated with odds of having high physician empathy. However, odds of having a high empathy score were higher for GPs who stated that the physician-patient relationship and interaction with colleagues has a high contribution to job satisfaction compared to the reference groups (low and medium contribution of these factors). This was also the trend for GPs who stated a high contribution to job satisfaction from intellectual stimulation. In contrast, high contribution of economic profit and prestige did not contribute to increased odds

Cosmopolitanism and peace in Kant's essay on 'Perpetual Peace'

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Huggler, Jørgen

2010-01-01

Immanuel Kant's essay on Perpetual Peace (1795/96) contains a rejection of the idea of a world government (earlier advocated by Kant himself). In connexion with a substantial argument for cosmopolitan rights based on the human body and its need for a space on the surface of the Earth, Kant presents...... the most rigorous philosophical formulation ever given of the limitations of the cosmopolitan law. In this contribution, Kant's essay is analysed and the reasons he gives for these restrictions discussed in relation to his main focus: to project a realistic path to perpetual peace....

Acute lesions that impair affective empathy

Science.gov (United States)

Oishi, Kenichi; Hsu, John; Lindquist, Martin; Gottesman, Rebecca F.; Jarso, Samson; Crainiceanu, Ciprian; Mori, Susumu

2013-01-01

Functional imaging studies of healthy participants and previous lesion studies have provided evidence that empathy involves dissociable cognitive functions that rely on at least partially distinct neural networks that can be individually impaired by brain damage. These studies converge in support of the proposal that affective empathy—making inferences about how another person feels—engages at least the following areas: prefrontal cortex, orbitofrontal gyrus, anterior insula, anterior cingulate cortex, temporal pole, amygdala and temporoparietal junction. We hypothesized that right-sided lesions to any one of these structures, except temporoparietal junction, would cause impaired affective empathy (whereas bilateral damage to temporoparietal junction would be required to disrupt empathy). We studied 27 patients with acute right hemisphere ischaemic stroke and 24 neurologically intact inpatients on a test of affective empathy. Acute impairment of affective empathy was associated with infarcts in the hypothesized network, particularly temporal pole and anterior insula. All patients with impaired affective empathy were also impaired in comprehension of affective prosody, but many patients with impairments in prosodic comprehension had spared affective empathy. Patients with impaired affective empathy were older, but showed no difference in performance on tests of hemispatial neglect, volume of infarct or sex distribution compared with patients with intact affective empathy. PMID:23824490

More than reflections: Empathy in motivational interviewing includes language style synchrony between therapist and client

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Lord, Sarah Peregrine; Sheng, Elisa; Imel, Zac E.; Baer, John; Atkins, David C.

2016-01-01

Empathy is a basic psychological process that involves the development of synchrony in dyads. It is also a foundational ingredient in specific, evidence-based behavioral treatments like motivational interviewing (MI). Ratings of therapist empathy typically rely on a gestalt, “felt sense” of therapist understanding and the presence of specific verbal behaviors like reflective listening. These ratings do not provide a direct test of psychological processes like behavioral synchrony that are theorized to be an important component of empathy in psychotherapy. To explore a new objective indicator of empathy, we hypothesized that synchrony in language style (i.e., matching how statements are phrased) between client and therapists would predict gestalt ratings of empathy over and above the contribution of reflections. We analyzed 122 MI transcripts with high and low empathy ratings based on the Motivational Interviewing Treatment Integrity (MITI) global rating scale. Linguistic inquiry and word count was used to estimate language style synchrony (LSS) of adjacent client and therapist talk turns. High empathy sessions showed greater LSS across 11 language style categories compared to low empathy sessions (p empathy vs. low empathy sessions (d = 0.62). Regression analyses showed that LSS was predictive of empathy ratings over and above reflection counts; a 1 SD increase in LSS is associated with 2.4 times increase in the odds of a high empathy rating, controlling for therapist reflections (odds ratio = 2.4, 95% CI: 1.36, 4.24, p empathy ratings are related to synchrony in language style, over and above synchrony of content as measured by therapist reflections. Novel indicators of therapist empathy may have implications for the study of MI process as well as the training of therapists. PMID:25892166

Character drawing style in cartoons on empathy induction: an eye-tracking and EEG study.

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Lee, Yong-Il; Choi, Yeojeong; Jeong, Jaeseung

2017-01-01

In its most basic form, empathy refers to the ability to understand another person's feelings and emotions, representing an essential component of human social interaction. Owing to an increase in the use of mass media, which is used to distribute high levels of empathy-inducing content, media plays a key role in individual and social empathy induction. We investigated empathy induction in cartoons using eye movement, EEG and behavioral measures to explore whether empathy factors correlate with character drawing styles. Two different types of empathy-inducing cartoons that consisted of three stages and had the same story plot were used. One had an iconic style, while the other was realistic style. Fifty participants were divided into two groups corresponding to the individual cartoon drawing styles and were presented with only one type of drawing style. We found that there were no significant differences of empathy factors between iconic and realistic style. However, the Induced Empathy Score (IES) had a close relationship with subsequent attentional processing (total fixation length for gaze duration). Furthermore, iconic style suppressed the fronto-central area more than realistic style in the gamma power band. These results suggest that iconic cartoons have the advantage of abstraction during empathy induction, because the iconic cartoons induced the same level of empathy as realistic cartoons while using the same story plot (top-down process), even though lesser time and effort were required by the cartoon artist to draw them. This also means that the top-down process (story plot) is more important than the bottom-up process (drawing style) in empathy induction when viewing cartoons.

Empathy, Reading, and Gender Relationships

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McCreary, John J.

2017-01-01

For this study, empathy was defined as not only understanding and sharing another's mental state, but also responding from a perspective more closely resembling the observed rather than the observer. Based on evidence suggesting relationships between reading and empathy, between empathy and gender, and between reading and gender, the current study…

'Tasteful' cosmopolitanism - food, consumption and cultural distinction in an ethnic greengrocer in Copenhagen

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Neergaard, Maja de

Based on an ethnographic study in a Lebanese greengrocer in Nørrebro in central Copenhagen, the paper asks about the nature of everyday cosmopolitan culture, as it gets performed through food consumption. The field study shows examples of a transcultural multi-culture among both customers and staff...... shows examples of how middleclass cosmopolitan food consumption can indeed be regarded as means of white middleclass cultural distinction. The argument is, that even if everyday cosmopolitanism does, on the one hand, allow for diversity training and the diminishing of cultural difference it might also...

Between the Dog and the Divine: Resistance and conventionalism in cosmopolitanism

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Geoff Gordon

2017-05-01

Full Text Available We use the works of Diogenes and Zeno to argue that the cosmopolitan world view remains torn between negation and conformation; between anti-conventional resistance against and super-conventional organization of power. In their separate codes and relations to convention, Diogenes and Zeno expose complementary and conflictual sides of cosmopolitanism: in Diogenes, a challenge to local regimes, and in Zeno a plan for overcoming them; but in Diogenes a political programme that cannot attain its own ends, and in Zeno a political solution that comes unmoored from its foundations. Today, the International Criminal Court combines the two elements of cosmopolitanism in its responses to international crimes. In short, the particular practices of international criminal law and its grand gestures are in tension, undermining the aspiration to a positive programme of justice. We illustrate the tension that results through a discussion of two of the artworks that form the topic of this special issue of the Utrecht Law Review. As a result, the enterprise of international criminal justice, like the cosmopolitan programme that we trace back to Diogenes and Zeno, appears to become self-defeating.

Cosmopolitan democracy: conceptual deficits and political errors

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Sérgio Costa

2005-01-01

Full Text Available Both the appeal to some universal ethics and the evocation of a global civil society constitute the core of the "cosmopolitan democracies" theories, presented as either reality data or political desideratum. The paper aims at showing that in the terms formulated by the cosmopolitan democrats both ideas rely on evolutionist presuppositions. Institutions, values, and cultural ways of life effective on societies situated in the northern hemisphere end up being regarded as both per se superior and models for general application. Against such reorganization of the world, the paper indicatively cites necessary precautions in order to have both the international cooperation of social actors and the globalisation of human rights contribute towards overcoming particularisms in the several regions, taking into consideration, at the same time, the cultural particularities of the different regional contexts.

Husserl and Stein on the Phenomenology of Empathy: Perception and Explication

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Jardine, James Alexander

2015-01-01

Within the phenomenological tradition, one frequently finds the bold claim that interpersonal understanding is rooted in a sui generis form of intentional experience, most commonly labeled empathy (Einfühlung). The following paper explores this claim, emphasizing its distinctive character......, and examining the phenomenological considerations offered in its defense by two of its main proponents, Edmund Husserl and Edith Stein. After offering in section 2 some preliminary indications of how empathy should be understood, I then turn to some characterizations of its distinctive structure, considering......, in section 3, the Husserlian claim that certain forms of empathy are perceptual in nature, and in section 4, Stein’s insistence that empathetic experience frequently involves explicating the other’s own intentional experiences. Section 5 will conclude by assessing the extent to which their analyses lead...

Medical Cosmopolitanism in Global Dubai: A Twenty-first-century Transnational Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI) Depot.

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Inhorn, Marcia C

2017-03-01

Dubai-one of the seven United Arab Emirates and the Middle East's only "global city"-is gaining a reputation as a transnational medical tourism hub. Characterized by its "medical cosmopolitanism," Dubai is now attracting medical travelers from around the world, some of whom are seeking assisted conception. Dubai is fast becoming known as a new transnational "reprohub" for intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), the variant of in vitro fertilization designed to overcome male infertility. Based on ethnographic research conducted in one of the country's most cosmopolitan clinics, this article explores the ICSI treatment quests of infertile men coming to Dubai from scores of other nations. The case of an infertile British-Moroccan man is highlighted to demonstrate why ICSI is a particularly compelling "masculine hope technology" for infertile Muslim men. Thus, Muslim men who face barriers to ICSI access in their home countries may become "reprotravelers" to Dubai, an emergent ICSI depot. © 2016 by the American Anthropological Association.

The assessment of empathy in adolescence: A contribution to the Italian validation of the "Basic Empathy Scale".

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Albiero, Paolo; Matricardi, Giada; Speltri, Daniela; Toso, Diana

2009-04-01

The present study examined the validity of the Basic Empathy Scale (BES) [Jolliffe, D., & Farrington, D. P. (2006a). Development and validation of the Basic Empathy Scale. Journal of Adolescence, 29, 589-611; Jolliffe, D., & Farrington, D. P. (2006b). Examining the relationship between low empathy and bullying. Aggressive Behavior, 32(6), 540-550.] and found further evidence for the scale's good psychometric properties. The BES was administered to a sample of 655 Italian adolescents to examine the generalizability and reliability of its factor structure. The results of the confirmatory factor analysis showed a reasonable data fit with the two hypothesized BES domains of Cognitive Empathy and Affective Empathy. Scale reliability was also satisfactory, showing good internal consistency. Lastly, BES scores were significantly associated with other empathy questionnaire scores (the Interpersonal Reactivity Index and Balanced Emotional Empathy Scale) and with a scale measuring prosocial behavior. Research and practice implications are discussed.

Cosmopolitan capabilities in the HE classroom

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Veronica Crosbie

2014-04-01

Full Text Available This study, concerning the development of cosmopolitan citizenship, draws on theories of human development and capabilities (Sen 1999; Nussbaum 2000 from a social justice perspective, where individual wellbeing is articulated as having the freedom to live a life of one’s choosing. In the context of an English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL classroom this involves paying attention to pedagogical strategies, power dynamics and curriculum content as a means of developing valued beings and doings (or capabilities and functionings as they are described in the literature. Sample activities are presented and evaluated to see to what extent they achieve the desired end. These include critical pedagogical interventions, students’ artefacts and extracts from focus group interviews, class reports and reflective journals.  Results from the textual data offer research evidence of successful curriculum change, demonstrating that the learning that takes place there can make a difference: in terms of the learners’ identity development, capability enhancement and cosmopolitan citizenship.

Problems of Cosmopolitanism and Alternativeness in the History of Central Asia

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Nargis T. Nurulla-Khodzhaeva

2015-01-01

Full Text Available We residents of Samarkand and Bukhara, throughout history aimed to accumulate traditions of challenging the established (often elitist limits of local culture, economics and history. The cities communities were under constant pressure of the dichotomy between the notions of nomadism and sedentism, Turkic and Persian speakers. Many community-based units of Samarkand had their own commercial, socio-cultural and educational networks that preserved alternativeness within the life cycle, which balanced between universality and particularism. These lands were dominated by a unique parity, based on Sufi ethics, which designed not syncretic cosmopolitism, but rather introduced the recognition of alternativeness that took into account both similar and diverse waves of ideas. Based on this vision, the author aims to diminish Kantian cosmopolitanism to a level of Euro-American and illustrate the view of cosmopolitanism through a dialogic platform, precisely including its links with the Central Asian versions. Moreover, one cannot identify local cosmopolitanism with the ideas of European Enlightenment, namely individualism and universalism on a global scale. Due to the alternativeness and cosmopolitanism, as well as lack of radical individualism within the local communities, there was no monocultural view on life, since both science and morality (religion, culture, and community were mutually essential. Nonetheless, present proves that these fields remain their equal vitality to an individual who is capable of simultaneously possessing knowledge about the reality and receiving satisfaction from the reality. This constant motion based on reciprocation was maintained in the ancient culture of Samarkand by two factors: cosmopolitanism and alternativeness.

Assessing Empathy across Childhood and Adolescence: Validation of the Empathy Questionnaire for Children and Adolescents (EmQue-CA)

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Sandy Overgaauw; Sandy Overgaauw; Carolien Rieffe; Evelien Broekhof; Eveline A. Crone; Eveline A. Crone; Berna Güroğlu; Berna Güroğlu

2017-01-01

Empathy plays a crucial role in healthy social functioning and in maintaining positive social relationships. In this study, 1250 children and adolescents (10–15 year olds) completed the newly developed Empathy Questionnaire for Children and Adolescents (EmQue-CA) that was tested on reliability, construct validity, convergent validity, and concurrent validity. The EmQue-CA aims to assess empathy using the following scales: affective empathy, cognitive empathy, and intention to comfort. A Princ...

The impact of empathy on burnout in medical students: new findings.

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von Harscher, Heidi; Desmarais, Nathaly; Dollinger, Robert; Grossman, Seth; Aldana, Scarlett

2018-03-01

Research on medical students has shown they are at a higher risk for burnout and that this burnout may become more prevalent as they advance in medical school. The literature, thus far, has not explored the construct of ,emotional empathy and whether this can impact burnout in medical students. Objective: To understand the relationship  between empathy (Empathic Concern [EC] and Personal Distress [PD]) and burnout in medical students. Five successive classes of medical students enrolled at a new medical school were given the Maslach Burnout Inventory and Davis' Interpersonal Reactivity Index  over the course of three successive  years (n = 353).  Two dimensions of  empathy were evaluated to determine if they have an impact on three dimensions of burnout (Emotional Exhaustion/EE, Depersonalization/DP, Personal Accomplishment/PA). data was analyzed using a linear mixed model for each of the three components of burnout based on gender, age, year in medical school, and two types of empathy: EC, and PD.  Conclusion: It was discovered that students with high levels of EC had statistically lower scores of burnout over time while students with high levels of PD empathy showed statistically higher scores of burnout over three years. Implications for these findings are discussed.

Biological Correlates of Empathy

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E. Timucin Oral

2010-04-01

Full Text Available Empathy can be defined as the capacity to know emotionally what another is experiencing from within the frame of reference of that other person and the capacity to sample the feelings of another or it can be metaphorized as to put oneself in another’s shoes. Although the concept of empathy was firstly described in psychological theories, researches studying the biological correlates of psychological theories have been increasing recently. Not suprisingly, dinamically oriented psychotherapists Freud, Kohut, Basch and Fenichel had suggested theories about the biological correlates of empathy concept and established the basis of this modality decades ago. Some other theorists emphasized the importance of empathy in the early years of lifetime regarding mother-child attachment in terms of developmental psychology and investigated its role in explanation of psychopathology. The data coming from some of the recent brain imaging and animal model studies also seem to support these theories. Although increased activity in different brain regions was shown in many of the brain imaging studies, the role of cingulate cortex for understanding mother-child relationship was constantly emphasized in nearly all of the studies. In addition to these studies, a group of Italian scientists has defined a group of neurons as “mirror neurons” in their studies observing rhesus macaque monkeys. Later, they also defined mirror neurons in human studies, and suggested them as “empathy neurons”. After the discovery of mirror neurons, the hopes of finding the missing part of the puzzle for understanding the biological correlates of empathy raised again. Although the roles of different biological parameters such as skin conductance and pupil diameter for defining empathy have not been certain yet, they are going to give us the opportunity to revise the inconsistent basis of structural validity in psychiatry and to stabilize descriptive validity. In this review, the

Impairment on theory of mind and empathy in patients with stroke.

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Yeh, Zai-Ting; Tsai, Chung-Fen

2014-08-01

Impaired social function has been described in patients following stroke. The present study was designed to explore the degree of impairment in the ability to infer mental states in others, or cognitive and affective theory of mind, and empathy, in patients with stroke. A total of 34 patients with stroke were compared to 40 control subjects on tasks testing verbal and non-verbal theory of mind and empathy. Results indicated that patients with stroke were significantly impaired in both cognitive and affective theory of mind, even controlling for basic cognitive function and emotional processing. The patients with right stroke had poorer performance than those with left stroke on the cognitive component of non-verbal theory of mind. On the subscale of cognitive empathy, the right stroke group had poorer performance on perspective-taking than the control group. The right hemisphere may play an important role in decoding non-verbal cues to infer others' minds as well as the processing of empathy, especially the ability of perspective-taking. © 2014 The Authors. Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences © 2014 Japanese Society of Psychiatry and Neurology.

Do I Really Know You? Do You Really Know Me? Empathy amid Diversity in Differing Learning Contexts

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Kasl, Elizabeth; Yorks, Lyle

2016-01-01

We explore the need for empathy in diverse groups, conceptualize the epistemology of empathy in relationship to "whole-person dialogue," and examine strategies for creating empathic space that take into consideration the "paradox of diversity." Two examples from our practice illustrate the role of empathic connection in…

Cosmopolitanism versus Nationalism in Israeli Education

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Yemini, Miri; Bar-Nissan, Hed; Yossi, Shavit

2014-01-01

Education systems worldwide have served as a nation-building apparatus and national consciousness facilitators since the appearance of the modern nation-state. With the emergence of globalization in recent decades, however, a growing presence of cosmopolitanism and internationalization can be traced in education policy and school curricula.…

Border Cosmopolitanism in Critical Peace Education

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Golding, David

2017-01-01

This paper intends to contribute to recent developments in the theory of critical peace education. The role of cosmopolitanism in critical peace education is examined, particularly in relation to universal moral inclusion, secularism and universalism. It is then recommended that critical peace education draw from post-universalist and dialogical…

Affective empathy, cognitive empathy and social attention in children at high risk of criminal behaviour.

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van Zonneveld, Lisette; Platje, Evelien; de Sonneville, Leo; van Goozen, Stephanie; Swaab, Hanna

2017-08-01

Empathy deficits are hypothesized to underlie impairments in social interaction exhibited by those who engage in antisocial behaviour. Social attention is an essential precursor to empathy; however, no studies have yet examined social attention in relation to cognitive and affective empathy in those exhibiting antisocial behaviour. Participants were 8- to 12-year-old children at high risk of developing criminal behaviour (N = 114, 80.7% boys) and typically developing controls (N = 43, 72.1% boys). The high-risk children were recruited through an ongoing early identification and intervention project of the city of Amsterdam, focusing on the underage siblings or children of delinquents and those failing primary school. Video clips with neutral and emotional content (fear, happiness and pain) were shown, while heart rate (HR), skin conductance level (SCL) and skin conductance responses (SCRs) were recorded to measure affective empathy. Answers to questions about emotions in the clips were coded to measure cognitive empathy. Eye-tracking was used to evaluate visual scanning patterns towards social relevant cues (eyes and face) in the clips. The high-risk group did not differ from the control group in social attention and cognitive empathy, but showed reduced HR to pain and fear, and reduced SCL and SCRs to pain. Children at high risk of developing criminal behaviour show impaired affective empathy but unimpaired social attention and cognitive empathy. The implications for early identification and intervention studies with antisocial children are discussed. © 2017 Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health.

Empathy Impairments in Intimate Partner Violence Perpetrators With Antisocial and Borderline Traits: A Key Factor in the Risk of Recidivism.

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Romero-Martínez, Ángel; Lila, Marisol; Moya-Albiol, Luis

2016-01-01

Antisocial, borderline, and narcissistic personality traits have been described as characteristics of intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetrators. Furthermore, deficits in cognitive empathy and impairments in emotional decoding processes may at least partially explain conduct disorders and social dysfunction in general. However, previous research has not explored potential associations between empathy deficits and the aforementioned traits or whether they are reflected in recidivism in IPV perpetrators. Accordingly, the main aim of this study was to explore associations between empathy deficits, antisocial, borderline, and narcissistic traits and the risk of recidivism in this population. The sample consisted of 144 IPV perpetrators (mean age = 41 years). High antisocial and borderline personality traits in this sample were associated with a high risk of recidivism, these relationships being moderated by poor empathy skills. Moreover, in IPV perpetrators with both antisocial and borderline personality traits, the risk of recidivism was higher than in those with only one of these traits. In contrast, narcissistic traits were unrelated to the risk of recidivism and impairments in empathy. The results of our study highlight the importance of empathy deficits and may help professionals to develop specific intervention programs focusing on improving empathy skills in antisocial and borderline IPV perpetrators.

The Science of Empathy

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Helen Riess MD

2017-06-01

Full Text Available Empathy plays a critical interpersonal and societal role, enabling sharing of experiences, needs, and desires between individuals and providing an emotional bridge that promotes pro-social behavior. This capacity requires an exquisite interplay of neural networks and enables us to perceive the emotions of others, resonate with them emotionally and cognitively, to take in the perspective of others, and to distinguish between our own and others’ emotions. Studies show empathy declines during medical training. Without targeted interventions, uncompassionate care and treatment devoid of empathy, results in patients who are dissatisfied. They are then much less likely to follow through with treatment recommendations, resulting in poorer health outcomes and damaged trust in health providers. Cognitive empathy must play a role when a lack of emotional empathy exists because of racial, ethnic, religious, or physical differences. Healthcare settings are no exception to conscious and unconscious biases, and there is no place for discrimination or unequal care afforded to patients who differ from the majority culture or the majority culture of healthcare providers. Much work lies ahead to make healthcare equitable for givers and receivers of healthcare from all cultures. Self- and other-empathy leads to replenishment and renewal of a vital human capacity. If we are to move in the direction of a more empathic society and a more compassionate world, it is clear that working to enhance our native capacities to empathize is critical to strengthening individual, community, national, and international bonds.

Empathy and Empathy Induced Prosocial Behavior in 6-and 7-Year-Olds with Autism Spectrum Disorder

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Deschamps, Peter K. H.; Been, Marieke; Matthys, Walter

The present study aimed to assess empathy and prosocial behavior in 6-7 year old children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). Results showed, first, lower levels of parent- and teacher-rated cognitive empathy, and similar levels of affective empathy in children with ASD compared to typically

Cosmopolitanism Influence on Destination Image: An Analysis of São Paulo City

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Felipe Nasrallah Bedran

2014-12-01

Full Text Available This study aimed to find out how cosmopolitanism influences the destination image building. To accomplish this objective we interviewed foreign people, who know São Paulo, a city with national and international importance, due to its structure, economy, size, population and by its intense cultural and business life. This work reviewed cosmopolitanism that is the desire to know other cultures, besides his native one. This leads to an intention to travel through different regions, countries, to deepen in other societies and try to blend into it. Thus, one has particular characteristics, which influence the way one lives and consume products. The destination image can be defined as the sum of beliefs, ideas and impressions that a person has about a destination. To understand how cosmopolitanism influences the destination image, two approaches were used. A qualitative approach used interviews with professionals from SPTuris, as well as personal interviews with foreign tourists at the airport., This data was analyzed using content analysis. The quantitative approach included a survey with 205 foreigners. Data was analyzed using univariate and multivariate statistics, ANOVA and structural equation modeling. The result showed that cosmopolitanism and income influences the affective aspect in the destination image formation. It also showed that the stay purpose influenced the cognitive aspect, and that the length of stay influenced both aspects of the destination image. The research result showed that the cosmopolitanism influences mainly the affective aspect of São Paulo destination image. 

Dialogic Cosmopolitanism and the New Wave of Movements: From Local Rupture to Global Openness

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Agustin, Oscar Garcia

2017-01-01

cosmopolitanism to account for the kind of cosmopolitanism which characterizes this new cycle. Being dialogic entails connectivity between previous and forthcoming struggles in a process combining determination and anticipation with the constant (re)definition of the movement. This process is considered...... to be the combination of social local ruptures with global openness. Dialogic cosmopolitanism consists of 3 main features: the conflictual dimension, whereby the dominant consensus is questioned and spaces of conflict and dissent are generated; the shaping of translocal solidarities that are able to connect local...

Chinese Woman in New York City: Transcultural Travel and Postsocialist Cosmopolitanism in Twenty-first Century China

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Berg, Daria; Kunze, Rui

2016-01-01

This paper explores transcultural travel as the new space of Chinese women and culture in motion in a globalizing postsocialist China. We adopt Lisa Rofel’s concept of ‘postsocialist cosmopolitanism’ to examine how a new generation of Chinese women writers fashions a new female self in their writings about lived experiences in transnational and transcultural environments. According to Rofel, postsocialist cosmopolitanism combines first, a self-conscious transcendence of locality accomplished ...

The effect of empathy on eyewitness memory

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2015-09-01

Full Text Available Aims: Numerous factors have been identified that can influence eyewitness memory. These factors lead to an increased susceptibility to the misinformation effect, potentially resulting in critical errors in testimony. One other potential influencing factor may be empathy. Empathy is considered as the reactions of an individual to something another person is experiencing. Research has indicated empathy to be a multidimensional construct, combining cognitive and emotional concepts. Empathy has yet to be investigated as an influencing factor, therefore, the current research sought to examine the effect of empathy on eyewitness memory. Method: Participants (n = 60 completed an online survey consisting of a short video, followed by reading a short narrative containing correct and misinformation. One group of participants (N=31 also received an empathy induction. They then completed empathy measures, a cued recall memory test and a recognition memory test. The memory test contained questions relating to the correct and misinformation. Results: Overall there was no difference between groups on general empathy. The empathy induction group had more event related empathy, however, there was no effect of empathy on memory accuracy. For cued recall, participants were more accurate on questions relating to correct (89% information compared to misleading (37% information. For the recognition questions, participants were about as accurate for the correct (63% and misleading (60% information. Conclusions: These findings indicate that feelings of empathy toward the victim of a crime may not improve the accuracy of witness memory. Cued recall results in superior memory performance for correct information, but very poor performance for misleading information. Recognition recall is moderately accurate for both correct and misleading information.

The Multi-Faceted Experience of Empathy in Intellectual Disability Settings: An IPA Study

OpenAIRE

Renton, Ben

2016-01-01

This research thesis explored the concept of empathy. The specific purpose was to further understand the idea of empathy in relation to the experience of male support workers who provide residential care to adults with intellectual disabilities (ID) and challenging behaviour. The thesis aimed to provide some insights into how support workers develop and extract meaning from their experiences of relationships with clients and the impact of this on their own self-care, namely, self-compassion. ...

Associations between empathy and big five personality traits among Chinese undergraduate medical students.

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Song, Yang; Shi, Meng

2017-01-01

Empathy promotes positive physician-patient communication and is associated with improved patient satisfaction, treatment adherence and clinical outcomes. It has been suggested that personality traits should be taken into consideration in programs designed to enhance empathy in medical education due to the association found between personality and empathy among medical students. However, the associations between empathy and big five personality traits in medical education are still underrepresented in the existing literature and relevant studies have not been conducted among medical students in China, where tensions in the physician-patient relationship have been reported as outstanding problems in the context of China's current medical reform. Thus, the main objective of this study was to examine the associations between empathy and big five personality traits among Chinese medical students. A cross-sectional study was conducted in a medical university in Northeast China in June 2016. Self-reported questionnaires including the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) and Big Five Inventory (BFI) and demographic characteristics were distributed. A total of 530 clinical medical students became our final subjects. Hierarchical regression analysis was performed to explore the effects of big five personality traits on empathy. Results of this study showed that big five personality traits accounted for 19.4%, 18.1%, 30.2% of the variance in three dimensions of empathy, namely, perspective taking, empathic concern and personal distress, respectively. Specifically, agreeableness had a strong positive association with empathic concern (β = 0.477, Ppersonal distress (β = 0.526, Ppersonal distress (β = -0.160, Pbig five personality traits were important predictors of self-reported measures of both cognitive and affective empathy among Chinese medical students. Therefore, individualized intervention strategies based on personality traits could be integrated into programs to

Empathy and Empathy Induced Prosocial Behavior in 6- and 7-Year-Olds with Autism Spectrum Disorder

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Deschamps, Peter K. H.; Been, Marieke; Matthys, Walter

2014-01-01

The present study aimed to assess empathy and prosocial behavior in 6-7 year old children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). Results showed, first, lower levels of parent- and teacher-rated cognitive empathy, and similar levels of affective empathy in children with ASD compared to typically developing (TD) children. Second, emotion recognition…

BABY EMPATHY: INFANT DISTRESS AND PEER PROSOCIAL RESPONSES.

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Liddle, Mitzi-Jane E; Bradley, Ben S; Mcgrath, Andrew

2015-01-01

Empathy is an important competence in our social world, a motivator of prosocial behavior, and thought to develop throughout the second year of life. The current study examined infants' responses to naturalistic peer distress to explore markers of empathy and prosocial behavior in young babies. Seventeen 8-month-old infants participated in a repeated measures design using the "babies-in-groups" paradigm, with maternal presence as the independent variable. Significant differences were found between response types: Gaze was the standard response to infant distress, followed by socially directed behaviors and affect, with self-distress rarely occurring. Maternal presence was not found to impact the nature or frequency of babies' responses to peer distress. During distress episodes, babies looked preferentially at the distressed peer, then other mothers, and least to their own mother. Data revealed that infant responses to peer distress resulted in a successful cessation of that distress episode over one third of the time. Case studies are provided to illustrate the quantitative data. The results provided evidence of empathic concern and prosocial behavior in the first year of life, and provoke a challenge to developmental theories of empathy. © 2015 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health.

The complex relation between morality and empathy.

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Decety, Jean; Cowell, Jason M

2014-07-01

Morality and empathy are fundamental components of human nature across cultures. However, the wealth of empirical findings from developmental, behavioral, and social neuroscience demonstrates a complex relation between morality and empathy. At times, empathy guides moral judgment, yet other times empathy can interfere with it. To better understand such relations, we propose abandoning the catchall term of empathy in favor of more precise concepts, such as emotional sharing, empathic concern, and affective perspective-taking. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Sibling Relationships and Empathy Across the Transition to Adolescence Sibling Relationships and Empathy Across the Transition to Adolescence

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Lam, Chun Bun; Solmeyer, Anna R.; McHale, Susan M.

2012-01-01

Although socioemotional competencies have been identified as key components of youths’ positive development, most studies on empathy are cross-sectional, and research on the role of the family has focused almost exclusively on parental socialization. This study examined the developmental course of empathy from age 7 to 14 and the within-person associations between sibling warmth and conflict and youths’ empathy. On three occasions across 2 years, mothers, fathers, and the two eldest siblings from 201 White, working- and middle-class families provided questionnaire data. Multilevel models revealed that, controlling for youths’ pubertal status and parental education, girls’ empathy increased during the transition to adolescence and then leveled off, but boys’ lower levels of empathy remained relatively unchanged. Moreover, controlling for parental responsiveness and marital love, at times when firstborns and second-borns reported more sibling warmth and less sibling conflict than usual, they also reported more empathy than usual. The within-person association between sibling warmth and empathy also became stronger over time. Findings highlight gender differences in empathy development and the unique role of siblings in shaping each other’s socioemotional characteristics during adolescence. PMID:22714744

"Stay in Synch!": Performing Cosmopolitanism in an Athens Festival

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Vassiliki Lalioti

2013-11-01

Full Text Available Synch is an electronic music festival that takes place in Athens every summer and brings together people of various cultural origins and musical and aesthetic interests. As a total performance event, Synch becomes a site of complexity, polyvocality and hybridity; a site which allows participants to create and express cosmopolitan attitudes of openness for others, people, ideas and experiences. Adopting an anthropological/ethnographic perspective, this paper moves beyond distinctions between elite vs. ordinary and consumer vs. ethical cosmopolitanism, and investigates Synch as a site where local and trans-local aspects of life and a set of socio-cultural meanings in Greece today are being negotiated.

Assessing historical empathy through simulation – How do Finnish teacher students achieve contextual historical empathy?

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Jukka Rantala

2011-05-01

Full Text Available There has been a great deal of international debate about introducing historical empathy as the focus in teaching history. However, as it is, the contents of the concept have been included in the curricula in many countries. Nevertheless, practising stepping into the shoes of a person from a previous era is still in its infancy in schools in many locations – Finland included. This article discusses Finnish class teacher students' understanding of historical empathy. The article is based on a study where 360 class teacher students played a game simulating the Cuban Missile Crisis. Their task was to assume the roles of the superpower leaders and make decisions on the basis of these roles. The simulation showed that a majority of the student teachers are able to attain a level of contextual historical empathy. They were able to empathize with the historical context in question and make such decisions that would have been possible for the historical actors. Some of the playing groups on the other hand, referred to their current knowledge and attitudes, which, according to Ashby and Lee's empathy classification, shows lower-level empathy. The study corroborates previous research results concerning great discrepancies in the understanding of empathy prevalent within one age group. Moreover, the study raises the question of how historical empathy should be handled in teaching if many future teachers have difficulties in understanding it.

Insight in schizophrenia : Associations with empathy

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Pijnenborg, G. H. M.; Spikman, J. M.; Jeronimus, B. F.; Aleman, A.

Many people with schizophrenia (50-80 %) demonstrate impaired insight, something which has been associated with a poorer outcome. Two types of empathy can be distinguished: affective empathy via shared emotions and cognitive empathy, also referred to as Theory of Mind (ToM). ToM can be subdivided

Solving Local Violence by Cosmopolitan Democracy Approach

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Muhammad Luthfil Hakim

2016-05-01

Full Text Available The implementation of democracy intensified since the fall of the new order era has some failures. One of the factors is violence phenomena still continue in the region. This study aims to discuss the violence in the region by presenting cosmopolitan democracy as a new design of more humane democracy. In addition, this research method uses library research, because library research can understand the problem in-depth to find the pattern and recommendation from the violence problems which happens in Indonesia. This study uses Hannah Arendt observations on the phenomenon of violence. In addition, the concept of cosmopolitan democracy is referred from Daniele Archibugi, David Held, and Ulrich Beck is presented as a draft of new democracy direction which is more inclusive and humane. The result of this study discloses that the occurrence of incidence is triggered by failed implementation of the democratic system in Indonesia.

Teaching Empathy and Ethical Decision Making in Business Schools

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Baker, Diane F.

2017-01-01

Researchers in behavioral ethics seek to understand how individuals respond to the ethical dilemmas in their lives. In any given situation, multiple social and psychological variables interact to influence ethical decision making. The purpose of this article is to explore how one such variable, empathy, affects the ethical decision-making process…

Cosmopolitan conceptions in global Dubai? The emiratization of IVF and its consequences

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Marcia C. Inhorn

2016-06-01

Full Text Available IVF in the United Arab Emirates (UAE is decidedly cosmopolitan, catering to an international clientele who are attracted to Dubai as a booming global city and an emerging medical tourism hub. Yet this Emirati state-sponsored project of medical cosmopolitanism exists in tension with another state-sponsored project, called emiratization. Emiratization is an attempt by the UAE government to prioritize the needs of Emiratis. In this article, the emiratization of the UAE’s IVF sector is explored. Since the mid-2000s, the Emirati IVF sector has undergone a series of profound transformations, involving the indigenization-qua-emiratization of IVF services in the country. Two main aspects of IVF emiratization are examined. The first involves the Emirati government’s brief experiment with IVF public financing, which started off as a generous IVF subsidization programme for all infertile couples, but ended up solidifying preferential treatment for local Emiratis. The second is the 2010 passage of UAE Federal Law No. 11, which now stands as one of the world’s most restrictive pieces of assisted reproduction legislation. Which now stands as one of the world's most restrictive pieces of assisted reproduction legislation and has fundamentally altered the landscape of IVF in the country.

Using tDCS to Explore the Role of the Right Temporo-Parietal Junction in Theory of Mind and Cognitive Empathy.

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Mai, Xiaoqin; Zhang, Wenli; Hu, Xinmu; Zhen, Zhen; Xu, Zhenhua; Zhang, Jing; Liu, Chao

2016-01-01

The right temporo-parietal junction (rTPJ) is thought to be closely related to theory of mind (ToM) and cognitive empathy. In the present study, we investigated whether these socio-cognitive abilities could be modulated with non-invasive transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) of the rTPJ. Participants received anodal (excitatory), cathodal (inhibitory), or sham stimulation before performing a social cognitive task which included inferring other's intention (the ToM condition) and inferring other's emotion (the cognitive empathy condition). Our results showed that the accuracy of both ToM and cognitive empathy decreased after receiving the cathodal stimulation, suggesting that altering the cortical excitability in the rTPJ could influence human's socio-cognitive abilities. The results of this study emphasize the critical role of the rTPJ in ToM and cognitive empathy and demonstrate that these socio-cognitive abilities could be modulated by the tDCS.

The relationship between empathy and burnout – lessons for paramedics: a scoping review

Science.gov (United States)

Williams, Brett; Lau, Rosalind; Thornton, Emma; Olney, Lauren S

2017-01-01

Background The concepts of empathy and burnout are critical for practicing paramedics and the profession. While there has been an increasing body of research on the relationship between empathy and burnout with physicians and nurses, surprisingly, no research has been undertaken with paramedics. The aim of this scoping review was to explore the relationship between empathy and burnout. Method A scoping review was performed based on Arskey and O’Malley’s framework. Five databases were searched: CINAHL plus, EMBASE, MEDLINE, PsycINFO, and Scopus. Google Scholar was searched for gray literature. Two reviewers independently assessed eligibility and extracted the data. Results The initial search produced a yield of 1270 articles after removal of duplicates. All abstracts were screened for relevance, and 30 articles were selected for further screening. Twenty six articles were deemed relevant, of which there were 23 cross-sectional studies, two editorials, and one description article on the multidimensional aspect of burnout and empathy. The studies were conducted in Europe, USA, North America, and Asia. In most studies, there was an inverse correlation between empathy and emotional exhaustion and depersonalization but a positive correlation with personal accomplishment. Conclusion Although there seems to be a real relationship between empathy and burnout in physicians and nurses, the strength of the relationship differs to some extent depending on the samples and settings. Due to similarities between health professions, the relationship between empathy and burnout may also be relevant to the paramedic profession. Future paramedic research should focus on longitudinal studies to determine the factors that might influence empathy and burnout levels to provide a better understanding of these two key factors. PMID:29225482

Teaching medical students to express empathy by exploring patient emotions and experiences in standardized medical encounters.

Science.gov (United States)

Ruiz-Moral, Roger; Pérula de Torres, Luis; Monge, Diana; García Leonardo, Cristina; Caballero, Fernando

2017-09-01

To increase medical students' ability to detect contextual and emotional cues and to respond empathetically to patients. a training course in communication skills and patient-centered care with different teaching activities (didactic, reflective and interactive: workshops and encounters with simulated patients) was delivered to third-year medical students just before their clerkships. The program was evaluated by an external observer (OE) and simulated patients (SP) in 2 or 3 videotaped encounters. Students improved significantly from baseline to 3rd interview in all communicative skills and domains explored both in OE (32.4%) and SP (38.3%) measurement. At the end of the course students detected significantly more clues and made more empathetic expressions. The course seems to improve the ability of students to explore the illness experience, showing more empathy in a more genuine way. This was carried out in consultations lasting 10min. The program is effective and feasible to be applied as a regular formative activity. Further research is needed to assess whether this training program is applicable to students in more advanced educational levels and if it has any additional outcomes. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Cyberbullying Among Adolescent Bystanders: Role of Affective Versus Cognitive Empathy in Increasing Prosocial Cyberbystander Behavior

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Barlińska, Julia; Szuster, Anna; Winiewski, Mikołaj

2018-01-01

The purpose of this study was to investigate if affective (vicarious sharing of emotions) and cognitive empathy (mental perspective taking) induction may stimulate adolescent online bystanders’ intervention in cyberbullying cases. The role of reporting the abuse is crucial because it is a form of active support to the victim, initiated by children, to stop the bullying. The effectiveness of empathy activation in decreasing negative cyberbystander reinforcing behavior has been proved in previous studies. The effects of affective and cognitive empathy activation on positive cyberbystander behavior, defined as reporting the bullying online, were explored in two follow-up studies N = 271 and N = 265. The influence of experiencing cyberbullying as perpetrator, victim, and as determined by gender on prosocial cyberbystander behavior was also controlled. The results indicate that only cognitive empathy activation increases the likelihood of intervening bystander behavior. Neither affective empathy induction, previous experience of cyberperpetration, cybervictimization, nor gender affected the engagement in prosocial bystander behavior. The conclusion of the research is that a program consequently activating more reflective cognitive empathy induction can contribute toward the establishment of healthier behavioral patterns among bystanders to cyberbullying, increasing the probability of their reporting the cyberbullying acts. PMID:29899715

Cyberbullying Among Adolescent Bystanders: Role of Affective Versus Cognitive Empathy in Increasing Prosocial Cyberbystander Behavior

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Julia Barlińska

2018-05-01

Full Text Available The purpose of this study was to investigate if affective (vicarious sharing of emotions and cognitive empathy (mental perspective taking induction may stimulate adolescent online bystanders’ intervention in cyberbullying cases. The role of reporting the abuse is crucial because it is a form of active support to the victim, initiated by children, to stop the bullying. The effectiveness of empathy activation in decreasing negative cyberbystander reinforcing behavior has been proved in previous studies. The effects of affective and cognitive empathy activation on positive cyberbystander behavior, defined as reporting the bullying online, were explored in two follow-up studies N = 271 and N = 265. The influence of experiencing cyberbullying as perpetrator, victim, and as determined by gender on prosocial cyberbystander behavior was also controlled. The results indicate that only cognitive empathy activation increases the likelihood of intervening bystander behavior. Neither affective empathy induction, previous experience of cyberperpetration, cybervictimization, nor gender affected the engagement in prosocial bystander behavior. The conclusion of the research is that a program consequently activating more reflective cognitive empathy induction can contribute toward the establishment of healthier behavioral patterns among bystanders to cyberbullying, increasing the probability of their reporting the cyberbullying acts.

Initiating Debate: Towards a cosmopolitan African university ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

My contention is that university education ought to take seriously the teaching of virtues such as cosmopolitanism to ensure that societal ills in some African communities such as perpetual genocide, rape, mass enslavement, political dictatorships, xenophobic violence and religious intolerance are combated and even ...

Multilingualism, Empathy and Multicompetence

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Dewaele, Jean-Marc; Wei, Li

2012-01-01

The present study investigates the link between multilingualism and the personality trait of cognitive empathy among 2158 mono- and multilinguals. Data were collected through an online questionnaire. Statistical analyses revealed that the knowledge of more languages was not linked to cognitive empathy. Bilingual upbringing and the experience of…

Attitudes towards globalization and cosmopolitanism: cultural diversity, personal consumption and the national economy.

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Woodward, Ian; Skrbis, Zlatko; Bean, Clive

2008-06-01

One of the widely accepted consequences of globalization is the development of individual outlooks, behaviours and feelings that transcend local and national boundaries. This has encouraged a re-assessment of important assumptions about the nature of community, personal attachment and belonging in the face of unprecedented opportunities for culture, identities and politics to shape, and be shaped by, global events and processes. Recently, the upsurge of interest in the concept of cosmopolitanism has provided a promising new framework for understanding the nexus between cosmopolitan dispositions and global interconnectedness across cultural, political and economic realms. Using data from a representative social survey of Australians this paper investigates the negotiation of belonging under the conditions of globalization. The data tap into attitudes and behaviours associated with a broad gamut of cosmopolitan traits in the domains of culture, consumption, human rights, citizenship, and international governance. They show how cosmopolitan outlooks are shaped by social structural factors, and how forms of identification with humanity and the globe are fractured by boundaries of self and others, threats and opportunities, and the value of things global and local.

The effects of affective and cognitive empathy on adolescents' behavior and outcomes in conflicts with mothers.

Science.gov (United States)

Van Lissa, Caspar J; Hawk, Skyler T; Meeus, Wim H J

2017-06-01

The current study investigated whether manipulations of affective and cognitive empathy have differential effects on observed behavior and self-reported outcomes in adolescent-mother conflict discussions. We further examined how these situational empathy inductions interact with preexisting empathic dispositions. To promote ecological validity, we conducted home visits to study conflict discussions about real disagreements in adolescent-mother relationships. We explored the roles of sex, age, and maternal support and power as covariates and moderators. Results indicated that the affective empathy manipulation had no significant effects on behavior, although a trend in the hypothesized direction suggested that affective empathy might promote active problem solving. The cognitive empathy manipulation led to lower conflict escalation and promoted other-oriented listening for adolescents low in dispositional cognitive empathy. State-trait interactions indicated that the empathy manipulations had significant effects on self-reported outcomes for adolescents lower in dispositional empathic concern. For these adolescents, both manipulations promoted outcome satisfaction, but only the cognitive manipulation promoted perceived fairness. This suggests that cognitive empathy, in particular, allows adolescents to distance themselves from the emotional heat of a conflict and listen to mothers' point of view, leading to outcomes perceived as both satisfying and fair. These findings are relevant for interventions and clinicians because they demonstrate unique effects of promoting affective versus cognitive empathy. Because even these minimal manipulations promoted significant effects on observed behavior and self-reported outcomes, particularly for low-empathy adolescents, stronger structural interventions are likely to have marked benefits. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Affective empathy, cognitive empathy, and social attention in children at high risk of criminal behaviour

OpenAIRE

Van Goozen, Stephanie

2017-01-01

Background: Empathy deficits are hypothesized to underlie impairments in social interaction\\ud exhibited by those who engage in antisocial behaviour. Social attention is an essential precursor to\\ud empathy; however, no studies have yet examined social attention in relation to cognitive and affective\\ud empathy in those exhibiting antisocial behaviour. Methods: Participants were 8-12 year-old children\\ud at high risk of developing criminal behaviour (N=114, 80.7% boys) and typically developin...

Measurement of empathy among Argentine cardiologists: Psychometrics and differences by age, gender, and subspecialty.

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Borracci, Raúl Alfredo; Doval, Hernán C; Nuñez, Carmen; Samarelli, Marisa; Tamini, Susana; Tanus, Eduardo

2015-01-01

Cardiologists are involved in the management of patients with multiple cardiovascular risk factors and chronic heart diseases, so empathy is a necessary feature to deal with them. The aim of the study was to evaluate the validity and reliability of the Spanish version of the Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy (JSPE) among Argentine cardiologists and to explore the potential differences by age, gender, and subspecialty. Between August and September 2012, we performed a survey in a non-randomized sample of 566 Spanish-speaking cardiologists of Argentina. A Principle Component Analysis (PCA) was used to explore the link between observed variables and latent variables in order to identify the factor structure. The PCA criteria for identifying the factor structure were examined with the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) analysis. The KMO measure of sampling adequacy was 0.86 and Bartlett's test of sphericity was highly significant (p = 0.000), determining the suitability of the data set for factor analysis. The PCA of 20 items yielded a three factor model that accounted for 40.6% of the variance. The JSPE mean rank score for women was 307.9 vs. 275.0 for men (p = 0.017). The comparison of mean rank score according to age (quartiles) showed a significant relation between older age and empathy. No difference was found when the mean rank scores were compared by respondent subspecialty. JSPE provides a valid and reliable scale to measure Argentine cardiologists' attitudes towards empathy. Female cardiologists seem to be more empathic than their male colleagues, and a positive relationship between age and empathy was found.

Traveling Chaucer: Comparative Translation and Cosmopolitan Humanism

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Barrington, Candace

2014-01-01

Through the comparative study of non-Anglophone translations of Geoffrey Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales," we can achieve the progressive goals of Emily Apter's "translational transnationalism" and Edward Said's "cosmopolitan humanism." Both translation and humanism were intrinsic to Chaucer's…

International Nursing: Research on the Correlation Between Empathy and China's Big Five Personality Theory: Implications for Nursing Leaders.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Cong; Wu, Qin; Feng, Mei; Wan, Qunfang; Wu, Xiaoling

To investigate the characteristics of nurses' empathy and explore the correlation between nurses' empathy and personality, a cross-sectional study with 250 nurses from a general hospital in China was conducted using the Chinese Big Five Personality Inventory (CBF-PI) and the Jefferson Scale of Empathy-Health Professionals (JSE-HP). The total score of the JSE-HP was 110.60 (SD = 11.71). Employment forms and child-rearing situations were the significant predictors of the JSE-HP score. Multiple hierarchical regression analysis indicated that the JSE-HP score was positively correlated with conscientiousness and agreeableness and the contribution of CBF-PI to JSE-HP scale variances was 15.1%. The results demonstrated that nurses' empathy is on the high level. The Big Five Personality model is a significant predictor of nurses' empathy. The findings of the study provide reference for nurses' humanistic care training and education. In addition, training programs emphasizing emotions, psychology, humanistic quality, and healthy personality should be strengthened to promote nurses' empathy.

"There's no billing code for empathy" - Animated comics remind medical students of empathy: a qualitative study.

Science.gov (United States)

Tsao, Pamela; Yu, Catherine H

2016-08-12

Physician empathy is associated with improved diabetes outcomes. However, empathy declines throughout medical school training. This study seeks to describe how comics on diabetes affect learning processes for empathy in medical students. All first- or second-year students at a Canadian medical school were invited to provide written reflections on two comics regarding diabetes and participate in a focus group. Responses were analyzed qualitatively for emergent themes. Students completed the Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy (JSPE) at baseline, after the comic, and after the focus group. Linear mixed model statistical analyses were performed. Thirteen first-year and 12 second-year students participated. Qualitative analysis revealed four themes: 1) Empathy decline and its barriers; 2) Impact of the comic and focus group on knowledge, attitudes and skills; 3) Role of the comic in the curriculum as a reminder tool of the importance of empathy; 4) Comics as an effective medium. Baseline mean JSPE scores were 116.4 (SD 10.5) and trended up to 117.2 (SD 12.5) and 119.6 (SD 15.2) after viewing the comics and participating in the focus groups, respectively (p = 0.08). Animated comics on diabetes are novel methods of reminding students about empathy by highlighting the patient perspective.

Situating Cogenerative Dialogue in a Cosmopolitan Ethic

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Christopher Emdin

2006-03-01

Full Text Available In this article, we acknowledge the transformative nature of cogenerative dialogues and focus on the ethical dimension of the practice in order to move educational research, classrooms and schools beyond the current conceptions of what is ethical. Utilizing a fusion of the Belmont Report with nuanced notions of fourth generation evaluation procedures, we root cogenerative dialogues in a philosophical approach to cosmopolitanism that acknowledges the differences between multiple participants, multiple fields, and varying ways of knowing and being. Firstly, we consider how rooting the character of the truly ethical research act in a cosmopolitan ideal can attain participant beneficence. Secondly, we consider how to avoid the potential pitfalls of authenticity criteria in the practice of cogenerative dialogues by enacting practices that maximize tactical authenticity. Our approach to cogenerative dialogues serves as a method for critique and analysis that challenges our current practice and considers the ethics of cogenerative dialogues in inner city schools in a new light. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0602390

Empathy and the wounded healer: a mixed-method study of patients and doctors views on empathy.

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Brady, C; Bambury, R M; O'Reilly, S

2015-04-01

Empathy is increasingly being recognized as a crucial component for an effective doctor-patient relationship. Using a mixed method approach, we surveyed 125 patients and 361 medical practitioners (doctors and medical students) views of the doctor-patient relationship. We qualitatively assessed patients' views of what constituted a good doctor and qualitatively measured empathy using a validated scale in medical practitioners. Patients desire a doctor that is both clinically proficient 66 (55%) and caring 32 (27%). Doctors who have a personal experience of illness have a statistically higher empathy score. These doctors may be well placed to help develop and foster empathy in our profession.

Can Facebook Aid Sustainability? An Investigation of Empathy Expression within the Humans of New York Blog

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Hannah Wheeler

2017-06-01

Full Text Available This qualitative study offers a novel exploration of the links between social media, virtual intergroup contact, and empathy by examining how empathy is expressed through interactions on a popular social media blog. Global leaders are encouraging individuals to engage in behaviors and support policies that provide basic social foundations. It is difficult to motivate people to undertake such actions. However, research shows that empathy intensifies motivation to help others. It can cause individuals to see the world from the perspective of stigmatized group members and increase positive feelings. Social media offers a new pathway for virtual intergroup contact, providing opportunities to increase conversation about disadvantaged others and empathy. We examined expressions of empathy within a popular blog, Humans of New York (HONY, and engaged in purposeful case selection by focusing on (1 events where specific prosocial action was taken corresponding to interactions on the HONY blog and (2 presentation of people in countries other than the United States. Nine overarching themes; (1 perspective taking, (2 fantasy, (3 empathic concern, (4 personal distress, (5 relatability, (6 prosocial action, (7 community appreciation, (8 anti-empathy, and (9 rejection of anti-empathy, exemplify how the HONY community expresses and shares empathic thoughts and feelings.

Assessing Empathy across Childhood and Adolescence: Validation of the Empathy Questionnaire for Children and Adolescents (EmQue-CA

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Sandy Overgaauw

2017-05-01

Full Text Available Empathy plays a crucial role in healthy social functioning and in maintaining positive social relationships. In this study, 1250 children and adolescents (10–15 year olds completed the newly developed Empathy Questionnaire for Children and Adolescents (EmQue-CA that was tested on reliability, construct validity, convergent validity, and concurrent validity. The EmQue-CA aims to assess empathy using the following scales: affective empathy, cognitive empathy, and intention to comfort. A Principal Components Analysis, which was directly tested with a Confirmatory Factor Analysis, confirmed the proposed three-factor model resulting in 14 final items. Reliability analyses demonstrated high internal consistency of the scales. Furthermore, the scales showed high convergent validity, as they were positively correlated with related scales of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (Davis, 1983. With regard to concurrent validity, higher empathy was related to more attention to others’ emotions, higher friendship quality, less focus on own affective state, and lower levels of bullying behavior. Taken together, we show that the EmQue-CA is a reliable and valid instrument to measure empathy in typically developing children and adolescents aged 10 and older.

Mirror Neurons, the Development of Empathy, and Digital Story Telling

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Hess, Mary

2012-01-01

This article explores the intersection of work in media education, religious education, concerns about digital cultures' impact on human relationality, and the possible role that mirror neurons might play in the development of empathy. Digital story telling--particularly as embodied in the work of the Center for Digital Storytelling…

Framing the Other: cosmopolitanism and the representation of difference in overseas gap year narratives.

Science.gov (United States)

Snee, Helene

2013-03-01

This paper engages with debates surrounding contemporary cosmopolitanism and the outcomes of cultural encounters. It considers if overseas gap years, often put forward in the UK as a way of becoming a global citizen, enable young Britons to 'broaden their mind'. I explore representations of the people and places encountered during these periods of time out through an analysis of young people's travel blogs. Four key themes are highlighted in these narratives: the exotic place; feeling 'out of place'; the importance and outcomes of local interaction; and the historical legacies that are implicated in constructing places as 'different'. Gappers display a willingness to interact with and gain knowledge about their host communities. Yet as gap years are designed to be distinct from the normal course of things, they also demonstrate the 'difference' of places. This can often result in the reproduction of established ways of representing the Other in order to frame them as meaningful. There is a tension in the narratives between 'globally reflexive' and 'globally reproductive' representations of difference, and I suggest that we might question the development of cosmopolitan attitudes and competencies through undertaking a gap year. © London School of Economics and Political Science 2013.

The Role of Empathy in Mental Attribution

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Brunsteins, Patricia

2011-05-01

Full Text Available This work examines in what extent a notion of empathy may clarify mindreading’s debate. Taking into account an interdisciplinary and integrative notion of empathy, compatibility with mental attribution strategies both mental simulation and theory-theory, in non pure versions, is evaluated. Firstly, new empirical research is supposed to contribute strengthening an integrative empathy instead of theory-theory or mental simulation `s points of view. Secondly, new empirical research will bring better tools to distinguish between empathy and simulation. Consequently, the relationship between empathy and mental attribution theories may be better delimited and a full mental attribution theory may possibly be proposed.

Emotion recognition and cognitive empathy deficits in adolescent offenders revealed by context-sensitive tasks

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Maria Luz eGonzalez-Gadea

2014-10-01

Full Text Available Emotion recognition and empathy abilities require the integration of contextual information in real-life scenarios. Previous reports have explored these domains in adolescent offenders (AOs but have not used tasks that replicate everyday situations. In this study we included ecological measures with different levels of contextual dependence to evaluate emotion recognition and empathy in AOs relative to non-offenders, controlling for the effect of demographic variables. We also explored the influence of fluid intelligence (FI and executive functions (EFs in the prediction of relevant deficits in these domains. Our results showed that AOs exhibit deficits in context-sensitive measures of emotion recognition and cognitive empathy. Difficulties in these tasks were neither explained by demographic variables nor predicted by FI or EFs. However, performance on measures that included simpler stimuli or could be solved by explicit knowledge was either only partially affected by demographic variables or preserved in AOs. These findings indicate that AOs show contextual social-cognition impairments which are relatively independent of basic cognitive functioning and demographic variables.

The relationship between empathy and burnout – lessons for paramedics: a scoping review

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Williams B

2017-11-01

Full Text Available Brett Williams,1 Rosalind Lau,1 Emma Thornton,1 Lauren S Olney2 1Department of Community Emergency Health and Paramedic Practice, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, Monash University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia; 2Clinical and Community Services Division, Ambulance Victoria, Melbourne, VIC, Australia Background: The concepts of empathy and burnout are critical for practicing paramedics and the profession. While there has been an increasing body of research on the relationship between empathy and burnout with physicians and nurses, surprisingly, no research has been undertaken with paramedics. The aim of this scoping review was to explore the relationship between empathy and burnout. Method: A scoping review was performed based on Arskey and O’Malley’s framework. Five databases were searched: CINAHL plus, EMBASE, MEDLINE, PsycINFO, and Scopus. Google Scholar was searched for gray literature. Two reviewers independently assessed eligibility and extracted the data.Results: The initial search produced a yield of 1270 articles after removal of duplicates. All abstracts were screened for relevance, and 30 articles were selected for further screening. Twenty six articles were deemed relevant, of which there were 23 cross-sectional studies, two editorials, and one description article on the multidimensional aspect of burnout and empathy. The studies were conducted in Europe, USA, North America, and Asia. In most studies, there was an inverse correlation between empathy and emotional exhaustion and depersonalization but a positive correlation with personal accomplishment. Conclusion: Although there seems to be a real relationship between empathy and burnout in physicians and nurses, the strength of the relationship differs to some extent depending on the samples and settings. Due to similarities between health professions, the relationship between empathy and burnout may also be relevant to the paramedic profession. Future paramedic

Examining the relationship between burnout and empathy in healthcare professionals: A systematic review.

Science.gov (United States)

Wilkinson, Helen; Whittington, Richard; Perry, Lorraine; Eames, Catrin

2017-09-01

Empathy and burnout are two related yet distinct constructs that are relevant to clinical healthcare staff. The nature of their relationship is uncertain and this review aimed to complete a rigorous, systematic exploration of the literature investigating the relationship between burnout and empathy in healthcare staff. A systematic review was conducted in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidance. Search terms (Burnout OR Burn-out OR "Burn out") AND (Empathy OR Empath*) enabled identification of studies investigating burnout and empathy in healthcare staff, using five electronic data bases (MEDLINE, PsycINFO, CINAHL Plus, PubMed, and SCOPUS). Manual searching amongst reference lists of eligible articles was also completed. Databases were searched for studies published in the English language, from inception to February 2017. Key inclusion criteria were: 1) participants who were nurses or medical professionals, 2) full written manuscript in English, 3) use of the Maslach Burnout Inventory to assess burnout and a standardized outcome measure for empathy, 4) quantitative methodology exclusively. Ten eligible studies were reviewed. Of those, seven were conducted in countries where English was not the first language. Eight of the studies provided empirical support for a negative relationship between empathy and burnout. One study provided support for a positive relationship between burnout and empathy. One study reported contradictory evidence with positive and negative correlations between different subscales of the empathy and burnout measures. In general, the quality of the studies was assessed to be good. However, some of the studies failed to provide information pertaining to sample size, with the reporting of data less than adequate from one study. There was consistent evidence for a negative association between burnout and empathy. This review avoided a common English-speaking country bias of some

Writing Pedagogies of Empathy: As Rhetoric and Disposition

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Leake, Eric

2016-01-01

Empathy is attracting increased attention within and beyond the academy. In this essay I review relevant theories of empathy and their place within rhetoric and composition. I propose two approaches to teaching empathy: as rhetoric and as disposition. A rhetorical approach incorporates a necessary critical awareness of empathy's enticements and…

Pemaknaan Maskulinitas pada Majalah Cosmopolitan Indonesia

OpenAIRE

Tanjung, Sumekar

2016-01-01

Nowadays, the position of men and women has no difference. Men and women are treated equally as a commodity. The phenomenon of hegemonic masculinity have been well understood, despite the fact that media especially magazine, is a medium for the contest between masculinity and femininity. This study focuses on how masculinity of man is represented in Cosmopolitan Indonesia Magazine (August, September, October and December 2011 editions).

The Relations of Ego-Resiliency and Emotion Socialization to the Development of Empathy and Prosocial Behavior Across Early Childhood

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Taylor, Zoe E.; Eisenberg, Nancy; Spinrad, Tracy L.; Eggum, Natalie D.; Sulik, Michael J.

2015-01-01

The present study explored early personality and environmental predictors of the development of young children’s empathy, as well as relations of empathy to prosocial behavior with peers at a later age. How children manage their own emotions and behaviors when under stress—their ego-resiliency—would be expected to affect their responses to others’ emotions. Also, socialization experiences, such as the quality of parenting behaviors, have been associated with individual differences in empathy-related responding. We examined whether mothers’ emotion socialization practices and children’s ego-resiliency at 18 months predicted initial levels and change in empathy across five time points (24, 30, 42, 48, and 54 months; N = 242), and whether empathy in turn predicted prosocial behavior with peers at 72/84 months of age. Ego-resiliency and mothers’ expressive encouragement both uniquely predicted the intercept of empathy. Boys’ empathy was lower than girls’ but improved more with age. Initial levels and growth of empathy positively predicted later prosocial behavior. Children’s ego-resiliency predicted the slope of empathy at near significance (p = .054). We also found that the intercept of empathy mediated the relation between ego-resiliency and prosocial behavior as well as the relation between mothers’ expressive encouragement and prosocial behavior. These findings suggest that both parenting and personality characteristics are relevant to the development of empathy during early childhood and might contribute to children’s later prosocial behavior with peers. PMID:24098930

Ombud's corner: Empathy

CERN Multimedia

Vincent Vuillemin

2012-01-01

In this series, the Bulletin aims to explain the role of the Ombuds at CERN by presenting practical examples of misunderstandings that could have been resolved by the Ombuds if he had been contacted earlier. Please note that, in all the situations we present, the names are fictitious and used only to improve clarity.   Many conflicts between people could be avoided or resolved if both parties could understand the situation as if they were in the other’s shoes. Putting oneself into another’s position, either consciously or unconsciously, is called empathy. Empathy should not be confused with sympathy, which involves condolence or pity for the other; empathy is a neutral process, leading to the inner knowledge of another person. Individuals differ in their level of empathic ability. This may be due to environmental factors – like their education or personal experiences – or it may be because they are not receptive to the feedback they obtain and so cannot...

Affective empathy in schizophrenia: a meta-analysis.

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Bonfils, Kelsey A; Lysaker, Paul H; Minor, Kyle S; Salyers, Michelle P

2016-08-01

Affective empathy, or the emotional response one has to the experiences or emotional states of others, contributes to relationship-maintaining behaviors and is key in fostering social connections, yet no work has synthesized the body of literature for people with schizophrenia. The aim of the present meta-analysis was to determine the extent to which those diagnosed with schizophrenia experience deficits in affective empathy. A literature search was conducted of studies examining empathy. Data were analyzed using a random effects meta-analytic model with Hedges' g standardized mean difference effect size. Individuals with schizophrenia exhibited significant, medium deficits in affective empathy (k=37). Measurement type moderated the affective empathy deficit such that performance-based measures showed larger schizophrenia group deficits than self-report measures. Consistent, significant deficits in affective empathy were found comparing people with schizophrenia to healthy controls, especially when using performance-based assessments. The medium effect suggests an important role for empathy in the realm of social cognitive research, and points to the need for further investigation of measurement techniques and associations with functional outcomes. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Empathy among students in engineering programmes

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Rasoal, Chato; Danielsson, Henrik; Jungert, Tomas

2012-10-01

Engineers face challenges when they are to manage project groups and be leaders for organisations because such positions demand skills in social competence and empathy. Previous studies have shown that engineers have low degrees of social competence skills. In this study, the level of empathy as measured by the four subscales of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index, perspective taking, fantasy, empathic distress and empathic concern, among engineering students was compared to students in health care profession programmes. Participants were undergraduate students at Linköping University, 365 students from four different health care profession programmes and 115 students from two different engineering programmes. When the empathy measures were corrected for effects of sex, engineering students from one of the programmes had lower empathy than psychology and social worker students on the fantasy and perspective-taking subscales. These results raise questions regarding opportunities for engineering students to develop their empathic abilities. It is important that engineering students acquire both theoretical and practical knowledge and skills regarding empathy.

What (if anything) is shared in pain empathy?

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Michael, John Andrew; Fardo, Francesca

2014-01-01

There is currently a great deal of debate in philosophy and cognitive neuroscience about how best to conceptualize empathy, with much of the controversy centering on the issue of how to articulate the common intuition that empathy involves the sharing of emotional experiences. In a recent paper...... in Philosophy of Science, De Vignemont and Jacob (2012) defend the view that empathy involves interpersonal similarity between an empathizer and a target person with respect to their internal affective states. To support this, they home in on a specific type of empathy, namely empathy for pain, and propose...... a theory of the neural substrate of pain empathy. We point out several flaws in their interpretation of the data, and argue that currently available data does not differentiate between De Vignemont and Jacob’s model of empathy and alternative models. Finally, we offer some suggestions about how this might...

From Liberal Democracy to the Cosmopolitan Canopy

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Jon Van Til

2015-03-01

Full Text Available Liberalism is that ideology, that worldview, which values, in an ever-evolving set of intelligently intermingled thoughts:  democracy, freedom (liberty, equality (justice, fraternity (solidarity, the pursuit of happiness, pluralism (diversity, and human rights--and explores the ever-open ever-possible futures of their rediscovery and advance. The study of ways in which social movements relate to Third sector/nonprofit or voluntary organizations can be structured, if we choose, as a liberal endeavor.  That is the message I receive from Antonin Wagner’s (2012 telling of the emergence of a field that focuses its study and developmental energies on place of intermediate associational life in modern society, from Adalbert Evers’ efforts to sustain the welfare state in an era of untrammeled capitalism (2013, and from Roger Lohmann’s (1992 comprehensive vision of a social commons capable of assuring the values of liberal society. This paper sets the theory of liberal democracy in a contemporary cosmopolitan context, drawing on case material from Hungary, Northern Ireland,  and the United States.

Fairness through regulation? Reflections on a cosmopolitan approach to global finance

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Marta Božina Beroš

2013-11-01

Full Text Available In the aftermath of the last financial crisis a strong message prevails that ‘something’ has to be changed in the manner global finance is governed. What exactly this ‘something’ entails and what could constitute the ‘common ground’ of anticipated change is more difficult to determine. Many envisage future improvements of global financial governance by evoking deliberative democracy, political equality and cosmopolitanism. As financial regulation is the main instrument through which global finance is shaped and governed nowadays, these principles should then be transmitted to regulatory arrangements. This paper focuses on a new conceptual approach to regulatory and governance issues in global finance, by employing the philosophical idea of cosmopolitanism. It argues that although as a concept, cosmopolitanism cannot mitigate all the flaws attributed to contemporary finance, its development and extension to international financial regulation that is promulgated by institutions of the global financial system, would represent a worthwhile endeavour in making global finance more accountable and just in the eyes of many.

Correcting the Eyesight: Cosmopolitanism in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart

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Asım AYDIN

2015-12-01

Full Text Available Correcting the Eyesight: Cosmopolitanism in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart Abstract  The evolutionary process of separatist efforts such as colonialism, imperialism, globalization, neo-colonialism or any nationalism are outdated because global resources are becoming scarce every day, so such terms as human solidarity, Cosmopolitanism, and co-existence will have to endure in order to make use of the resources in the most optimum way. Mankind will have to understand that global sameness has to prevail despite long years of hostility, violence and bloodshed. In line with such an understanding, cosmopolitanism, as a term refers to world citizenship and 'a tolerance for things and people who are different’ and 'morality which is not rooted locally, but globally.’ Chinua Achebe tries to change the African images created by the writers depending on Eurocentric and Afrocentric perspectives. He handles the same periphery from an unusual viewpoint that is because he utilizes a different approach in representing Africa and composes counter discourses in response to colonial, imperial and racial discourses presented in colonial contexts.

Cosmopolitanism and Our Descriptions of Ethics and Ontology: A Response to Dale Snauwaert's "The Ethics and Ontology of Cosmopolitanism"

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Hansen, David T.

2010-01-01

In recent years scholars across the humanities and social sciences have revitalized the ancient concept of cosmopolitanism. Dale Snauwaert illuminates why this is so in his thoughtful article on what it might mean to educate for a shared humanity. Snauwaert shows why many people find so-called "realism" an unsatisfactory political and moral…

Neuroticism Moderates the Relation between Parenting and Empathy and between Empathy and Prosocial Behavior

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Chaparro, Maria Paula; Grusec, Joan E.

2016-01-01

Links among neuroticism, inconsistent discipline, and empathy were assessed in a longitudinal study of adolescents. Mothers', but not fathers', inconsistent discipline predicted decreases in empathy 2 years later, but only for adolescents who were low in neuroticism. For those who were high, there was no effect of inconsistent discipline.…

Troubling qualitative research/Troubling empathy

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Sørensen, Mariann B.

This presentation aims to trouble the concept of empathy in qualitative inquiry from two perspectives having a phenomenological approach. As a supervisor I see students regard interviews as untouchable and be reluctant to bring in theory in their analysis because of empathy towards the interviewees...

Empathy from the client's perspective: A grounded theory analysis.

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MacFarlane, Peter; Anderson, Timothy; McClintock, Andrew S

2017-03-01

Although empathy is one of most robust predictors of client outcome, there is little consensus about how best to conceptualize this construct. The aim of the present research was to investigate clients' perceptions and in-session experiences of empathy. Semi-structured, video-assisted interpersonal process recall interviews were used to collect data from nine clients receiving individual psychotherapy at a university psychology clinic. Grounded theory analysis yielded a model consisting of three clusters: (1) relational context of empathy (i.e., personal relationship and professional relationship), (2) types of empathy (i.e., psychotherapists' cognitive empathy, psychotherapists' emotional empathy, and client attunement to psychotherapist), and (3) utility of empathy (i.e., process-related benefits and client-related benefits). These results suggest that empathy is a multi-dimensional, interactional process that affects-and is affected by-the broader relationship between client and psychotherapist.

Empathy toward strangers triggers oxytocin release and subsequent generosity.

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Barraza, Jorge A; Zak, Paul J

2009-06-01

Empathy is related to a variety of prosocial behaviors, but the brain mechanisms producing the experience of empathy have not been fully characterized. This study investigated whether the experience of empathy raises oxytocin levels and affects subsequent generosity toward strangers. Short video clips of an emotional scene and an unemotional scene were used as stimuli. Participants rated the emotions they experienced and then played a $40 ultimatum game to gauge their generosity. We found that empathy was associated with a 47% increase in oxytocin from baseline. We also found the empathy-oxytocin response was stronger in women than in men. Higher levels of empathy were also associated with more generous monetary offers toward strangers in the ultimatum game. Our findings provide the first evidence that oxytocin is a physiologic signature for empathy and that empathy mediates generosity.

Empathy in general practice-the gap between wishes and reality: comparing the views of patients and physicians.

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Derksen, F A W M; Olde Hartman, Tim; Bensing, Jozien; Lagro-Janssen, Antoine

2018-03-27

Empathy is regarded by patients and general practitioners (GPs) as fundamental in patient-GP communication. Patients do not always experience empathy and GPs encounter circumstances which hamper applying it. To explore why receiving and offering empathy during the encounter in general practice does not always meet the wishes of both patients and GPs. A qualitative research method, based on focus group interviews with patients and in-depth interviews with GPs, was carried out. Within the research process, iterative data collection and analysis were applied. Both patients and GPs perceive a gap between what they wish for with regard to empathy, and what they actually encounter in general practice. Patients report on circumstances which hamper receiving empathy and GPs on circumstances offering it. Various obstacles were mentioned: (i) circumstances related to practice organization, (ii) circumstances related to patient-GP communication or connectedness, (iii) differences between the patient's and the GP's expectations, (iv) time pressure and its causes and (v) the GP's individual capability to offer empathy. When patients do not receive empathy from their GP or practice staff, they feel frustrated. This causes a gap between their expectations on the one hand and their actual experiences on the other. GPs generally want to incorporate empathy; the GP's private, professional and psychological well-being appears to be an important contributing factor in practicing empathy in daily practice. But they encounter various obstacles to offer this. It is up to GPs to take responsibility for showing practice members the importance of an appropriate empathical behaviour towards patients.

Self-Esteem’s Relations to Empathy and Parenting

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Violeta Pavlova Cone

2016-10-01

Full Text Available The article is looking into theoretical and research relations between self-esteem, empathy and parenting. The empirical study was carried out among 199 undergraduate US students and measured empathy (Empathy Quotient and Interpersonal Reactivity Index, self-esteem (Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale and perceived parenting (Parental Bonding Instrument. The results showed no direct relation between empathy and self-esteem, as measured by the instruments in this sample. The care dimension of the perceived parenting style of both parents predicted self-esteem levels. Future research is recommended to confirm findings and identify possible mediator between empathy and self-esteem.

A Social Work Model of Empathy

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Karen E. Gerdes

2009-12-01

Full Text Available This article presents a social work model of empathy that reflects the latest interdisciplinary research findings on empathy. The model reflects the social work commitment to social justice. The three model components are: 1 the affective response to another’s emotions and actions; 2 the cognitive processing of one’s affective response and the other person’s perspective; and 3 the conscious decision-making to take empathic action. Mirrored affective responses are involuntary, while cognitive processing and conscious decision-making are voluntary. The affective component requires healthy, neural pathways to function appropriately and accurately. The cognitive aspects of perspective-taking, self-awareness, and emotion regulation can be practiced and cultivated, particularly through the use of mindfulness techniques. Empathic action requires that we move beyond affective responses and cognitive processing toward utilizing social work values and knowledge to inform our actions. By introducing the proposed model of empathy, we hope it will serve as a catalyst for discussion and future research and development of the model. Key Words: Empathy, Social Empathy, Social Cognitive Neuroscience

Pain empathy in schizophrenia: an fMRI study

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Horan, William P.; Jimenez, Amy M.; Lee, Junghee; Wynn, Jonathan K.; Eisenberger, Naomi I.; Green, Michael F.

2016-01-01

Although it has been proposed that schizophrenia is characterized by impaired empathy, several recent studies found intact neural responses on tasks measuring the affective subdomain of empathy. This study further examined affective empathy in 21 schizophrenia outpatients and 21 healthy controls using a validated pain empathy paradigm with two components: (i) observing videos of people described as medical patients who were receiving a painful sound stimulation treatment; (ii) listening to th...

Empathy in Medical Students Is Moderated by Openness to Spirituality.

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Damiano, Rodolfo F; DiLalla, Lisabeth F; Lucchetti, Giancarlo; Dorsey, J Kevin

2017-01-01

Empathy is one component of medical student education that may be important to nurture, but there are many potential psychological barriers to empathy, such as student depression, burnout, and low quality of life or wellness behaviors. However, few studies have addressed how positive behaviors such as wellness and spirituality, in combination with these barriers, might affect empathy. We hypothesized a negative relationship between psychological distress and empathy, and a positive relationship between empathy and wellness behaviors. We also hypothesized that openness to others' spirituality would moderate the effects of psychological distress on empathy in medical students. This cross-sectional study included 106 medical students in a public medical school in the U.S. Midwest. Mailed questionnaires collected student information on specialty choice and sociodemographics, empathy, spirituality openness, religiosity, wellness, burnout, depression, anxiety, and stress. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis was conducted, with empathy as the dependent variable, psychological distress and all wellness behaviors as predictors, and spirituality openness as a moderator. Specialty choice, burnout, wellness behaviors, spirituality openness, and religiosity were significant independent predictors of empathy. In addition, when added singly, one interaction was significant: Spirituality Openness × Depression. Spirituality openness was related to empathy only in nondepressed students. Empathy of students with higher levels of depression was generally lower and not affected by spirituality openness. Nondepressed students who reported lower openness to spirituality might benefit most from empathy training, because these students reported the lowest empathy. Highly depressed or disengaged students may require interventions before empathy can be addressed. In addition, burnout was related to lower levels of empathy and wellness was related to higher levels. These provide

Violent computer games, empathy, and cosmopolitanism

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Coeckelbergh, Mark

2007-01-01

Many philosophical and public discussions of the ethical aspects of violent computer games typically centre on the relation between playing violent videogames and its supposed direct consequences on violent behaviour. But such an approach rests on a controversial empirical claim, is often one-sided

Development of Empathy in Helpers.

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Fretz, Bruce R.

A trait measure of empathy, a skill measure of empathy and an attitude scale on psychological effectiveness were administered to both counselor trainees and "natural helpers", i.e. persons in helping relationships who have not been formally trained as mental health professionals or paraprofessionals. The results indicated that the measures of…

The Rising of the Cosmopolitan Personalities

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Davide Crimi

2014-07-01

The changes in communication system (Internet, on the immaterial side, the mobility system on the physical side are creating new opportunities to create network both on the immaterial and on the physical side. Conference driven by intellectual affinities and wishes to know better each others culture seems to generate the conditions of a new kind of people, creating cosmopolitan attitude as something that can be shared by an increasing number of people.

Elevational patterns of genetic variation in the cosmopolitan moss Bryum argenteum (Bryaceae).

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Pisa, Sergio; Werner, Olaf; Vanderpoorten, Alain; Magdy, Mahmoud; Ros, Rosa M

2013-10-01

The Baas Becking tenet posits that 'everything is everywhere, but the environment selects' to explain cosmopolitan distributions in highly vagile taxa. Bryophyte species show wider distributions than vascular plants and include examples of truly cosmopolitan ranges, which have been interpreted as a result of high dispersal capacities and ecological plasticity. In the current study, we documented patterns of genetic structure and diversity in the cosmopolitan moss Bryum argenteum along an elevational gradient to determine if genetic diversity and structure is homogenized by intense migrations in the lack of ecological differentiation. • 60 specimens were collected in the Sierra Nevada Mountains (Spain) between 100 and 2870 m and sequenced for ITS and rps4. Comparative analyses, genetic diversity estimators, and Mantel's tests were employed to determine the relationship between genetic variation, elevation, and geographic distance and to look for signs of demographic shifts. • Genetic diversity peaked above 1900 m and no signs of demographic shifts were detected at any elevation. There was a strong phylogenetic component in elevational variation. Genetic variation was significantly correlated with elevation, but not with geographic distance. • The results point to the long-term persistence of Bryum argenteum in a range that was glaciated during the Late Pleistocene. Evidence for an environmentally driven pattern of genetic differentiation suggests adaptive divergence. This supports the Baas Becking tenet and indicates that ecological specialization might play a key role in explaining patterns of genetic structure in cosmopolitan mosses.

Individual differences in empathy are associated with apathy-motivation.

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Lockwood, Patricia L; Ang, Yuen-Siang; Husain, Masud; Crockett, Molly J

2017-12-11

Empathy - the capacity to understand and resonate with the experiences of other people - is considered an essential aspect of social cognition. However, although empathy is often thought to be automatic, recent theories have argued that there is a key role for motivation in modulating empathic experiences. Here we administered self-report measures of empathy and apathy-motivation to a large sample of healthy people (n = 378) to test whether people who are more empathic are also more motivated. We then sought to replicate our findings in an independent sample (n = 198) that also completed a behavioural task to measure state affective empathy and emotion recognition. Cognitive empathy was associated with higher levels of motivation generally across behavioural, social and emotional domains. In contrast, affective empathy was associated with lower levels of behavioural motivation, but higher levels of emotional motivation. Factor analyses showed that empathy and apathy are distinct constructs, but that affective empathy and emotional motivation are underpinned by the same latent factor. These results have potentially important clinical applications for disorders associated with reduced empathy and motivation as well as the understanding of these processes in healthy people.

Self-Esteem’s Relations to Empathy and Parenting

OpenAIRE

Violeta Pavlova Cone

2016-01-01

The article is looking into theoretical and research relations between self-esteem, empathy and parenting. The empirical study was carried out among 199 undergraduate US students and measured empathy (Empathy Quotient and Interpersonal Reactivity Index), self-esteem (Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale) and perceived parenting (Parental Bonding Instrument). The results showed no direct relation between empathy and self-esteem, as measured by the instruments in this sample. The care dimension of the p...

Medical student empathy: interpersonal distinctions and correlates.

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Jordan, Kevin D; Foster, Penni Smith

2016-12-01

Attention to interpersonal behaviors, communication, and relational factors is taking on increasing importance in medical education. Medical student empathy is one aspect of the physician-patient relationship that is often involved in beneficial interactions leading to improved clinical outcomes and patient satisfaction. As an interpersonal quality, empathy is a social behavior well-suited to be examined from an interpersonal perspective. The present study used the interpersonal theory of clinical, personality, and social psychology to examine the construct of empathy and theorize about likely interpersonal correlates. One hundred and sixty-three students from an academic health center in the southeastern United States participated in this study. The medical student version of the Jefferson Scale of Empathy was used to assess empathy and its factors: Perspective taking, compassionate care, and walking in the patient's shoes. Interpersonal assessments included the International Personality Item Pool-Interpersonal Circumplex, the Interpersonal Support Evaluation List, and the UCLA Loneliness Scale. Distinct interpersonal styles and correlates emerged among empathy and its factors. While all factors of empathy were related to interpersonal warmth, perspective taking and compassionate care were also associated with submissiveness. Of note, only walking in the patient's shoes was correlated with both social support and less loneliness. These findings are discussed in light of interpersonal theory with particular attention paid to the implications for medical education and professional development.

The experiences of professional nurses who have migrated to Canada: cosmopolitan citizenship or democratic racism?

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Turrittin, Jane; Hagey, Rebecca; Guruge, Sepali; Collins, Enid; Mitchell, Mitzi

2002-08-01

This interpretive research analyses the discourse of nurses who migrated to Canada and experienced racism. They also experienced reprisals when they formally complained about racism in a context of denial of the problem of racism by colleagues and employers. The present work focuses on two issues arising from the data: the problem of how to make racism visible among those who have a vested interest in denying its existence and the emotional cool of those filing grievances or complaints in contrast with the hot reaction of those being challenged when racism is named. We introduce two theoretical perspectives to address these phenomena called democratic racism and cosmopolitan citizenship, respectively. The former, as defined by Henry et al. (The Colour of Democracy: Racism in Canadian Society. Harcourt Brace, Canada, Toronto, 1996), describes the coexistence of both democratic values and practices that discount people of colour advertently or inadvertently. We outline the notion of cosmopolitan citizenship that is argued by Turner (Politics of the Global City. Routledge, London, 2000) to be an orientation resulting from global microcosms in cities teeming with diversity. The characteristic orientations of cool and stewardship are useful for describing some of the discourse expressed by each participant in our study all of whom challenged racism practices, not on nationalistic grounds, but rather out of concern for universal human rights. Their characteristics qualify them for cosmopolitan citizenship under Turner's perspective. We suggest that anti-racist activists have been cosmopolitan citizens for decades and argue that while cosmopolitan citizenship may have taken root in neo-liberal movements, it appears to have tactical attributes in the struggle with democratic racism. In conclusion, we advocate for a cosmopolitan citizenship ethic to facilitate a rational move toward racial integration in the profession through the sharing of power and privilege. One goal in

"Pork Pies and Vindaloos": Learning for Cosmopolitan Citizenship

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Sharpe, Darren Miguel

2018-01-01

This paper examines Audrey Osler and Hugh Starkey's 2003 article on cosmopolitan citizenship 14 years after its publication. Since its publication, young people's disconnection from political life has increasingly become a cause for concern for most, if not all, Western democracies. Specifically, this article examines the implications for young…

Enhanced emotional empathy after psychosocial stress in young healthy men.

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Wolf, Oliver T; Schulte, Judith M; Drimalla, Hanna; Hamacher-Dang, Tanja C; Knoch, Daria; Dziobek, Isabel

2015-01-01

Empathy is a core prerequisite for human social behavior. Relatively, little is known about how empathy is influenced by social stress and its associated neuroendocrine alterations. The current study was designed to test the impact of acute stress on emotional and cognitive empathy. Healthy male participants were exposed to a psychosocial laboratory stressor (trier social stress test, (TSST)) or a well-matched control condition (Placebo-TSST). Afterwards they participated in an empathy test measuring emotional and cognitive empathy (multifaceted empathy test, (MET)). Stress exposure caused an increase in negative affect, a rise in salivary alpha amylase and a rise in cortisol. Participants exposed to stress reported more emotional empathy in response to pictures displaying both positive and negative emotional social scenes. Cognitive empathy (emotion recognition) in contrast did not differ between the stress and the control group. The current findings provide initial evidence for enhanced emotional empathy after acute psychosocial stress.

A psychometric appraisal of the Jefferson Scale of Empathy using law students

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Williams B

2016-07-01

Full Text Available Brett Williams,1 Adiva Sifris,2 Marty Lynch1 1Department of Community Emergency Health and Paramedic Practice, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, 2Faculty of Law, Monash University, Frankston, VIC, Australia Background: A growing body of literature indicates that empathic behaviors are positively linked, in several ways, with the professional performance and mental well-being of lawyers and law students. It is therefore important to assess empathy levels among law students using psychometrically sound tools that are suitable for this cohort.Participants and methods: The 20-item Jefferson Scale of Empathy – Health Profession Students Version was adapted for a law context (eg, the word “health care” became “legal”, and the new Jefferson Scale of Empathy – Law Students (JSE-L-S version was completed by 275 students at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. Data were subjected to principal component analysis.Results: Four factors emerged from the principal component analysis (“understanding the client’s perspective”, “responding to clients’ experiences and emotions”, “responding to clients’ cues and behaviors”, and “standing in clients’ shoes”, which accounted for 46.7% of the total variance. The reliability of the factors varied, but the overall 18-item JSE-L-S yielded a Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of 0.80. Several patterns among the item loadings were similar to those reported in studies using other versions of the Jefferson Scale of Empathy.Conclusion: The JSE-L-S appears to be a reliable measure of empathy among undergraduate law students, which could help provide insights into law student welfare and future performance as legal practitioners. Additional evaluation of the JSE-L-S is required to disambiguate some of the minor findings explored. Adjustments may improve the psychometric properties. Keywords: empathy, law, student, Jefferson, sympathy

Biogeographical note on Antarctic microflorae: Endemism and cosmopolitanism

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Waqar Azeem Jadoon

2013-11-01

Full Text Available This study deals with the biogeography of Antarctic microflora (Antarctica acts as best model to study microbial biogeography such as cyanobacteria and selected halophiles with special emphasis on Halomonas variabilis and Bacillus licheniformis. Halophiles are known to be resistant not only to salt stress, but also to extreme temperature, pressure, and aridity and they are capable of surviving in harsh environments such as polar regions, deep-sea habitats, and deserts. Many microbes are known to be resistant to hostile environmental conditions, and are capable of surviving in harsh environments. Our group has isolated 444 strains belonging to 28 genera of halophiles from various environments around the world. The 16S rRNA gene sequences revealed that many of the isolated strains from geographically distant habitats having different environmental conditions, were closely related to each other, with some strains possessing 100% identical sequences. Organisms possessing survival mechanism such as spore formation are usually ubiquitous. The genus Halomonas is represented by potentially endemic strains and the ubiquitous H. variabilis, while spore-forming B. licheniformis showed cosmopolitan distribution. One potentially endemic (moderate endemicity that is regional and/or continental distribution strain was reported from Syowa station, East Antarctica, and Mario Zucchelli station, West Antarctica, which are geographically separated by 3000 km. Moreover, 15 strains having 100% similarity with B. licheniformis were considered cosmopolitans. The results of this work provide support for the middle-ground model that some microbes have moderate endemicity and others have cosmopolitan distribution. These results will contribute to a greater understanding of microbial biogeography with special emphasis on Antarctica.

Predisposition for Empathy, Intercultural Sensitivity, and Intentions for Using Motivational Interviewing in First Year Pharmacy Students.

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Ekong, Gladys; Kavookjian, Jan; Hutchison, Amber

2017-10-01

Objective. To assess first-year pharmacy (P1) students' predispositions (eg, perceptions for empathy, intercultural sensitivity, and motivational interviewing (MI) as a patient-centered communication skillset) and identify potential curricula content/communication skills training needs. Methods. A cross-sectional survey was used to collect students' self-reported perceptions for empathy, intercultural sensitivity, counseling contexts, and projected future MI use. Relationships between variables were explored and logistic regression was used to evaluate intention for using MI in future patient encounters. Results. There were 134 students who participated. Higher predisposition for empathy and for intercultural sensitivity were significantly correlated. Significant predictors for applying MI in future patient encounters were sex, confidence with counseling skills, and current use of MI. Conclusion. Results suggest the need to incorporate innovative training strategies in communication skills curricula. Potential areas include empathy, intercultural sensitivity and significant predictor variables for future MI use. Further investigation in other schools is needed.

Self perception of empathy in schizophrenia: emotion recognition, insight, and symptoms predict degree of self and interviewer agreement.

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Lysaker, Paul H; Hasson-Ohayon, Ilanit; Kravetz, Shlomo; Kent, Jerillyn S; Roe, David

2013-04-30

Many with schizophrenia have been found to experience difficulties recognizing a range of their own mental states including memories and emotions. While there is some evidence that the self perception of empathy in schizophrenia is often at odds with objective observations, little is known about the correlates of rates of concordance between self and rater assessments of empathy for this group. To explore this issue we gathered self and rater assessments of empathy in addition to assessments of emotion recognition using the Bell Lysaker Emotion Recognition Task, insight using the Scale to Assess Unawareness of Mental Disorder, and symptoms using the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale from 91 adults diagnosed with schizophrenia spectrum disorders. Results revealed that participants with better emotion recognition, better insight, fewer positive symptoms and fewer depressive symptoms produced self ratings of empathy which were more strongly correlated with assessments of empathy performed by raters than participants with greater deficits in these domains. Results suggest that deficits in emotion recognition along with poor insight and higher levels of positive and depressive symptoms may affect the degree of agreement between self and rater assessments of empathy in schizophrenia. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd.

Empathy: Gender effects in brain and behavior

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Christov-Moore, Leonardo; Simpson, Elizabeth A.; Coudé, Gino; Grigaityte, Kristina; Iacoboni, Marco; Ferrari, Pier Francesco

2016-01-01

Evidence suggests that there are differences in the capacity for empathy between males and females. However, how deep do these differences go? Stereotypically, females are portrayed as more nurturing and empathetic, while males are portrayed as less emotional and more cognitive. Some authors suggest that observed gender differences might be largely due to cultural expectations about gender roles. However, empathy has both evolutionary and developmental precursors, and can be studied using implicit measures, aspects that can help elucidate the respective roles of culture and biology. This article reviews evidence from ethology, social psychology, economics, and neuroscience to show that there are fundamental differences in implicit measures of empathy, with parallels in development and evolution. Studies in nonhuman animals and younger human populations (infants/children) offer converging evidence that sex differences in empathy have phylogenetic and ontogenetic roots in biology and are not merely cultural byproducts driven by socialization. We review how these differences may have arisen in response to males’ and females’ different roles throughout evolution. Examinations of the neurobiological underpinnings of empathy reveal important quantitative gender differences in the basic networks involved in affective and cognitive forms of empathy, as well as a qualitative divergence between the sexes in how emotional information is integrated to support decision making processes. Finally, the study of gender differences in empathy can be improved by designing studies with greater statistical power and considering variables implicit in gender (e.g., sexual preference, prenatal hormone exposure). These improvements may also help uncover the nature of neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders in which one sex is more vulnerable to compromised social competence associated with impaired empathy. PMID:25236781

Victim empathy, social self-esteem, and psychopathy in rapists.

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Fernandez, Yolanda M; Marshall, W L

2003-01-01

The purpose of the present study was to compare the responses of 27 incarcerated rapists and 27 incarcerated nonsexual offenders using the Rapist Empathy Measure (targeting victim specific empathy deficits) and to examine the relationship between empathy with self-esteem and psychopathy for both groups. The Social Self-Esteem Inventory was used as a measure of perceived social competence and the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R; Hare, 1991) was used as a measure of psychopathy. All participants completed the two self-report questionnaires on empathy and self-esteem; in addition, the rapists were required to complete an extra section of the empathy measure that assessed their empathic responses to their own victims. Demographic information and psychopathy scores were obtained by reviewing institutional files. When psychopathy scores were not available, subjects participated in a semi-structured interview and were scored on the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised by the researcher. Rapists demonstrated more empathy than the nonsexual offenders toward women in general and the same degree of empathy as the nonsexual offenders toward a woman who had been a victim of a sexual assault by another male. Of particular importance were the within-group comparisons across victim type for the rapists which revealed significant empathy deficits toward their own victim(s). Interestingly, no differences were found between the rapists and nonsexual offenders in terms of self-esteem and psychopathy, and neither self-esteem nor psychopathy significantly predicted empathy for either group. It was concluded from the present study that rapists may suppress empathy primarily toward their own victim rather than suffer from a generalized empathy deficit. It is suggested that empathy deficits in rapists might better be construed as cognitive distortions specific to their victims and should be addressed in that manner in treatment.

Lack of empathy in patients with narcissistic personality disorder.

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Ritter, Kathrin; Dziobek, Isabel; Preissler, Sandra; Rüter, Anke; Vater, Aline; Fydrich, Thomas; Lammers, Claas-Hinrich; Heekeren, Hauke R; Roepke, Stefan

2011-05-15

The study's objective was to empirically assess cognitive and emotional empathy in patients with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). To date, "lack of empathy" is a core feature of NPD solely based on clinical observation. The study's method was that forty-seven patients with NPD, 53 healthy controls, and 27 clinical controls with borderline personality disorder (BPD) were included in the study. Emotional and cognitive empathy were assessed with traditional questionnaire measures, the newly developed Multifaceted Empathy Test (MET), and the Movie for the Assessment of Social Cognition (MASC). The study's results were that individuals with NPD displayed significant impairments in emotional empathy on the MET. Furthermore, relative to BPD patients and healthy controls, NPD patients did not show deficits in cognitive empathy on the MET or MASC. Crucially, this empathic profile of NPD is not captured by the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV for Axis II Disorders (SCID-II). The study's conclusions were that while NPD involves deficits in emotional empathy, cognitive empathy seems grossly unaffected. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Empathy in the field: Towards a taxonomy of empathic communication in information gathering interviews with suspected sex offenders

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Coral June Dando

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Research suggests that those suspected of sexual offending might be more willing to reveal information about their crimes if interviewers display empathic behaviour. However, the literature concerning investigative empathy is in its infancy, and so as yet is not well understood. This study explores empathy in a sample of real-life interviews conducted by police officers in England with suspected sex offenders. Using qualitative methodology, the presence and type of empathic verbal behaviours displayed was examined. Resulting categories were quantitatively analysed to investigate their occurrence overall, and across interviewer gender. We identified four distinct types of empathy, some of which were used significantly more often

Empathy in early childhood: genetic, environmental, and affective contributions.

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Knafo, Ariel; Zahn-Waxler, Carolyn; Davidov, Maayan; Van Hulle, Carol; Robinson, JoAnn L; Rhee, Soo Hyun

2009-06-01

We investigated the genetic and environmental origins of children's empathy toward a distress victim and its correlates with emotional symptoms and affective knowledge. The cognitive (hypothesis testing) and affective (empathic concern) empathy of 122 twin pairs in response to simulated pain by an adult examiner was observed at 3.5 years of age. Moderate (0.19 to 0.44) heritabilities were estimated for individual differences in empathy, and the nonshared environment and error accounted for the rest of the variance. Hypothesis testing and empathic concern were moderately correlated, mainly through overlapping genetic effects. Although children's affective knowledge did not correlate with their empathy, affective knowledge interacted with mother-rated emotional symptoms in predicting empathy; knowledge about emotions was associated with greater empathy in children low in emotional symptoms. In contrast, among children with high degrees of emotional symptoms, those with better affective knowledge tended to show lower empathy.

Determinants of physician empathy during medical education: hypothetical conclusions from an exploratory qualitative survey of practicing physicians

Science.gov (United States)

2014-01-01

Background Empathy is an outcome-relevant physician characteristic and thus a crucial component of high-quality communication in health care. However, the factors that promote and inhibit the development of empathy during medical education have not been extensively researched. Also, currently there is no explicit research on the perspective of practicing physicians on the subject. Therefore the aim of our study was to explore physicians’ views of the positive and negative influences on the development of empathy during their medical education, as well as in their everyday work as physicians. Method We administered a written Qualitative Short Survey to 63 physicians in seven specialties. They were able to respond anonymously. Our open-ended question was: “What educational content in the course of your studies and/or your specialist training had a positive or negative effect on your empathy?” We analyzed the data using thematic content analysis following Mayring’s approach. Results Forty-two physicians took part in our survey. All together, they mentioned 68 specific factors (37 positive, 29 negative, 2 neutral) from which six themes emerged: 1. In general, medical education does not promote the development of empathy. 2. Recognizing the psycho-social dimensions of care fosters empathy. 3. Interactions with patients in medical practice promote empathy. 4. Physicians’ active self-development through reflective practice helps the development of empathy. 5. Interactions with colleagues can both promote and inhibit empathy through their role modeling of empathic and non-empathic behavior. 6. Stress, time pressure, and adverse working conditions are detrimental to empathy development. Conclusions Our results provide an overview of what might influence the development of clinical empathy, as well as hypothetical conclusions about how to promote it. Reflective practice seems to be lacking in current medical curricula and could be incorporated. Raising physicians�

Authenticity and Empathy in Education

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Bialystok, Lauren; Kukar, Polina

2018-01-01

The educational enthusiasm for both authenticity and empathy makes a number of assumptions about universal virtues, self-hood, the role of emotion in education, and the role of the teacher. In this article, we argue that authenticity and empathy are both nebulous virtues that teachers and students are called to embody with little reflection on how…

Distance learning: empathy and culture in Junot Diaz's "Wildwood".

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Garden, Rebecca

2013-12-01

This essay discusses critical approaches to culture, difference, and empathy in health care education through a reading of Junot Diaz's "Wildwood" chapter from the 2007 novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. I begin with an analysis of the way that Diaz's narrative invites readers to imagine and explore the experiences of others with subtlety and complexity. My reading of "Wildwood" illuminates its double-edged injunction to try to imagine another's perspective while recognizing the limits to-or even the impossibility of-that exercise. I draw on post-colonial theory and feminist science studies to illuminate a text that is created and interpreted in a post-colonial context-the Dominican diaspora in the United States. The essay offers a model of historical and critical analysis that health care educators can use to frame the concept of empathy in the classroom and the clinic.

Empathy in narcissistic personality disorder: from clinical and empirical perspectives.

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Baskin-Sommers, Arielle; Krusemark, Elizabeth; Ronningstam, Elsa

2014-07-01

Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) is associated with an assortment of characteristics that undermine interpersonal functioning. A lack of empathy is often cited as the primary distinguishing feature of NPD. However, clinical presentations of NPD suggest that empathy is not simply deficient in these individuals, but dysfunctional and subject to a diverse set of motivational and situational factors. Consistent with this presentation, research illustrates that empathy is multidimensional, involving 2 distinct emotional and cognitive processes associated with a capacity to respectively understand and respond to others' mental and affective states. The goal of this practice review is to bridge the gap between our psychobiological understanding of empathy and its clinical manifestations in NPD. We present 3 case studies highlighting the variability in empathic functioning in people with NPD. Additionally, we summarize the literature on empathy and NPD, which largely associates this disorder with deficient emotional empathy, and dysfunctional rather than deficient cognitive empathy. Because this research is limited, we also present empathy-based findings for related syndromes (borderline and psychopathy). Given the complexity of narcissism and empathy, we propose that multiple relationships can exist between these constructs. Ultimately, by recognizing the multifaceted relationship between empathy and narcissism, and moving away from an all or nothing belief that those with NPD simply lack empathy, therapists may better understand narcissistic patients' behavior and motivational structure. (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved.

Transformative learning: empathy and multicultural awareness in podiatric medical education.

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Elliott, Craig M; Toomey, Robert J; Goodman, Brooke A; Barbosa, Peter

2012-01-01

Short-term medical missions are common in medical educational settings and could possibly affect student learning. Little research has been conducted about the potential of these missions on students' transformative learning, in particular as it relates to empathy and multicultural awareness. Eight podiatric medical students who participated in short-term medical missions in 2008 and 2009 completed an electronic survey to investigate the effect of their experience as it relates to their learning. The empathy and multicultural awareness impact of the mission experience was emphasized. Qualitative questions in the survey were coded, themed, and triangulated with the quantitative responses. Six students (75%) "strongly agreed" that participating in the medical mission was a significant positive experience in their podiatric medical training. Six students felt that their experiences in serving these communities increased their personal awareness of multicultural/diversity needs in general. All of the students agreed that they will become better podiatric physicians because of their experiences in the medical missions. The qualitative data also indicate that the experience had an effect on the students' views of health care and increased empathy toward their patients. Short-term medical missions could play a significant role in the transformative learning experience in podiatric medical education. This could affect the empathy and multicultural awareness of podiatric medical students. Further and more extensive evaluations of the potential impact of short-term medical missions in podiatric medical education should be explored because it could influence curriculum and global health in the field of podiatric medicine.

Empathy: An Integral Model in the Counseling Process

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Clark, Arthur J.

2010-01-01

Expanding on a framework introduced by Carl Rogers, an integral model of empathy in counseling uses empathic understanding through 3 ways of knowing: Subjective empathy enables a counselor to momentarily experience what it is like to be a client, interpersonal empathy relates to understanding a client's phenomenological experiencing, and objective…

Assessing Empathy Development in Medical Education: A Systematic Review

Science.gov (United States)

Sulzer, Sandra H.; Feinstein, Noah Weeth; Wendland, Claire

2016-01-01

Introduction Empathy in doctor-patient relationships is a familiar topic for medical scholars, and a crucial goal for medical educators. Nonetheless, there are persistent disagreements in the research literature concerning how best to evaluate empathy among physicians, and whether empathy declines or increases across medical education. Some researchers have argued that the instruments used to study “empathy” may not be measuring anything meaningful to clinical practice or to patient satisfaction. Methods We performed a systematic review to learn how empathy is conceptualized in medical education research. How do researchers define the central construct of empathy, and what do they choose to measure? How well do definitions and operationalizations match? Results Among the 109 studies that met our search criteria, 20% failed to define the central construct of empathy at all, and only 13% had an operationalization that was well-matched to the definition provided. The majority of studies were characterized by internal inconsistencies and vagueness in both the conceptualization and operationalization of empathy, constraining the validity and usefulness of the research. The methods most commonly used to measure empathy relied heavily on self-report and cognition divorced from action, and may therefore have limited power to predict the presence or absence of empathy in clinical settings. Finally, the large majority of studies treated empathy itself as a black box, using global construct measurements that are unable to shed light on the underlying processes that produce empathic response. Discussion We suggest that future research should follow the lead of basic scientific research that conceptualizes empathy as relational—an engagement between a subject and an object—rather than a personal quality that may be modified wholesale through appropriate training. PMID:26896015

Cosmopolitan sociology and the classical canon: Ferdinand Tönnies and the emergence of global Gesellschaft.

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Inglis, David

2009-12-01

How relevant are figures from the classical sociological canon for present day efforts to found cosmopolitan forms of sociological thought? According to the critique of Ulrich Beck, the classical sociologists remain far too wedded to nation-state-centred ways of thinking to play an important role in the development of cosmopolitan sociology. This paper argues that such a critique fails to account for the ways in which certain classical sociologists were attuned to the emerging cosmopolitical conditions of their own time, were not wholly wedded to nation-state-based conceptualizations, and thus can function as both groundings of, and inspirations for, cosmopolitan sociological endeavours. The apparently unpromising case of Tönnies is focused on, the paper showing how he outlined an account of how and why a planet-spanning condition of Gesellschaft developed a position which diverges from and counterpoints Marx's analysis of similar phenomena in important ways. The stereotype of Tönnies as an arch-conservative is also dissolved, allowing him to be considered as one of the most important antecedents of contemporary cosmopolitan sociological practice and a canonical figure still relevant for present-day purposes.

Adult Empathy: Possible Gender Differences in Gene-Environment Architecture for Cognitive and Emotional Components in a Large Italian Twin Sample.

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Toccaceli, Virgilia; Fagnani, Corrado; Eisenberg, Nancy; Alessandri, Guido; Vitale, Augusto; Stazi, Maria Antonietta

2018-04-15

Empathy plays a central role in prosocial behavior and human cooperation. Very few twin researchers have investigated innate and environmental effects in adult empathy, and twin research on gender differences in these effects is sparse. The goal of this study was to examine innate and environmental influences on three components of an empathy scale frequently used with adults - the expression of cognitive (CE), emotional (EE), and social skills (SS) empathy - and to explore gender differences in the influences. Study participants were ~1,700 twins (18-65 years) enrolled in the Italian Twin Registry. Empathy was assessed with the Italian version of the Empathy Quotient (EQ), for which the three-factor structure (i.e., CE, EE, and SS) was confirmed. Twin correlations in monozygotic and dizygotic pairs, and males and females were estimated for the total EQ and subscale scores, and univariate genetic model fitting was carried out. Women's empathy (i.e., total EQ as well as CE and EE subdimensions) was predominantly driven by genetic factors and individual experiences, whereas for males, no genetic contribution or important shared and individual environmental effects emerged. Although of large magnitude, the gender differences did not reach statistical significance. Age did not moderate empathy heritability in adulthood. Only for the SS subscale were genetic and environmental proportions of variance similar for men and women. This study suggests possible gender-specific innate and environmental influences on empathy and its cognitive and emotional components that need to be confirmed in future studies.

Making social robots more attractive: the effects of voice pitch, humor and empathy

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Niculescu, A.I.; Ge, S.S.; van Dijk, Elisabeth M.A.G.; Nijholt, Antinus; Li, Haizhou; See, Swan Lan

2013-01-01

In this paper we explore how simple auditory/verbal features of the spoken language, such as voice characteristics (pitch) and language cues (empathy/humor expression) influence the quality of interaction with a social robot receptionist. For our experiment two robot characters were created: Olivia,

Levels of empathy and professional ethics in candidates to Medical Graduate School

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José Luis Jiménez-López

2017-07-01

Full Text Available The current perception of a dehumanized medical attention and its low quality has questioned the empathic capacity and ethics of the health professionals. The research in this field reports variations in this attributes along the doctors’ education. Objective: to explore the global levels of empathy and professional ethics, as well as the levels of each component of both attributes in a sample of applicants to a medical graduate program. Methodology: 65 residents that applied for graduation studies in a very specialized medical unit were included. As part of the application process, they answered the Cognitive and Affective Empathy Test and the Professional Ethical Attitudes Scale. Results: The average scores of the sample got Average in empathy and Optimal in professional ethics. The comparison by gender, specialty and competences showed less affective and better ethical competence in women, more cognitive empathy in surgical specialties, and in general an absence of correlation between the two variables and specifically by competence. Conclusions: The importance of measuring the specific competences of each attribute is highlighted given that the variation in specific competences impact in different aspects the doctor’s education, as the specialty choice, the student selection, the development of academic programs and the adequate learning about the construction of an effective relation doctor-patient. © Revista Colombiana de Ciencias Sociales

Empathy and motivation for justice: Cognitive empathy and concern, but not emotional empathy, predict sensitivity to injustice for others.

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Decety, Jean; Yoder, Keith J

2016-01-01

Why do people tend to care for upholding principles of justice? This study examined the association between individual differences in the affective, motivational and cognitive components of empathy, sensitivity to justice, and psychopathy in participants (N 265) who were also asked to rate the permissibility of everyday moral situations that pit personal benefit against moral standards of justice. Counter to common sense, emotional empathy was not associated with sensitivity to injustice for others. Rather, individual differences in cognitive empathy and empathic concern predicted sensitivity to justice for others, as well as the endorsement of moral rules. Psychopathy coldheartedness scores were inversely associated with motivation for justice. Moreover, hierarchical multiple linear regression analysis revealed that self-focused and other-focused orientations toward justice had opposing influences on the permissibility of moral judgments. High scores on psychopathy were associated with less moral condemnation of immoral behavior. Together, these results contribute to a better understanding of the information processing mechanisms underlying justice motivation, and may guide interventions designed to foster justice and moral behavior. In order to promote justice motivation, it may be more effective to encourage perspective taking and reasoning than emphasizing emotional sharing with the misfortune of others.

Empathy costs: Negative emotional bias in high empathisers.

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Chikovani, George; Babuadze, Lasha; Iashvili, Nino; Gvalia, Tamar; Surguladze, Simon

2015-09-30

Excessive empathy has been associated with compassion fatigue in health professionals and caregivers. We investigated an effect of empathy on emotion processing in 137 healthy individuals of both sexes. We tested a hypothesis that high empathy may underlie increased sensitivity to negative emotion recognition which may interact with gender. Facial emotion stimuli comprised happy, angry, fearful, and sad faces presented at different intensities (mild and prototypical) and different durations (500ms and 2000ms). The parameters of emotion processing were represented by discrimination accuracy, response bias and reaction time. We found that higher empathy was associated with better recognition of all emotions. We also demonstrated that higher empathy was associated with response bias towards sad and fearful faces. The reaction time analysis revealed that higher empathy in females was associated with faster (compared with males) recognition of mildly sad faces of brief duration. We conclude that although empathic abilities were providing for advantages in recognition of all facial emotional expressions, the bias towards emotional negativity may potentially carry a risk for empathic distress. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Neurophysiological Effects of Trait Empathy in Music Listening.

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Wallmark, Zachary; Deblieck, Choi; Iacoboni, Marco

2018-01-01

The social cognitive basis of music processing has long been noted, and recent research has shown that trait empathy is linked to musical preferences and listening style. Does empathy modulate neural responses to musical sounds? We designed two functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiments to address this question. In Experiment 1, subjects listened to brief isolated musical timbres while being scanned. In Experiment 2, subjects listened to excerpts of music in four conditions (familiar liked (FL)/disliked and unfamiliar liked (UL)/disliked). For both types of musical stimuli, emotional and cognitive forms of trait empathy modulated activity in sensorimotor and cognitive areas: in the first experiment, empathy was primarily correlated with activity in supplementary motor area (SMA), inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and insula; in Experiment 2, empathy was mainly correlated with activity in prefrontal, temporo-parietal and reward areas. Taken together, these findings reveal the interactions between bottom-up and top-down mechanisms of empathy in response to musical sounds, in line with recent findings from other cognitive domains.

Neurophysiological Effects of Trait Empathy in Music Listening

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zachary Wallmark

2018-04-01

Full Text Available The social cognitive basis of music processing has long been noted, and recent research has shown that trait empathy is linked to musical preferences and listening style. Does empathy modulate neural responses to musical sounds? We designed two functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI experiments to address this question. In Experiment 1, subjects listened to brief isolated musical timbres while being scanned. In Experiment 2, subjects listened to excerpts of music in four conditions (familiar liked (FL/disliked and unfamiliar liked (UL/disliked. For both types of musical stimuli, emotional and cognitive forms of trait empathy modulated activity in sensorimotor and cognitive areas: in the first experiment, empathy was primarily correlated with activity in supplementary motor area (SMA, inferior frontal gyrus (IFG and insula; in Experiment 2, empathy was mainly correlated with activity in prefrontal, temporo-parietal and reward areas. Taken together, these findings reveal the interactions between bottom-up and top-down mechanisms of empathy in response to musical sounds, in line with recent findings from other cognitive domains.

Psychosocial Resolution and Counsellor Trainee Empathy.

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Gold, Joshua M.

1992-01-01

Entry-level counseling students (n=74) were surveyed to investigate the relationship between resolution of Erikson's psychosocial stage of intimacy/isolation and counselor trainee empathy. Results revealed a significant positive relationship between measures of psychosocial stage resolution and counselor empathy and a significant main effect for…

Models, Mechanisms and Moderators Dissociating Empathy and Theory of Mind.

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Kanske, Philipp; Böckler, Anne; Singer, Tania

Most instances of social interaction provide a wealth of information about the states of other people, be it sensations, feelings, thoughts, or convictions. How we represent these states has been a major question in social neuroscience, leading to the identification of two routes to understanding others: an affective route for the direct sharing of others' emotions (empathy) that involves, among others, anterior insula and middle anterior cingulate cortex and a cognitive route for representing and reasoning about others' states (Theory of Mind) that entails, among others, ventral temporoparietal junction and anterior and posterior midline regions. Additionally, research has revealed a number of situational and personal factors that shape the functioning of empathy and Theory of Mind. Concerning situational modulators, it has been shown, for instance, that ingroup membership enhances empathic responding and that Theory of Mind performance seems to be susceptible to stress. Personal modulators include psychopathological conditions, for which alterations in empathy and mentalizing have consistently been demonstrated; people on the autism spectrum, for instance, are impaired specifically in mentalizing, while spontaneous empathic responding seems selectively reduced in psychopathy. Given the multifaceted evidence for separability of the two routes, current research endeavors aiming at fostering interpersonal cooperation explore the differential malleability of affective and cognitive understanding of others.

Exploring Emotional Intelligence among Master's-Level Counseling Trainees

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Gutierrez, Daniel; Mullen, Patrick R.; Fox, Jesse

2017-01-01

The authors explored the relationship between counseling trainees' emotional intelligence (EI), empathy, stress, distress, and demographics. Results indicated that higher levels of EI were associated with lower stress and distress, higher affective and cognitive empathy, and age. These findings suggest curricular integration of EI and potential…

Effect of Psilocybin on Empathy and Moral Decision-Making.

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Pokorny, Thomas; Preller, Katrin H; Kometer, Michael; Dziobek, Isabel; Vollenweider, Franz X

2017-09-01

Impaired empathic abilities lead to severe negative social consequences and influence the development and treatment of several psychiatric disorders. Furthermore, empathy has been shown to play a crucial role in moral and prosocial behavior. Although the serotonin system has been implicated in modulating empathy and moral behavior, the relative contribution of the various serotonin receptor subtypes is still unknown. We investigated the acute effect of psilocybin (0.215 mg/kg p.o.) in healthy human subjects on different facets of empathy and hypothetical moral decision-making using the multifaceted empathy test (n=32) and the moral dilemma task (n=24). Psilocybin significantly increased emotional, but not cognitive empathy compared with placebo, and the increase in implicit emotional empathy was significantly associated with psilocybin-induced changed meaning of percepts. In contrast, moral decision-making remained unaffected by psilocybin. These findings provide first evidence that psilocybin has distinct effects on social cognition by enhancing emotional empathy but not moral behavior. Furthermore, together with previous findings, psilocybin appears to promote emotional empathy presumably via activation of serotonin 2A/1A receptors, suggesting that targeting serotonin 2A/1A receptors has implications for potential treatment of dysfunctional social cognition. © The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of CINP.

Digital Life and Youth Well-being, Social Connectedness, Empathy, and Narcissism.

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James, Carrie; Davis, Katie; Charmaraman, Linda; Konrath, Sara; Slovak, Petr; Weinstein, Emily; Yarosh, Lana

2017-11-01

Youth well-being, social connectedness, and personality traits, such as empathy and narcissism, are at the crux of concerns often raised about the impacts of digital life. Understanding known impacts, and research gaps, in these areas is an important first step toward supporting media use that contributes positively to youth's happiness, life satisfaction, and prosocial attitudes and behaviors. By examining existing work addressing these issues across domains, we found that a complex interplay of individual factors, type of digital media engagement, and experiences in media contexts informs outcomes related to well-being, social connectedness, empathy, and narcissism. We argue that further research is needed to uncover how, where, when, and for whom digital media practices support positive well-being and social connectedness outcomes. Specifically, research needs to move beyond correlational studies to uncover causal connections between traits like narcissism and media use. Longitudinal studies are also needed to explore patterns of media use over time and related impacts. Further research is needed to explore how specific technologies can be designed to support positive well-being, social outcomes, and prosocial personality traits. Finally, research is needed regarding parenting, educational practices, and policies that support positive digital media use and related outcomes. Although existing research suggests that digital life has mixed potentials and effects for well-being, social connectedness, empathy, and narcissism, we provide recommendations for clinicians, policy makers, and educators in partnering with caregivers and youth to support media use that promotes positive outcomes in these areas. Copyright © 2017 by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

The Associations between Perceived Parenting Styles, Empathy, and Altruistic Choices in Economic Games: A Study of Chinese Children.

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Guo, Qingke; Feng, Linlin

2017-01-01

Parenting styles are critical for fostering children's empathy and prosociality. Yet these relations haven't been well established for Chinese children, and the underlying mechanisms were seldom explored. Drawing upon parental acceptance-rejection theory and empathy-altruism hypothesis, the objective of this study was to investigate the relationships between perceived parenting styles and altruistic behavior of children, and the intervening role of children's empathy and the moderating role of in-group and out-group conditions. What is novel about this study is that it contains both survey data and experimental data. Four hundred and ninety-four children ( M age = 8.92 years) completed four simple binary-choice dictator games which are widely used in the study of other-regarding preferences (concerns for the interests of others). These children also reported their perceived parenting styles. And children's empathy was reported by their mothers. Each child's altruism score, which was used in the subsequent analyses, was derived from the altruistic choices in these games. Mediation analyses indicated that, when age and gender were controlled for, maternal and paternal emotional warmth were positively associated with children's altruism via children's empathy, while maternal and paternal rejection were negatively associated with children's altruism via children's empathy. Multi-group analyses showed that the influences of perceived parenting styles on children's altruistic behavior via children's empathy were consistent for in-group and out-group conditions. These findings suggest that enhancing parental emotional warmth and reducing parental rejection may foster children's empathy, which in turn promote children's altruism. Limitations and future directions of this study were also discussed.

Attachment and prejudice: The mediating role of empathy.

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Boag, Elle M; Carnelley, Katherine B

2016-06-01

In two studies, we examined the novel hypothesis that empathy is a mechanism through which the relationship between attachment patterns and prejudice can be explained. Study 1 examined primed attachment security (vs. neutral prime), empathy, and prejudice towards immigrants. Study 2 examined primed attachment patterns (secure, avoidant, anxious), empathy subscales (perspective taking, empathic concern, personal distress), and prejudice towards Muslims. Across both studies, empathy mediated the relationship between primed attachment security and low prejudice levels. The findings suggest that enhancing felt security and empathic skills in individuals high in attachment-avoidance may lead to reduced prejudice. © 2015 The British Psychological Society.

Developing the Social Empathy Index: An Exploratory Factor Analysis

OpenAIRE

Elizabeth A. Segal; M. Alex Wagaman; Karen E. Gerdes

2012-01-01

Social empathy, the ability to understand people from different socioeconomic classes and racial/ethnic backgrounds, with insight into the context of institutionalized inequalities and disparities, can inspire positive societal change and promote social well-being. The value of teaching social empathy and creating interventions that promote social empathy is enhanced by the ability to measure and assess it. This article provides a validation of the Social Empathy Index, a tool that practition...

Level of empathy among medical students in Kuwait University, Kuwait.

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Hasan, S; Al-Sharqawi, N; Dashti, F; AbdulAziz, M; Abdullah, A; Shukkur, M; Bouhaimed, M; Thalib, L

2013-01-01

To evaluate the level of empathy among medical students in Kuwait University Medical School and its association with sociodemographic factors, stress levels and personality. A cross-sectional survey of 264 medical students was conducted in the Faculty of Medicine, Kuwait University. Empathy levels were measured using the Jefferson Scale, personality was assessed using the Zuckerman-Kuhlman Personality Scale and the Perceived Stress Scale was used to measure stress levels. Factors associated with empathy were evaluated using t test/ANOVA for categorical variables and correlation for continuous predictors. Mean empathy score was 104.6 ± 16.3. Empathy scores were significantly associated with gender, year of study, mother's level of education, household income, satisfactory relationship with the mother and stress levels. Male medical students in their clinical years also had significantly lower empathy levels. However, factors such as grade point average, desired specialty, marital status of parents, father's educational level and relationship with father were not significantly (p > 0.05) associated with levels of empathy. Stress scores were significantly and positively associated with empathy (r = 0.13; p = 0.041). Medical students in Kuwait University had low empathy level and this may be a cause for concern; as such we suggest a possible inclusion of emphasis on empathy in the curriculum. Copyright © 2013 S. Karger AG, Basel.

Is low therapist empathy toxic?

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Moyers, Theresa B; Miller, William R

2013-09-01

One of the largest determinants of client outcomes is the counselor who provides treatment. Therapists often vary widely in effectiveness, even when delivering standardized manual-guided treatment. In particular, the therapeutic skill of accurate empathy originally described by Carl Rogers has been found to account for a meaningful proportion of variance in therapeutic alliance and in addiction treatment outcomes. High-empathy counselors appear to have higher success rates regardless of theoretical orientation. Low-empathy and confrontational counseling, in contrast, has been associated with higher drop-out and relapse rates, weaker therapeutic alliance, and less client change. The authors propose emphasis on empathic listening skills as an evidence-based practice in the hiring and training of counselors to improve outcomes and prevent harm in addiction treatment. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved.

Negotiating the Process of Historical Empathy

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Endacott, Jason L.

2014-01-01

Historical empathy scholarship has evolved to the point where further progress necessitates empirical examinations from a variety of perspectives. Prior studies on historical empathy have largely focused on teachers' pedagogical approach and student outcomes. This qualitative study focuses on students as they engage in the process of historical…

Empathy and Emotional Intelligence among Eastern and Western Counsellor Trainees: A Preliminary Study

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Young Kaelber, Kara A.; Schwartz, Robert C.

2014-01-01

This study explored degree of empathy and emotional intelligence among Thai (n?=?48) and American (n?=?53) counsellor trainees to determine if differences in Eastern and Western cultural orientations (e.g., interdependent versus independent self-construals) affect foundational counselling skills. Results indicated that Western trainees showed…

Empathy Is a Protective Factor of Burnout in Physicians: New Neuro-Phenomenological Hypotheses Regarding Empathy and Sympathy in Care Relationship.

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Thirioux, Bérangère; Birault, François; Jaafari, Nematollah

2016-01-01

Burnout is a multidimensional work-related syndrome that is characterized by emotional exhaustion, depersonalization-or cynicism-and diminution of personal accomplishment. Burnout particularly affects physicians. In medicine as well as other professions, burnout occurrence depends on personal, developmental-psychodynamic, professional, and environmental factors. Recently, it has been proposed to specifically define burnout in physicians as "pathology of care relationship." That is, burnout would arise, among the above-mentioned factors, from the specificity of the care relationship as it develops between the physician and the patient. Accordingly, experimental studies and theoretical approaches have suggested that burnout and empathy, which is one of the most important skills in physicians, are closely linked. However, the nature of the relation between burnout and empathy remains not yet understood, as reflected in the variety of theoretical and contradictory hypotheses attempting to causally relate these two phenomena. Firstly, we here question the epistemological problem concerning the modality of the burnout-empathy link. Secondly, we hypothesize that considering the multidimensional features of both burnout and empathy, on one hand, and on the other hand, the distinction between empathy and sympathy enables to overcome these contradictions and, consequently, gives a better understanding of the relationship between burnout and empathy in physicians. Thirdly, we propose that clarifying the link between burnout, empathy and sympathy would enable developing specific training in medical students and continuous professional formation in senior physicians and would potentially contribute to the prevention of burnout in medical care.

Empathy is a protective factor of burnout in physicians: new neuro-phenomenological hypotheses regarding empathy and sympathy in care relationship

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Berangere eTHIRIOUX

2016-05-01

Full Text Available Burnout is a multidimensional work-related syndrome that is characterized by emotional exhaustion, depersonalization – or cynicism – and diminution of personal accomplishment. Burnout particularly affects physicians. In medicine as well as other professions, burnout occurrence depends on personal, developmental-psychodynamic, professional and environmental factors. Recently, it has been proposed to specifically define burnout in physicians as pathology of care relationship. That is, burnout would arise, among the above-mentioned factors, from the specificity of the care relationship as it develops between the physician and the patient. Accordingly, experimental studies and theoretical approaches have suggested that burnout and empathy, which is one of the most important skills in physicians, are closely linked. However, the nature of the relation between burnout and empathy remains not yet understood, as reflected in the variety of theoretical and contradictory hypotheses attempting to causally relate these two phenomena. Firstly, we here question the epistemological problem concerning the modality of the burnout-empathy link. Secondly, we hypothesize that considering the multidimensional features of both burnout and empathy, on one hand, and on the other hand, the distinction between empathy and sympathy enables to overcome these contradictions and, consequently, gives a better understanding of the relationship between burnout and empathy in physicians. Thirdly, we propose that clarifying the link between burnout, empathy and sympathy would enable developing specific training in medical students and continuous professional formation in senior physicians and would potentially contribute to the prevention of burnout in medical care.

Empathy Is a Protective Factor of Burnout in Physicians: New Neuro-Phenomenological Hypotheses Regarding Empathy and Sympathy in Care Relationship

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Thirioux, Bérangère; Birault, François; Jaafari, Nematollah

2016-01-01

Burnout is a multidimensional work-related syndrome that is characterized by emotional exhaustion, depersonalization—or cynicism—and diminution of personal accomplishment. Burnout particularly affects physicians. In medicine as well as other professions, burnout occurrence depends on personal, developmental-psychodynamic, professional, and environmental factors. Recently, it has been proposed to specifically define burnout in physicians as “pathology of care relationship.” That is, burnout would arise, among the above-mentioned factors, from the specificity of the care relationship as it develops between the physician and the patient. Accordingly, experimental studies and theoretical approaches have suggested that burnout and empathy, which is one of the most important skills in physicians, are closely linked. However, the nature of the relation between burnout and empathy remains not yet understood, as reflected in the variety of theoretical and contradictory hypotheses attempting to causally relate these two phenomena. Firstly, we here question the epistemological problem concerning the modality of the burnout-empathy link. Secondly, we hypothesize that considering the multidimensional features of both burnout and empathy, on one hand, and on the other hand, the distinction between empathy and sympathy enables to overcome these contradictions and, consequently, gives a better understanding of the relationship between burnout and empathy in physicians. Thirdly, we propose that clarifying the link between burnout, empathy and sympathy would enable developing specific training in medical students and continuous professional formation in senior physicians and would potentially contribute to the prevention of burnout in medical care. PMID:27303328

Athletes' Perception of Athletic Trainer Empathy: How Important Is It?

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David, Shannon; Larson, Mary

2018-01-01

Health care practitioners face increasing expectations to provide patient-centered care. Communication skills, specifically empathy, are critical in the provision of patient-centered care. Past work correlates empathy with improved patient satisfaction, compliance, and treatment outcomes. In particular, a predictive relationship exists between clients' ratings of their clinician's empathy and treatment outcomes. There is a dearth of studies examining empathy using qualitative methodology and factors of empathy in athletic training. To gain an understanding of athletes' perceptions of empathy in the patient-clinician relationship. Qualitative interviews were completed using grounded-theory techniques. A quiet office. A typical, purposeful sample of 15 college-age Division I student-athletes (8 female, 7 male; 19.3 ± 1.2 y) from a variety of sports (football, wrestling, volleyball, baseball, etc) participated. Researchers utilized an interview protocol designed to understand the factors of empathy related to athletic training. The interview protocol established a concept of empathy to help facilitate discussion of ideas. Data were transcribed, coded, and analyzed for themes and patterns using grounded-theory techniques. Trustworthiness of the data was ensured using an external auditor, member checks, and methods triangulation. Five themes described empathy: advocacy, communication, approachability, access, and competence. Advocacy was described as the athletic trainer (AT) representing the patient. Communication was the ability to listen reflectively; approachability emerged as the comfort and personal connection the patient felt with the AT. Access and technical competence were bridges required for the development of empathy. Providing patient-centered care facilitated by developing good patient-clinician relationships is critical in enabling the best treatment outcomes. ATs portray empathy through advocacy, communication, and approachability. Empathy

Empathy in Distance Learning Design Practice

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Matthews, Michael T.; Williams, Gregory S.; Yanchar, Stephen C.; McDonald, Jason K.

2017-01-01

The notion of designer empathy has become a cornerstone of design philosophy in fields such as product design, human-computer interaction, and service design. But the literature on instructional designer empathy and learner analysis suggests that distance learning designers are generally quite removed from the learners with whom they could be…

Selfish or selfless? The role of empathy in economics

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Kirman, Alan; Teschl, Miriam

2010-01-01

Empathy is a longstanding issue in economics, especially for welfare economics, but one which has faded from the scene in recent years. However, with the rise of neuroeconomics, there is now a renewed interest in this subject. Some economists have even gone so far as to suggest that neuroscientific experiments reveal heterogeneous empathy levels across individuals. If this were the case, this would be in line with economists' usual assumption of stable and given preferences and would greatly facilitate the study of prosocial behaviour with which empathy is often associated. After reviewing some neuroscientific psychological and neuroeconomic evidence on empathy, we will, however, criticize the notion of a given empathy distribution in the population by referring to recent experiments on a public goods game that suggest that, on the contrary, the degree of empathy that individuals exhibit is very much dependent on context and social interaction. PMID:20026468

Selfish or selfless? The role of empathy in economics.

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Kirman, Alan; Teschl, Miriam

2010-01-27

Empathy is a longstanding issue in economics, especially for welfare economics, but one which has faded from the scene in recent years. However, with the rise of neuroeconomics, there is now a renewed interest in this subject. Some economists have even gone so far as to suggest that neuroscientific experiments reveal heterogeneous empathy levels across individuals. If this were the case, this would be in line with economists' usual assumption of stable and given preferences and would greatly facilitate the study of prosocial behaviour with which empathy is often associated. After reviewing some neuroscientific psychological and neuroeconomic evidence on empathy, we will, however, criticize the notion of a given empathy distribution in the population by referring to recent experiments on a public goods game that suggest that, on the contrary, the degree of empathy that individuals exhibit is very much dependent on context and social interaction.

Empathy, awareness of others, and action: How feeling empathy for one-among-others motivates helping the others

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Oceja, L.V.; Heerdink, M.W.; Stocks, E.L.; Ambrona, T.; López-Pérez, B.; Salgado, S.

2014-01-01

Feeling empathy for a member of the group may result in either favoring this individual at the expense of the group or helping the entire group. We explain these intriguing findings by proposing that the combined influence of feeling empathy for one individual and awareness of others enhances

Bacteria dialog with Santa Rosalia: Are aggregations of cosmopolitan bacteria mainly explained by habitat filtering or by ecological interactions?

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Pascual-García, Alberto; Tamames, Javier; Bastolla, Ugo

2014-12-04

Since the landmark Santa Rosalia paper by Hutchinson, niche theory addresses the determinants of biodiversity in terms of both environmental and biological aspects. Disentangling the role of habitat filtering and interactions with other species is critical for understanding microbial ecology. Macroscopic biogeography explores hypothetical ecological interactions through the analysis of species associations. These methods have started to be incorporated into microbial ecology relatively recently, due to the inherent experimental difficulties and the coarse grained nature of the data. Here we investigate the influence of environmental preferences and ecological interactions in the tendency of bacterial taxa to either aggregate or segregate, using a comprehensive dataset of bacterial taxa observed in a wide variety of environments. We assess significance of taxa associations through a null model that takes into account habitat preferences and the global distribution of taxa across samples. The analysis of these associations reveals a surprisingly large number of significant aggregations between taxa, with a marked community structure and a strong propensity to aggregate for cosmopolitan taxa. Due to the coarse grained nature of our data we cannot conclusively reject the hypothesis that many of these aggregations are due to environmental preferences that the null model fails to reproduce. Nevertheless, some observations are better explained by ecological interactions than by habitat filtering. In particular, most pairs of aggregating taxa co-occur in very different environments, which makes it unlikely that these associations are due to habitat preferences, and many are formed by cosmopolitan taxa without well defined habitat preferences. Moreover, known cooperative interactions are retrieved as aggregating pairs of taxa. As observed in similar studies, we also found that phylogenetically related taxa are much more prone to aggregate than to segregate, an observation

Empathy and feelings of guilt experienced by nurses: A cross-sectional study of their role in burnout and compassion fatigue symptoms.

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Duarte, Joana; Pinto-Gouveia, José

2017-06-01

The main goal of this study was to explore the relationships between empathy, empathy-based pathogenic guilt and professional quality of life (burnout and compassion fatigue). We aim to test a model in which we hypothesize that when empathic feelings are related to pathogenic guilt, burnout and compassion fatigue symptoms may be increased. Empathy is at the core of nursing practice, and has been associated with positive outcomes not only for the healthcare provider but also for the patient. However, empathy is also at the core of guilt feelings that, when excessive and misdirected, can lead to pathogenic guilt beliefs. We focused on two types of empathy-based guilt characterized by excessive responsibility over others' well-being and how these can be related to professional quality of life. This study is a cross-sectional self-report survey. Data were collected during 2014 and 2015. Two hundred ninety-eight nurses from public hospitals in Portugal's north and center region were surveyed. Professional quality of life (burnout and compassion fatigue), empathy, and empathy-based guilt were measured using validated self-report measures. Correlation analyses showed that empathy-based guilt was positively associated with empathy, and with burnout and compassion fatigue. Results from multiple mediation models further indicated when empathy is associated with empathy-based guilt, this leads to greater levels of burnout and compassion fatigue. Given the nature of their work, nurses who experience pathogenic guilt feelings may have compromised well-being, and this should be addressed in training programs aiming at preventing or treating burnout and compassion fatigue. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Compatriot partiality and cosmopolitan justice: Can we justify compatriot partiality within the cosmopolitan framework?

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Rachelle Bascara

2016-10-01

Full Text Available This paper shows an alternative way in which compatriot partiality could be justified within the framework of global distributive justice. Philosophers who argue that compatriot partiality is similar to racial partiality capture something correct about compatriot partiality. However, the analogy should not lead us to comprehensively reject compatriot partiality. We can justify compatriot partiality on the same grounds that liberation movements and affirmative action have been justified. Hence, given cosmopolitan demands of justice, special consideration for the economic well-being of your nation as a whole is justified if and only if the country it identifies is an oppressed developing nation in an unjust global order.This justification is incomplete. We also need to say why Person A, qua national of Country A, is justified in helping her compatriots in Country A over similarly or slightly more oppressed non-compatriots in Country B. I argue that Person A’s partiality towards her compatriots admits further vindication because it is part of an oppressed group’s project of self-emancipation, which is preferable to paternalistic emancipation.Finally, I identify three benefits in my justification for compatriot partiality. First, I do not offer a blanket justification for all forms of compatriot partiality. Partiality between members of oppressed groups is only a temporary effective measure designed to level an unlevel playing field. Second, because history attests that sovereign republics could arise as a collective response to colonial oppression, justifying compatriot partiality on the grounds that I have identified is conducive to the development of sovereignty and even democracy in poor countries, thereby avoiding problems of infringement that many humanitarian poverty alleviation efforts encounter. Finally, my justification for compatriot partiality complies with the implicit cosmopolitan commitment to the realizability of global justice

Cosmopolitanism and Subversion of 'Home' in Caryl Phillips's A Distant Shore

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Alan McCluskey

2013-11-01

Full Text Available The novels of Caryl Phillips have most commonly been approached from post-colonial theoretical perspectives, a trend which appears entirely appropriate given their recurrent themes of immigration, ethnic discrimination and the legacy of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. However, the analysis below contends that the publication of A Distant Shore marked a change of direction in Phillips's oeuvre towards a less formally experimental but thematically more cosmopolitan form of writing that conspicuously sets out to subvert and redefine the idea of 'home'. Using the critical frameworks of Avtar Brah, Paul Gilroy and Jacques Derrida, the discussion will illustrate how Phillips critically re-imagines the notion 'home' in order to signify an inclusive space of cosmopolitan conviviality and openness.

The association between oxytocin receptor gene polymorphism (OXTR) and trait empathy.

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Wu, Nan; Li, Zhi; Su, Yanjie

2012-05-01

Oxytocin exerts well accepted effects on one of the key social processes: empathy. Previous researches have demonstrated that oxytocin promotes emotional and cognitive aspects of empathy, by exogenous administration as well as on gene level. However, the effect of diverse gene locus haplotypes of oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) on trait empathy lacks reliable evidence. Participants consisted of 101 genetically unrelated, non-clinical Chinese subjects (46 males and 55 females). Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) was applied to measure the trait empathy from four dimensions: empathy concern, personal distress, perspective taking and fantasy. Fantasy and perspective taking measured cognitive aspect of empathy, while empathy concern and personal distress measured emotional aspect of empathy. Ten single tagging SNPs on OXTR rs2268491, rs1042778, rs53576, rs7632287, rs2254298, rs13316193, rs237897, rs237887, rs4686302, and rs2268493 were tested. Genotype difference in emotional empathy was found on rs237887 and rs4686302 whereas cognitive empathy varied on SNPs rs2268491 and rs2254298 between homozygous and variant carriers. For IRI score, there is a genotype and gender interaction on rs4686302 and rs13316193. The sample sizes from the current study were not so optimal that these results should have to be interpreted with caution when amplified into a larger population. The findings demonstrate that natural variants of OXTR associated with trait empathy; specifically, individuals with certain OXTR genotype did perform better on trait empathy, while others did not. Our findings also provide genetic evidence for gender-related difference on empathy, indicating the popular fact that females who displayed more empathy than males could be likely to trace back to the genetic variants. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Associations Between Physician Empathy, Physician Characteristics, and Standardized Measures of Patient Experience.

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Chaitoff, Alexander; Sun, Bob; Windover, Amy; Bokar, Daniel; Featherall, Joseph; Rothberg, Michael B; Misra-Hebert, Anita D

2017-10-01

To identify correlates of physician empathy and determine whether physician empathy is related to standardized measures of patient experience. Demographic, professional, and empathy data were collected during 2013-2015 from Cleveland Clinic Health System physicians prior to participation in mandatory communication skills training. Empathy was assessed using the Jefferson Scale of Empathy. Data were also collected for seven measures (six provider communication items and overall provider rating) from the visit-specific and 12-month Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems Clinician and Group (CG-CAHPS) surveys. Associations between empathy and provider characteristics were assessed by linear regression, ANOVA, or a nonparametric equivalent. Significant predictors were included in a multivariable linear regression model. Correlations between empathy and CG-CAHPS scores were assessed using Spearman rank correlation coefficients. In bivariable analysis (n = 847 physicians), female sex (P empathy scores. In multivariable analysis, female sex (P empathy scores. Of the seven CG-CAHPS measures, scores on five for the 583 physicians with visit-specific data and on three for the 277 physicians with 12-month data were positively correlated with empathy. Specialty and sex were independently associated with physician empathy. Empathy was correlated with higher scores on multiple CG-CAHPS items, suggesting improving physician empathy might play a role in improving patient experience.

Empathy levels among first year Malaysian medical students: an observational study

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Williams B

2014-05-01

Full Text Available Brett Williams,1 Sivalal Sadasivan,2 Amudha Kadirvelu,2 Alexander Olaussen11Department of Community Emergency Health and Paramedic Practice, Melbourne, Australia; 2Jeffrey Cheah School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Sunway Campus, Selangor, MalaysiaBackground: The literature indicates that medical practitioners experience declining empathy levels in clinical practice. This highlights the need to educate medical students about empathy as an attribute early in the academic curriculum. The objective of this study was to evaluate year one students' self-reported empathy levels following a 2-hour empathy workshop at a large medical school in Malaysia.Methods: Changes in empathy scores were examined using a paired repeated-measures t-test in this prospective before and after study.Results: Analyzing the matched data, there was a statistically significant difference and moderate effect size between mean empathy scores before and 5 weeks after the workshop (112.08±10.67 versus 117.93±13.13, P<0.0001, d=0.48 using the Jefferson Scale Physician Empathy (Student Version.Conclusion: The results of this observational study indicate improved mean self-reported empathy scores following an empathy workshop.Keywords: empathy, medical students, Malaysia

[Empathy and mirror neurons. A view on contemporary neuropsychological empathy research].

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Häusser, Leonard F

2012-01-01

Neurons firing both to specific actions performed by self and matching actions performed by others are classified as mirror neurons. Since its discovery in 1991, this phenomenon has been surveyed in the field of motor and sensorimotor function and incipiently in the field of language and emotions. The research group of Giacomo Rizzolatti assumes that mirror neurons form the biological basis of compassion and thereby of affective empathic experience. The research regarding mirror neurons is yet in early stages and further research is required to specify mirror neuron systems. In view of empathy it is the insula which is of central importance for the recognition of disgust. The discovery of mirror neurons allows a comprehension of empathy as an immediate and compassionate partaking of a response, enabling an understanding of the other persons feeling. At the same time, the resonating affect remains allocated to the other person, distinguishing this comprehensive process from a mere emotional contagion. At present, the phenomenon of mirror neurons is gaining clinical relevance in the field of autism spectrum disorders and apoplexia. One's own ability for empathy as well as promoting empathetic abilities of others is of central importance for the clinical praxis, in particular concerning the treatment of children and adolescents.

Teaching about the First World War Today: Historical Empathy and Participatory Citizenship

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Davison, Martyn

2017-01-01

This article explores the concept of historical empathy and how it can foster a greater understanding of a significant episode in New Zealand and Australian history, the 1915 Gallipoli Campaign. It also highlights the potential that the concept holds for encouraging students to participate in civic society. It does this by drawing upon the…

Similar personality patterns are associated with empathy in four different countries

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Martin Christoph Melchers

2016-03-01

Full Text Available Empathy is an important human ability associated with successful social interaction. It is currently unclear how to optimally measure individual differences in empathic processing. Although the Big Five model of personality is an effective model to explain individual differences in human experience and behavior, its relation to measures of empathy is currently not well understood. Therefore, the present study was designed to investigate the relationship between the Big Five personality concept and two commonly used measures for empathy (Empathy Quotient (EQ, Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI in four samples from China, Germany, Spain and the United States of America. This approach was designed to advance the way the Big Five personality model can be used to measure empathy. We found evidence of medium effect sizes for associations between personality and empathy, with agreeableness and conscientiousness as the most important predictors of affective and cognitive empathy (measured by the respective IRI subscales as well as a for a one-dimensional empathy score (measured by the EQ. Empathy in a fictional context was most closely related to openness to experience while personal distress was first of all related to neuroticism. In terms of culture, we did not observe any distinct pattern concerning cultural differences. These results support the cross-cultural applicability of the Empathy Quotient and the Interpersonal Reactivity Index and indicate structurally similar associations between personality and empathy across cultures.

Enhancing and sustaining empathy in medical students.

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Hojat, Mohammadreza; Axelrod, David; Spandorfer, John; Mangione, Salvatore

2013-12-01

Empathy is an important component of physician competence that needs to be enhanced. To test the hypotheses that medical students' empathy can be enhanced and sustained by targeted activities. This was a two-phase study in which 248 medical students participated. In Phase 1, students in the experimental group watched and discussed video clips of patient encounters meant to enhance empathic understanding; those in the control group watched a documentary film. Ten weeks later in Phase 2 of the study, students who were in the experimental group were divided into two groups. One group attended a lecture on empathy in patient care, and the other plus the control group watched a movie about racism. The Jefferson Scale of Empathy (JSE) was administered pre-post in Phase 1 and posttest in Phase 2. In Phase 1, the JSE mean score for the experimental group improved significantly (p < 0.01); no change in the JSE scores was observed in the control group. In Phase 2, the JSE mean score improvement was sustained in the group that attended the lecture, but not in the other group. No change in empathy was noticed in the control group. Research hypotheses were confirmed.

Qualified Empathy - Project Report 2015-16

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Austring, Bennye Düranc; Sørensen, Merete Cornet

2016-01-01

UCSJ-delen af den afsluttende rapport fra Nordplus-projektet "Qualified Empathy", der blev gennemført sammen med Metropolia, Helsinki, og NTNU, Trondheim, i 2015 og 15.......UCSJ-delen af den afsluttende rapport fra Nordplus-projektet "Qualified Empathy", der blev gennemført sammen med Metropolia, Helsinki, og NTNU, Trondheim, i 2015 og 15....

The Influence of Cognitive Load on Empathy and Intention in Response to Infant Crying.

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Hiraoka, Daiki; Nomura, Michio

2016-06-16

Many studies have explored risk factors for child maltreatment, but little research has focused on situational risk factors such as cognitive load, which involves within-individual fluctuation. The current study sought to determine whether cognitive load led to within-individual changes in intention in response to infant crying. The study also sought to ascertain whether state empathy, empathic concern (EC), and personal distress mediated or moderated this relationship. Sixty-six participants completed a memory task (remembering meaningless, two- or eight-letter, English alphabet string), during which they were required to keep these letters in mind while hearing infant crying (or a tone). Subsequently, participants rated questions concerning state empathy and intention in response to the crying (i.e., intentions involving caregiving, neglect, or physical abuse). Results showed that cognitive load reduced caregiving intention and increased intention to perpetrate neglect. In addition, EC mediated the relationship between cognitive load and intention to provide care or perpetrate neglect. Moreover, cognitive load interacted with state empathy to predict intention to provide care or perpetrate neglect. These findings highlighted the importance of focusing on situational cognitive risk factors for child maltreatment and elucidated the role of state empathy as a mediator or moderator in child maltreatment research.

Empathy in the Clinician–Patient Relationship

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Arnstein Finset PhD

2017-06-01

Full Text Available The clinician-patient relationship is asymmetric in the sense that clinicians and patients have different roles in the medical consultation. Yet, there are qualities of reciprocity and mutuality in many clinician-patient encounters, and we suggest that such reciprocity may be related to the phenomenon of empathy. Empathy is often defined as the capacity to place oneself in another’s position, but empathy may also be understood as a sequence of reciprocal turns-of talk, starting with the patient’s expression of emotion, followed by the perception, vicarious experience, and empathic response by the clinician. These patterns of reciprocity may also include the patient’s experience of and response to the clinician’s emotions. Researchers in different fields of research have studied how informal human interaction often is characterized by mutuality of lexical alignment and reciprocal adjustments, vocal synchrony, as well as synchrony of movements and psychophysiological processes. A number of studies have linked these measures of reciprocity and synchrony in clinical encounters to the subjective experience of empathy.

Associations among Vocabulary, Executive Function Skills and Empathy in Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder

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Cascia, JoAnne; Barr, Jason J.

2017-01-01

Background: Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have been characterized as having deficits in social communication and empathy which present difficulties in the areas of social reciprocity, sharing of emotions and developing and maintaining relationships. This study explores the associations between vocabulary, executive function…

The Associations between Perceived Parenting Styles, Empathy, and Altruistic Choices in Economic Games: A Study of Chinese Children

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Qingke Guo

2017-10-01

Full Text Available Parenting styles are critical for fostering children’s empathy and prosociality. Yet these relations haven’t been well established for Chinese children, and the underlying mechanisms were seldom explored. Drawing upon parental acceptance-rejection theory and empathy-altruism hypothesis, the objective of this study was to investigate the relationships between perceived parenting styles and altruistic behavior of children, and the intervening role of children’s empathy and the moderating role of in-group and out-group conditions. What is novel about this study is that it contains both survey data and experimental data. Four hundred and ninety-four children (Mage = 8.92 years completed four simple binary-choice dictator games which are widely used in the study of other-regarding preferences (concerns for the interests of others. These children also reported their perceived parenting styles. And children’s empathy was reported by their mothers. Each child’s altruism score, which was used in the subsequent analyses, was derived from the altruistic choices in these games. Mediation analyses indicated that, when age and gender were controlled for, maternal and paternal emotional warmth were positively associated with children’s altruism via children’s empathy, while maternal and paternal rejection were negatively associated with children’s altruism via children’s empathy. Multi-group analyses showed that the influences of perceived parenting styles on children’s altruistic behavior via children’s empathy were consistent for in-group and out-group conditions. These findings suggest that enhancing parental emotional warmth and reducing parental rejection may foster children’s empathy, which in turn promote children’s altruism. Limitations and future directions of this study were also discussed.

Minding the Gap: Narrative Descriptions about Mental States Attenuate Parochial Empathy

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Bruneau, Emile G.; Cikara, Mina; Saxe, Rebecca

2015-01-01

In three experiments, we examine parochial empathy (feeling more empathy for in-group than out-group members) across novel group boundaries, and test whether we can mitigate parochial empathy with brief narrative descriptions. In the absence of individuating information, participants consistently report more empathy for members of their own assigned group than a competitive out-group. However, individualized descriptions of in-group and out-group targets significantly reduce parochial empathy by interfering with encoding of targets’ group membership. Finally, the descriptions that most effectively decrease parochial empathy are those that describe targets’ mental states. These results support the role of individuating information in ameliorating parochial empathy, suggest a mechanism for their action, and show that descriptions emphasizing targets’ mental states are particularly effective. PMID:26505194

Utilizing Improvisation to Teach Empathy Skills in Counselor Education

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Bayne, Hannah B.; Jangha, Awa

2016-01-01

Empathy development is foundational to counselor training, yet there is scant research on techniques for teaching empathy aside from traditional microskills models. The authors discuss empathy as a skill set, highlight how improvisation (improv) can be used to enhance training, and describe how to incorporate improv activities within the classroom.

The Role of Embodiment and Individual Empathy Levels in Gesture Comprehension.

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Jospe, Karine; Flöel, Agnes; Lavidor, Michal

2017-01-01

Research suggests that the action-observation network is involved in both emotional-embodiment (empathy) and action-embodiment (imitation) mechanisms. Here we tested whether empathy modulates action-embodiment, hypothesizing that restricting imitation abilities will impair performance in a hand gesture comprehension task. Moreover, we hypothesized that empathy levels will modulate the imitation restriction effect. One hundred twenty participants with a range of empathy scores performed gesture comprehension under restricted and unrestricted hand conditions. Empathetic participants performed better under the unrestricted compared to the restricted condition, and compared to the low empathy participants. Remarkably however, the latter showed the exactly opposite pattern and performed better under the restricted condition. This pattern was not found in a facial expression recognition task. The selective interaction of embodiment restriction and empathy suggests that empathy modulates the way people employ embodiment in gesture comprehension. We discuss the potential of embodiment-induced therapy to improve empathetic abilities in individuals with low empathy.

Cosmopolitanism, Global Social Justice and Gender Equality in Education

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Unterhalter, Elaine

2008-01-01

This article attempts to locate approaches to understanding gender, education and notions of the international within debates on global social justice and cosmopolitanism. It looks at the work of three feminist scholars (Martha Nussbaum, Onora O'Neill and Iris Young) on this theme, draws out some ways in which they engage critiques of…

Cultural Citizenship and Cosmopolitan Practice: Global Youth Communicate Online

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Hull, Glynda A.; Stornaiuolo, Amy; Sahni, Urvashi

2010-01-01

Calls now abound in a range of literatures--philosophy, education, sociology, anthropology, media studies--to reimagine citizenship and identity in ways befitting a global age. A concept predominant in many such calls is the ancient idea of "cosmopolitanism." Refashioned now to serve as a compass in a world that is at once radically…

The neural components of empathy: Predicting daily prosocial behavior

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Rameson, Lian T.; Lieberman, Matthew D.

2014-01-01

Previous neuroimaging studies on empathy have not clearly identified neural systems that support the three components of empathy: affective congruence, perspective-taking, and prosocial motivation. These limitations stem from a focus on a single emotion per study, minimal variation in amount of social context provided, and lack of prosocial motivation assessment. In the current investigation, 32 participants completed a functional magnetic resonance imaging session assessing empathic responses to individuals experiencing painful, anxious, and happy events that varied in valence and amount of social context provided. They also completed a 14-day experience sampling survey that assessed real-world helping behaviors. The results demonstrate that empathy for positive and negative emotions selectively activates regions associated with positive and negative affect, respectively. In addition, the mirror system was more active during empathy for context-independent events (pain), whereas the mentalizing system was more active during empathy for context-dependent events (anxiety, happiness). Finally, the septal area, previously linked to prosocial motivation, was the only region that was commonly activated across empathy for pain, anxiety, and happiness. Septal activity during each of these empathic experiences was predictive of daily helping. These findings suggest that empathy has multiple input pathways, produces affect-congruent activations, and results in septally mediated prosocial motivation. PMID:22887480

The neural components of empathy: predicting daily prosocial behavior.

Science.gov (United States)

Morelli, Sylvia A; Rameson, Lian T; Lieberman, Matthew D

2014-01-01

Previous neuroimaging studies on empathy have not clearly identified neural systems that support the three components of empathy: affective congruence, perspective-taking, and prosocial motivation. These limitations stem from a focus on a single emotion per study, minimal variation in amount of social context provided, and lack of prosocial motivation assessment. In the current investigation, 32 participants completed a functional magnetic resonance imaging session assessing empathic responses to individuals experiencing painful, anxious, and happy events that varied in valence and amount of social context provided. They also completed a 14-day experience sampling survey that assessed real-world helping behaviors. The results demonstrate that empathy for positive and negative emotions selectively activates regions associated with positive and negative affect, respectively. In addition, the mirror system was more active during empathy for context-independent events (pain), whereas the mentalizing system was more active during empathy for context-dependent events (anxiety, happiness). Finally, the septal area, previously linked to prosocial motivation, was the only region that was commonly activated across empathy for pain, anxiety, and happiness. Septal activity during each of these empathic experiences was predictive of daily helping. These findings suggest that empathy has multiple input pathways, produces affect-congruent activations, and results in septally mediated prosocial motivation.

Distinct neural correlates of emotional and cognitive empathy in older adults.

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Moore, Raeanne C; Dev, Sheena I; Jeste, Dilip V; Dziobek, Isabel; Eyler, Lisa T

2015-04-30

Empathy is thought to be a mechanism underlying prosocial behavior across the lifespan, yet little is known about how levels of empathy relate to individual differences in brain functioning among older adults. In this exploratory study, we examined the neural correlates of affective and cognitive empathy in older adults. Thirty older adults (M=79 years) underwent fMRI scanning and neuropsychological testing and completed a test of affective and cognitive empathy. Brain response during processing of cognitive and emotional stimuli was measured by fMRI in a priori and task-related regions and was correlated with levels of empathy. Older adults with higher levels of affective empathy showed more deactivation in the amygdala and insula during a working memory task, whereas those with higher cognitive empathy showed greater insula activation during a response inhibition task. Our preliminary findings suggest that brain systems linked to emotional and social processing respond differently among older adults with more or less affective and cognitive empathy. That these relationships can be seen both during affective and non-emotional tasks of "cold" cognitive abilities suggests that empathy may impact social behavior through both emotional and cognitive mechanisms. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd.

The consultation and relational empathy (CARE) measure: development and preliminary validation and reliability of an empathy-based consultation process measure.

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Mercer, Stewart W; Maxwell, Margaret; Heaney, David; Watt, Graham Cm

2004-12-01

Empathy is a key aspect of the clinical encounter but there is a lack of patient-assessed measures suitable for general clinical settings. Our aim was to develop a consultation process measure based on a broad definition of empathy, which is meaningful to patients irrespective of their socio-economic background. Qualitative and quantitative approaches were used to develop and validate the new measure, which we have called the consultation and relational empathy (CARE) measure. Concurrent validity was assessed by correlational analysis against other validated measures in a series of three pilot studies in general practice (in areas of high or low socio-economic deprivation). Face and content validity was investigated by 43 interviews with patients from both types of areas, and by feedback from GPs and expert researchers in the field. The initial version of the new measure (pilot 1; high deprivation practice) correlated strongly (r = 0.85) with the Reynolds empathy measure (RES) and the Barrett-Lennard empathy subscale (BLESS) (r = 0.63), but had a highly skewed distribution (skew -1.879, kurtosis 3.563). Statistical analysis, and feedback from the 20 patients interviewed, the GPs and the expert researchers, led to a number of modifications. The revised, second version of the CARE measure, tested in an area of low deprivation (pilot 2) also correlated strongly with the established empathy measures (r = 0.84 versus RES and r = 0.77 versus BLESS) but had a less skewed distribution (skew -0.634, kurtosis -0.067). Internal reliability of the revised version was high (Cronbach's alpha 0.92). Patient feedback at interview (n = 13) led to only minor modification. The final version of the CARE measure, tested in pilot 3 (high deprivation practice) confirmed the validation with the other empathy measures (r = 0.85 versus RES and r = 0.84 versus BLESS) and the face validity (feedback from 10 patients). These preliminary results support the validity and reliability of the CARE

The effects of sleep deprivation on emotional empathy.

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Guadagni, Veronica; Burles, Ford; Ferrara, Michele; Iaria, Giuseppe

2014-12-01

Previous studies have shown that sleep loss has a detrimental effect on the ability of the individuals to process emotional information. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that this negative effect extends to the ability of experiencing emotions while observing other individuals, i.e. emotional empathy. To test this hypothesis, we assessed emotional empathy in 37 healthy volunteers who were assigned randomly to one of three experimental groups: one group was tested before and after a night of total sleep deprivation (sleep deprivation group), a second group was tested before and after a usual night of sleep spent at home (sleep group) and the third group was tested twice during the same day (day group). Emotional empathy was assessed by using two parallel versions of a computerized test measuring direct (i.e. explicit evaluation of empathic concern) and indirect (i.e. the observer's reported physiological arousal) emotional empathy. The results revealed that the post measurements of both direct and indirect emotional empathy of participants in the sleep deprivation group were significantly lower than those of the sleep and day groups; post measurement scores of participants in the day and sleep groups did not differ significantly for either direct or indirect emotional empathy. These data are consistent with previous studies showing the negative effect of sleep deprivation on the processing of emotional information, and extend these effects to emotional empathy. The findings reported in our study are relevant to healthy individuals with poor sleep habits, as well as clinical populations suffering from sleep disturbances. © 2014 European Sleep Research Society.

Does cortisol modulate emotion recognition and empathy?

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Duesenberg, Moritz; Weber, Juliane; Schulze, Lars; Schaeuffele, Carmen; Roepke, Stefan; Hellmann-Regen, Julian; Otte, Christian; Wingenfeld, Katja

2016-04-01

Emotion recognition and empathy are important aspects in the interaction and understanding of other people's behaviors and feelings. The Human environment comprises of stressful situations that impact social interactions on a daily basis. Aim of the study was to examine the effects of the stress hormone cortisol on emotion recognition and empathy. In this placebo-controlled study, 40 healthy men and 40 healthy women (mean age 24.5 years) received either 10mg of hydrocortisone or placebo. We used the Multifaceted Empathy Test to measure emotional and cognitive empathy. Furthermore, we examined emotion recognition from facial expressions, which contained two emotions (anger and sadness) and two emotion intensities (40% and 80%). We did not find a main effect for treatment or sex on either empathy or emotion recognition but a sex × emotion interaction on emotion recognition. The main result was a four-way-interaction on emotion recognition including treatment, sex, emotion and task difficulty. At 40% task difficulty, women recognized angry faces better than men in the placebo condition. Furthermore, in the placebo condition, men recognized sadness better than anger. At 80% task difficulty, men and women performed equally well in recognizing sad faces but men performed worse compared to women with regard to angry faces. Apparently, our results did not support the hypothesis that increases in cortisol concentration alone influence empathy and emotion recognition in healthy young individuals. However, sex and task difficulty appear to be important variables in emotion recognition from facial expressions. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

University Students' Value Priorities and Emotional Empathy.

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Myyry, Liisa; Helkama, Klaus

2001-01-01

Presents a comparison of the Schwartz typology of values and the Spranger-Allport-Vernon typology. Investigates the differences among students in business, social science, and technology in emotional empathy and the relationships of value priorities and emotional empathy in different fields. Includes references. (CMK)

Information Practices in Contemporary Cosmopolitan Civil Society

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Michael Olsson

2014-09-01

Full Text Available What is the nature of information?  What is its role in Contemporary Cosmopolitan Civil Society? What is the basis for the widespread current belief that we live in an ‘information society’? The present article will examine these questions through an examination of the historical origins of established ‘scientized’ views of information in the philosophy of the Enlightenment. It describes how postmodern and poststructuralist critique of such positivist approaches led to profound paradigmatic and methodological shifts in the social and information studies fields in recent decades. It consider how the emergence of social constructivist approaches to information research drawing on discourse analysis, practice theory and ethnographic theories and methodologies has led to a have led researchers to a radically different understanding of central concepts such as: the influence of emergent information and communication technologies on contemporary society; the relationship between knowledge and power, the nature of expertise and authoritative information; a re-thinking of community and consensus; a re-interpretation of notions of space and place in information dissemination, sharing and use and a reconsideration of the role of the researcher. The article illustrates this changing research landscape through reference to the work of scholars in the Cosmopolitan Civil Societies Research Centre at the University of Technology, Sydney, published in the Centre’s journal.

Learning Empathy Through Simulation: A Systematic Literature Review.

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Bearman, Margaret; Palermo, Claire; Allen, Louise M; Williams, Brett

2015-10-01

Simulation is increasingly used as an educational methodology for teaching empathy to preservice health professional students. This systematic review aimed to determine if and how simulation, including games, simulated patients, and role-play, might develop empathy and empathetic behaviors in learners. Eleven databases or clearing houses including MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, PsychInfo, and ERIC were searched for all articles published from any date until May 2014, using terms relating to (i) preservice health professional students, (ii) simulation, and (iii) empathy. Twenty-seven studies met the inclusion criteria, including 9 randomized controlled trials. A narrative synthesis suggests that simulation may be an appropriate method to teach empathy to preservice health professional students and identifies the value of the learner taking the role of the patient.

A principled and cosmopolitan neuroethics: considerations for international relevance.

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Shook, John R; Giordano, James

2014-01-03

Neuroethics applies cognitive neuroscience for prescribing alterations to conceptions of self and society, and for prescriptively judging the ethical applications of neurotechnologies. Plentiful normative premises are available to ground such prescriptivity, however prescriptive neuroethics may remain fragmented by social conventions, cultural ideologies, and ethical theories. Herein we offer that an objectively principled neuroethics for international relevance requires a new meta-ethics: understanding how morality works, and how humans manage and improve morality, as objectively based on the brain and social sciences. This new meta-ethics will simultaneously equip neuroethics for evaluating and revising older cultural ideologies and ethical theories, and direct neuroethics towards scientifically valid views of encultured humans intelligently managing moralities. Bypassing absolutism, cultural essentialisms, and unrealistic ethical philosophies, neuroethics arrives at a small set of principles about proper human flourishing that are more culturally inclusive and cosmopolitan in spirit. This cosmopolitanism in turn suggests augmentations to traditional medical ethics in the form of four principled guidelines for international consideration: empowerment, non-obsolescence, self-creativity, and citizenship.

A principled and cosmopolitan neuroethics: considerations for international relevance

Science.gov (United States)

2014-01-01

Neuroethics applies cognitive neuroscience for prescribing alterations to conceptions of self and society, and for prescriptively judging the ethical applications of neurotechnologies. Plentiful normative premises are available to ground such prescriptivity, however prescriptive neuroethics may remain fragmented by social conventions, cultural ideologies, and ethical theories. Herein we offer that an objectively principled neuroethics for international relevance requires a new meta-ethics: understanding how morality works, and how humans manage and improve morality, as objectively based on the brain and social sciences. This new meta-ethics will simultaneously equip neuroethics for evaluating and revising older cultural ideologies and ethical theories, and direct neuroethics towards scientifically valid views of encultured humans intelligently managing moralities. Bypassing absolutism, cultural essentialisms, and unrealistic ethical philosophies, neuroethics arrives at a small set of principles about proper human flourishing that are more culturally inclusive and cosmopolitan in spirit. This cosmopolitanism in turn suggests augmentations to traditional medical ethics in the form of four principled guidelines for international consideration: empowerment, non-obsolescence, self-creativity, and citizenship. PMID:24387102

Clarifying changes in student empathy throughout medical school: a scoping review.

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Ferreira-Valente, Alexandra; Monteiro, Joana S; Barbosa, Rita M; Salgueira, Ana; Costa, Patrício; Costa, Manuel J

2017-12-01

Despite the increasing awareness of the relevance of empathy in patient care, some findings suggest that medical schools may be contributing to the deterioration of students' empathy. Therefore, it is important to clarify the magnitude and direction of changes in empathy during medical school. We employed a scoping review to elucidate trends in students' empathy changes/differences throughout medical school and examine potential bias associated with research design. The literature published in English, Spanish, Portuguese and French from 2009 to 2016 was searched. Two-hundred and nine potentially relevant citations were identified. Twenty articles met the inclusion criteria. Effect sizes of empathy scores variations were calculated to assess the practical significance of results. Our results demonstrate that scoped studies differed considerably in their design, measures used, sample sizes and results. Most studies (12 out of 20 studies) reported either positive or non-statistically significant changes/differences in empathy regardless of the measure used. The predominant trend in cross-sectional studies (ten out of 13 studies) was of significantly higher empathy scores in later years or of similar empathy scores across years, while most longitudinal studies presented either mixed-results or empathy declines. There was not a generalized international trend in changes in students' empathy throughout medical school. Although statistically significant changes/differences were detected in 13 out of 20 studies, the calculated effect sizes were small in all but two studies, suggesting little practical significance. At the present moment, the literature does not offer clear conclusions relative to changes in student empathy throughout medical school.

Pictures of pain: their contribution to the neuroscience of empathy.

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Schott, G D

2015-03-01

The study of empathy, a translation of the term 'Einfühlung', originated in 19th century Germany in the sphere of aesthetics, and was followed by studies in psychology and then neuroscience. During the past decade the links between empathy and art have started to be investigated, but now from the neuroscientific perspective, and two different approaches have emerged. Recently, the primacy of the mirror neuron system and its association with automaticity and imitative, simulated movement has been envisaged. But earlier, a number of eminent art historians had pointed to the importance of cognitive responses to art; these responses might plausibly be subserved by alternative neural networks. Focusing here mainly on pictures depicting pain and evoking empathy, both approaches are considered by summarizing the evidence that either supports the involvement of the mirror neuron system, or alternatively suggests other neural networks are likely to be implicated. The use of such pictures in experimental studies exploring the underlying neural processes, however, raises a number of concerns, and suggests caution is exercised in drawing conclusions concerning the networks that might be engaged. These various networks are discussed next, taking into account the affective and sensory components of the pain experience, before concluding that both mirror neuron and alternative neural networks are likelyto be enlisted in the empathetic response to images of pain. A somewhat similar duality of spontaneous and cognitive processes may perhaps also be paralleled in the creation of such images. While noting that some have repudiated the neuroscientific approach to the subject, pictures are nevertheless shown here to represent an unusual but invaluable tool in the study of pain and empathy. © The Author (2015). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Guarantors of Brain. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Enhancement of Self-Regulation, Assertiveness, and Empathy.

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Sanz de Acedo Lizarraga, M. Luisa; Ugarte, M. Dolores; Cardelle-Elawar, Maria; Iriarte, M. Dolores; Sanz de Acedo Baquedano, M. Teresa

2003-01-01

Examined the effects of teaching self-regulation strategies and social skills to 40 middle school students who presented difficulties in self-reflection, self-inquiry, assertiveness, and empathy. Significant gains were observed in the experimental group in self-regulation of learning, self-control of behavior, assertiveness, empathy, and…

Linking empathy to visuospatial perspective-taking in gambling addiction.

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Tomei, Alexander; Besson, Jacques; Grivel, Jeremy

2017-04-01

It has been demonstrated that people suffering from substance-related addictions are less empathic than their non-addicted counterparts. Our first aim was to verify if this is also true for behavioral addictions. We hypothesized that problem gamblers are less empathic than healthy controls. Our second aim was to identify a cognitive marker of empathy that could be targeted in cognitive rehabilitation strategies. We propose that a potential cognitive marker of empathy could be visuospatial perspective-taking. Specifically, we hypothesized that visuospatial perspective-taking performances are lower in problem gamblers compared to healthy controls and that these visuospatial performances predict empathy. Thirty-one non-gamblers, 24 healthy gamblers, and 21 problem gamblers performed a visuospatial perspective-taking task before completing the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI; Davis, 1980; Davis, 1983). Problem gamblers had decreased empathy and lower performance at the visuospatial perspective-taking task than non-gamblers and healthy gamblers. Furthermore, we confirmed that visuospatial perspective-taking abilities predict empathy on the IRI dimensions of interpersonal perspective-taking and personal distress. The present study provides new evidence that reduced empathy is not limited to subjects with substance-related addictions; rather, it extends to behavioral addictions. Visuospatial perspective-taking may be a viable cognitive marker for use as a rehabilitation target of empathy. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Cosmopolitan and Established Resources of Power in the Education Arena

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Weenink, D.

2007-01-01

The main question in this article is whether new cosmopolitan forms of power, on the one hand, and established forms of power, on the other hand, may lead households to make different educational choices for their children. Two types of Dutch secondary education are compared: internationalized

The relationship between empathy and sympathy in good health care.

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Svenaeus, Fredrik

2015-05-01

Whereas empathy is most often looked upon as a virtue and essential skill in contemporary health care, the relationship to sympathy is more complicated. Empathic approaches that lead to emotional arousal on the part of the health care professional and strong feelings for the individual patient run the risk of becoming unprofessional in nature and having the effect of so-called compassion fatigue or burnout. In this paper I want to show that approaches to empathy in health care that attempt to solve these problems by cutting empathy loose from sympathy-from empathic concern-are mistaken. Instead, I argue, a certain kind of sympathy, which I call professional concern, is a necessary ingredient in good health care. Feeling oneself into the experiences and situation of the patient cannot be pursued without caring for the patient in question if the empathy is going to be successful. Sympathy is not only a thing that empathy makes possible and more or less spontaneously provides a way for but is something that we find at work in connection to empathy itself. In the paper I try to show how empathy is a particular form of emotion in which I feel with, about, and for the other person in developing an interpretation of his predicament. The with and for aspects of the empathy process are typically infused by a sympathy for the person one is empathizing with. Sympathy can be modulated into other ways of feeling with and for the person in the empathy process, but these sympathy-replacement feelings nevertheless always display some form of motivating concern for the target. Such an understanding of empathy is of particular importance for health care and other professions dealing with suffering clients.

Cosmopolitanism and Peace in Kant's Essay on "Perpetual Peace"

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Huggler, Jorgen

2010-01-01

Immanuel Kant's essay on Perpetual Peace (1795/96) contains a rejection of the idea of a world government (earlier advocated by Kant himself). In connexion with a substantial argument for cosmopolitan rights based on the human body and its need for a space on the surface of the Earth, Kant presents the most rigorous philosophical formulation ever…

Measuring the impact of a 'point of view' disability simulation on nursing students' empathy using the Comprehensive State Empathy Scale.

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Levett-Jones, Tracy; Lapkin, Samuel; Govind, Natalie; Pich, Jacqueline; Hoffman, Kerry; Jeong, Sarah Yeun-Sim; Norton, Carol Anne; Noble, Danielle; Maclellan, Lorna; Robinson-Reilly, Melissa; Everson, Naleya

2017-12-01

Although empathy is an integral component of professional practice and person-centred care, a body of research has identified that vulnerable patients groups frequently experience healthcare that is less than optimal and often lacking in empathy. The aim of this study was to examine the impact of an immersive point-of-view simulation on nursing students' empathy towards people with an Acquired Brain Injury. A convenience sample of 390 nursing students from a cohort of 488 participated in the study, giving a response rate of 80%. Students undertook the simulation in pairs and were randomly allocated to the role of either a person with Acquired Brain Injury or a rehabilitation nurse. The simulated 'patients' wore a hemiparesis suit that replicated the experience of dysphasia, hemianopia and hemiparesis. Characteristics of the sample were summarised using descriptive statistics. A two-group pre-test post-test design was used to investigate the impact of the simulation using the Comprehensive State Empathy Scale. t-Tests were performed to analyse changes in empathy pre post and between simulated 'patients' and 'rehabilitation nurses'. On average, participants reported significantly higher mean empathy scores post simulation (3.75, SD=0.66) compared to pre simulation (3.38 SD=0.61); t (398)=10.33, pempathy towards people with a disability. Research with other vulnerable patient groups, student cohorts and in other contexts would be beneficial in taking this work forward. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Salespersons' Empathy: A Systematic Literature Review and Research Agenda

OpenAIRE

Burger, Dominik; Fueglistaller, Urs; Fust, Alexander

2013-01-01

Salespersons' empathy has received recognition by scholars and sales representatives. Despite its importance, definitions and conceptualizations of salespersons' empathy are rather heterogeneous. Thus, we used the method of systematic literature review to analyze 42 empirical articles. A research agenda focusing on salespersons' empathy's measurement, antecedents and moderators as well as effects on performance and relationship outcomes is presented to advance the field.

Automatic mimicry reactions as related to differences in emotional empathy.

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Sonnby-Borgström, Marianne

2002-12-01

The hypotheses of this investigation were derived by conceiving of automatic mimicking as a component of emotional empathy. Differences between subjects high and low in emotional empathy were investigated. The parameters compared were facial mimicry reactions, as represented by electromyographic (EMG) activity when subjects were exposed to pictures of angry or happy faces, and the degree of correspondence between subjects' facial EMG reactions and their self-reported feelings. The comparisons were made at different stimulus exposure times in order to elicit reactions at different levels of information processing. The high-empathy subjects were found to have a higher degree of mimicking behavior than the low-empathy subjects, a difference that emerged at short exposure times (17-40 ms) that represented automatic reactions. The low-empathy subjects tended already at short exposure times (17-40 ms) to show inverse zygomaticus muscle reactions, namely "smiling" when exposed to an angry face. The high-empathy group was characterized by a significantly higher correspondence between facial expressions and self-reported feelings. No differences were found between the high- and low-empathy subjects in their verbally reported feelings when presented a happy or an angry face. Thus, the differences between the groups in emotional empathy appeared to be related to differences in automatic somatic reactions to facial stimuli rather than to differences in their conscious interpretation of the emotional situation.

Toward Predicting Prosocial Behavior: Music Preference and Empathy Differences Between Adolescents and Adults

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Shannon Scott Clark

2015-09-01

Full Text Available Empathy plays a role in social competence and intelligence, and can serve as a buffer against antisocial tendencies. Numerous studies highlight the relationship between empathy, prosocial behaviors, and the predictive utility of music preferences. This study examined participant differences in music preferences and empathy as a function of age, and whether preferred music genre predicted empathy (as a correlate to prosocial behavior. A new measure was devised to assess music preferences more accurately (i.e. with better face/construct validity than existing measures. The Basic Empathy Scale measured empathy as a multidimensional construct. Younger participants exhibited greater empathy than older ones. Each music preference factor contributed uniquely to empathy variance in multiple regression models. Younger and older participants differed on music preferences (arguably associated with age-related sociocultural influences. Conclusions were drawn regarding the age differences in empathy and music preferences, the systematically greater influences of music preferences on cognitive compared to affective empathy, and the greater associations with empathy of specific music preferences. Limitations and implications for government policy and further research are considered.

The Influence of Social Threat on Pain, Aggression, and Empathy in Women.

Science.gov (United States)

Karos, Kai; Meulders, Ann; Goubert, Liesbet; Vlaeyen, Johan W S

2018-03-01

Only one published study has investigated the effect of a threatening social context on the perception and expression of pain, showing that social threat leads to increased pain reports but reduced nonverbal pain expression. The current study aimed to replicate and extend these findings to further explore the effects of a threatening social context. Healthy, female participants (N = 71) received 10 electrocutaneous stimuli delivered by a confederate. They were led to believe that the confederate was requested to administer 10 painful stimuli (control group) or that the confederate deliberately chose to deliver 10 painful stimuli when given the choice to deliver between 1 to 10 painful stimuli (social threat group). Self-reported pain intensity, unpleasantness, threat value of pain, and painful facial expression were assessed. Additionally, empathy and aggression toward the confederate were investigated. Social threat did not affect painful facial expression or self-reported pain intensity, but led to increased aggression toward the confederate. Moreover, perceived social threat predicted the threat value of pain and reduced empathy toward the confederate. We were not able to replicate the previously reported dissociation between pain reports and pain expression as a result of social threat. However, social threat was associated with an increased threat value of pain, increased aggression, and reduced empathy. A threatening social context affects how threatening pain is perceived and has interpersonal consequences such as increased aggression and reduced empathy, thereby creating a double burden on the individual suffering from pain. Copyright © 2017 The American Pain Society. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Development of a Metacognitive Effort Construct of Empathy during Clinical Training: A Longitudinal Study of the Factor Structure of the Jefferson Scale of Empathy

Science.gov (United States)

Stansfield, R. Brent; Schwartz, Alan; O'Brien, Celia Laird; Dekhtyar, Michael; Dunham, Lisette; Quirk, Mark

2016-01-01

Empathy is crucial for effective clinical care but appears to decline during undergraduate medical training. Understanding the nature of this decline is necessary for addressing it. The Jefferson Scale of Empathy (JSE) is used to measure medical students' clinical empathy attitudes. One recent study described a 3-factor model of the JSE. This…

Empathy and Peer Violence among Adolescents: Moderation Effect of Gender

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Bojana, Dinic M.; Jasmina, Kodžopeljic S.; Valentina, Sokolovska T.; Ilija, Milovanovic Z.

2016-01-01

The study examined the relationships between empathy and peer violence among adolescents, along with gender as a moderator in these associations. Thereby, multidimensionality of empathy (affective and cognitive empathy) and different forms of violence (physical, verbal, and relational) were considered. The participants were 646 high school…

Social Connection: Empathy and Mentalization for Teachers

Science.gov (United States)

Swan, Paul; Riley, Philip

2015-01-01

Attending to the academic and social/emotional developmental needs of students has and continues to be a significant challenge for teachers and relatively little research examining the impact of teacher empathy exists. Empathy is an important skill for educators to facilitate the creation of a positive learning environment with students and…

Empathy and burnout: a study on residents from a Singapore institution.

Science.gov (United States)

Lee, Phong Teck; Loh, Julian; Sng, Gerald; Tung, Joshua; Yeo, Khung Keong

2018-01-01

Empathy and burnout are two entities that are important in a physician's career. They are likely to relate to each other and can be heavily influenced by surrounding factors, such as medical education, local practices and cultural expectations. To our knowledge, empathy and burnout studies have not been performed in Singapore. This study was designed to evaluate empathy and burnout levels using the Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy (JSPE) and Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) among residents in Singapore, and compare them with the United States (US) literature. The JSPE, MBI and a self-designed questionnaire were completed by 446 trainees at a residency-sponsoring institution in Singapore. Residents in Singapore had lower empathy and higher rates of burnout compared to US literature. Physician empathy was associated with burnout: residents with higher empathy scores had higher personal accomplishment (p burnout scores compared to the US literature. Further research into the underlying cause is imperative to guide intervention. Copyright: © Singapore Medical Association.

Empathy manipulation impacts music-induced emotions: a psychophysiological study on opera.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Andrei C Miu

Full Text Available This study investigated the effects of voluntarily empathizing with a musical performer (i.e., cognitive empathy on music-induced emotions and their underlying physiological activity. N = 56 participants watched video-clips of two operatic compositions performed in concerts, with low or high empathy instructions. Heart rate and heart rate variability, skin conductance level (SCL, and respiration rate (RR were measured during music listening, and music-induced emotions were quantified using the Geneva Emotional Music Scale immediately after music listening. Listening to the aria with sad content in a high empathy condition facilitated the emotion of nostalgia and decreased SCL, in comparison to the low empathy condition. Listening to the song with happy content in a high empathy condition also facilitated the emotion of power and increased RR, in comparison to the low empathy condition. To our knowledge, this study offers the first experimental evidence that cognitive empathy influences emotion psychophysiology during music listening.

Cyberbullying und Empathie : affektive, kognitive und medienbasierte Empathie im Kontext von Cyberbullying im Kindes- und Jugendalter

OpenAIRE

Pfetsch, Jan; Müller, Christin R.; Ittel, Angela

2014-01-01

"Bei medial vermittelter Kommunikation sinkt sowohl die Hemmschwelle für aggressive Verhaltensweisen wie Cyberbullying als auch die Wahrscheinlichkeit empathischer Reaktionen. Im Fokus der vorliegenden Studie mit 979 Schülerinnen und Schülern der 4.-8. Klassen (M=12.01, SD=1.68 Jahre, 55% weiblich) stand die Frage, ob Cyberbullies geringere Ausprägungen für affektive, kognitive und medienbasierte Empathie aufweisen als Unbeteiligte. Empathie wurde im Selbst- und Peerbericht erhoben. Hypothese...

Exploring the Connections between Caring and Social Behaviors in Physical Education

Science.gov (United States)

Gano-Overway, Lori A.

2013-01-01

Purpose: This study explored the relationship between the caring climate, empathy, prosocial behaviors, and antisocial behaviors, like bullying, in physical education, plus investigated whether empathy mediated the possible relationships between caring and social behaviors for boys and girls. Method: Middle school physical education students…

Towards a consensus about the role of empathy in interpersonal understanding

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Michael, John Andrew

2014-01-01

about how to conceptualize empathy, and then analyze the potential contribution of empathy to interpersonal understanding. However, it is not at all clear that such a consensus will soon be forthcoming, given that different people have fundamentally conflicting intuitions about the concept of empathy....... Thus, instead of trying to resolve this controversy, I will try to show that a fair amount of consensus is within reach about how empathy can be a source of interpersonal understanding even in the absence of a consensus about how to conceptualize empathy. As we shall see, the main controversy concerns...

Empathy in health professional students: A comparative cross-sectional study.

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Petrucci, Cristina; La Cerra, Carmen; Aloisio, Federica; Montanari, Paola; Lancia, Loreto

2016-06-01

It has been shown that empathy strengthens the relationship between patients and health professionals and also improves patient and health professional satisfaction, which helps promote the best clinical outcomes. Empathy is considered an essential prerequisite for a nurse to effectively care for a patient and for a holistic understanding of a patient's perspective in a student population. The main aim was to compare empathy levels between health professional students attending different university courses. A comparative study with a cross-sectional approach was conducted in two successive academic year cohorts of 1st year health professional students at a public Italian university. A sample of 1st year health professional students at a public Italian university was investigated using the Jefferson Scale of Empathy Health Professional Students version (JSE-HPS). Overall, 502 health professional students were included in the study. The students in nursing showed significantly higher empathy levels than the students in other health professions. Furthermore, the female students were found to exhibit significantly more overall empathy than the male students were. The undergraduate nursing students showed a significantly higher mean score of empathy measured by the Jefferson Scale of Empathy Health Professional Students version (JSE-HPS) than the students attending other health undergraduate courses. This could mean that a particular aptitude in establishing a help-relationship with other people exists among the students that choose to become a nurse. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Use of empathy in psychiatric practice: constructivist grounded theory study

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Watling, Chris

2017-01-01

Background Psychiatry has faced significant criticism for overreliance on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) and medications with purported disregard for empathetic, humanistic interventions. Aims To develop an empirically based qualitative theory explaining how psychiatrists use empathy in day-to-day practice, to inform practice and teaching approaches. Method This study used constructivist grounded theory methodology to ask (a) ‘How do psychiatrists understand and use empathetic engagement in the day-to-day practice of psychiatry?’ and (b) ‘How do psychiatrists learn and teach the skills of empathetic engagement?’ The authors interviewed 17 academic psychiatrists and 4 residents and developed a theory by iterative coding of the collected data. Results This constructivist grounded theory of empathetic engagement in psychiatric practice considered three major elements: relational empathy, transactional empathy and instrumental empathy. As one moves from relational empathy through transactional empathy to instrumental empathy, the actions of the psychiatrist become more deliberate and interventional. Conclusions Participants were described by empathy-based interventions which are presented in a theory of ’empathetic engagement’. This is in contrast to a paradigm that sees psychiatry as purely based on neurobiological interventions, with psychotherapy and interpersonal interventions as completely separate activities from day-to-day psychiatric practice. Declaration of interest None. Copyright and usage © The Royal College of Psychiatrists 2017. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Non-Commercial, No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) license. PMID:28243463

Impact of physician empathy on migraine disability and migraineur compliance

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Hatim S Attar

2012-01-01

Full Text Available Aims: We aim to establish the role that perceived physician empathy plays in determining migraineurs′ outcomes and compliance with migraine management plans. We checked for associations between perceived physician empathy and clinical outcomes as well as compliance with management plans. Materials and Methods: 63 migraineurs were enrolled between July and September 2011. Questionnaire administered at the time of inclusion into the study included self-assessment of disability due to migraine (Migraine Disability Assessment Test followed by migraineurs′ assessment of physician empathy (Consultation and Relational Empathy Measure. Three months later, a telephonic questionnaire ascertained changes in disability due to migraine and compliance with migraine treatment. Statistical Analysis: Data was entered in Microsoft Excel 2010 and analyzed using SPSS 17. Pearson′s correlation was employed to analyze the significance of relationship between variables. P-value of less than 0.05 has been considered statistically significant. Results: Statistically significant positive Pearson′s correlations are seen between perceived empathy and decrease in migraine disability and symptoms over three months (P < 0.05. Significant positive relationships are also seen between perceived empathy and compliance with diet/meal timings, exercising, de-stressing/sleep pattern modification and medications (P < 0.05. Self-reported compliance is significantly correlated with improved patient outcomes (P < 0.05. Conclusions: Substantial positive associations are found between perceived physician empathy and migraineurs′ outcomes and compliance with management plans. This emphasizes the importance of empathy in migraineur-physician communication.

Evoked related potentials correlates of empathy for pain from adolescence through adulthood

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Nathalie eMella

2012-11-01

Full Text Available Affective and cognitive empathy are traditionally differentiated, the affective component being concerned with resonating with another’s emotional state, whereas the cognitive component reflects regulation of the resulting distress and understanding of another’s mental states (see Decety and Jackson, 2004 for a review. Adolescence is a critical period for the development of cognitive control processes necessary to regulate affective processes: it is only in young adulthood that these control processes achieve maturity (Steinberg, 2005. Thus, one should expect adolescents to show greater automatic empathy than young adults. The present study aimed at exploring the neural correlates of affective (automatic and cognitive empathy for pain from adolescence to young adulthood. With this aim, Event Related Potentials (ERPs were recorded in 32 participants (aged 11 to 39 in a task designed to dissociate these components. ERPs results showed an early automatic frontocentral response to pain (that was not modulated by task demand and a late parietal response to painful stimuli modulated by attention to pain cues. Adolescents exhibited earlier automatic responses to painful situations than young adults did and showed greater activity in the late cognitive component even when viewing neutral stimuli. Results are discussed in the context of the development of regulatory abilities during adolescence.

Altered Functional Connectivity of the Default Mode Network in Low-Empathy Subjects.

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Kim, Seung Jun; Kim, Sung Eun; Kim, Hyo Eun; Han, Kiwan; Jeong, Bumseok; Kim, Jae Jin; Namkoong, Kee; Kim, Ji Woong

2017-09-01

Empathy is the ability to identify with or make a vicariously experience of another person's feelings or thoughts based on memory and/or self-referential mental simulation. The default mode network in particular is related to self-referential empathy. In order to elucidate the possible neural mechanisms underlying empathy, we investigated the functional connectivity of the default mode network in subjects from a general population. Resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging data were acquired from 19 low-empathy subjects and 18 medium-empathy subjects. An independent component analysis was used to identify the default mode network, and differences in functional connectivity strength were compared between the two groups. The low-empathy group showed lower functional connectivity of the medial prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate cortex (Brodmann areas 9 and 32) within the default mode network, compared to the medium-empathy group. The results of the present study suggest that empathy is related to functional connectivity of the medial prefrontal cortex/anterior cingulate cortex within the default mode network. Functional decreases in connectivity among low-empathy subjects may reflect an impairment of self-referential mental simulation. © Copyright: Yonsei University College of Medicine 2017.

Mindfulness, Empathy, and Intercultural Sensitivity amongst Undergraduate Students

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Menardo, Dayne Arvin

2017-01-01

This study examined the relationships amongst mindfulness, empathy, and intercultural sensitivity. Non-parametric analysis were conducted through Spearman and Hayes's PROCESS bootstrapping to examine the relationship between mindfulness and intercultural sensitivity, and whether empathy mediates the relationship between mindfulness and…

Empathy in One-Shot Prisoner Dilemma

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Rossi, Giulia; Tcheukam, Alain; Tembine, Hamidou

2017-01-01

Strategic decision making involves affective and cognitive functions like reasoning, cognitive and emotional empathy which may be subject to age and gender differences. However, empathy-related changes in strategic decision-making and their relation to age, gender and neuropsychological functions have not been studied widely. In this article, we study a one-shot prisoner dilemma from a psychological game theory viewpoint. Forty seven participants (28 women and 19 men), aged 18 to 42 years, we...

A Review of Empathy, Its Importance, and Its Teaching in Surgical Training.

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Han, Jing L; Pappas, Theodore N

There has been much discussion in the medical literature about the importance of empathy and physician communication style in medical practice. Empathy has been shown to have a very real positive effect on patient outcomes. Most of the existing literature speaks to its role in medical education, with relatively little empiric study about empathy in the surgical setting. Review of empathy and its importance as it pertains to the surgeon-patient relationship and improving patient outcomes, and the need for increased education in empathy during surgical training. The published, peer-reviewed literature on patient-physician and patient-surgeon communication, medical student and resident education in empathy, and empathy research was reviewed. PubMed was queried for MESH terms including "empathy," "training," "education," "surgery," "resident," and "communication." There is evidence of a decline in empathy that begins during the clinical years of medical school, which continues throughout residency training. Surgeons are particularly susceptible to this decline as by-product of the nature of their work, and the current lack of formalised training in empathic patient communication poses a unique problem to surgical residents. The literature suggests that empathy training is warranted and should be incorporated into surgical residencies through didactics, role-playing and simulations, and apprenticeship to empathic attending role models. Copyright © 2018 Association of Program Directors in Surgery. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Sex-Specific Effect of Recalled Parenting on Affective and Cognitive Empathy in Adulthood.

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Lyons, Minna T; Brewer, Gayle; Bethell, Emily J

2017-01-01

Previous research has demonstrated the influence of parenting on the development of children's empathy. However, few studies have considered the impact of parents on empathy in adulthood, specific components of empathy, or the importance of parent and child biological sex. In the present study, 226 participants (71 men) completed online versions of the Parental Bonding Instrument (Parker et al. British Journal of Medical Psychology, 52, 1-10 1979), Empathy Quotient (Baron-Cohen and Wheelwright Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 34, 163-175 2004), and Interpersonal Reactivity Index (Davis JSAS Catalog of Selected Documents in Psychology, 10, 85 1980). Paternal care and overprotection influenced affective empathy in men, whilst maternal overprotection predicted affective empathy in women. Further, maternal care related to cognitive empathy in men, whilst none of the parental care variables related to cognitive empathy in women. Findings are discussed in relation to sex differences in childhood parenting experiences on adult cognitive and affective empathy.

Unemployment and readiness for empathy as predictors of national identity

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Otašević Biljana

2016-01-01

Full Text Available In times of economic crisis and globalization trends, the question of national identity has acquired special significance. This paper examines the individual differences and demographic factors that contribute to its preservation and strengthening. This research was conducted in order to establish the role of employment status and readiness for empathy in predicting individual differences in identification with a national group. In a sample of 107 respondents (66.4% female, 69.2% the employed aged from 21 to 62 years, we applied the following instruments: Readiness for empathy questionnaire, National identity scale and a brief socio-demographic questionnaire. Hierarchical regression analysis was applied to investigate the prediction structure of national identity based on the employment status, and 4 dimensions of empathy: Empathy with positive emotional states, Empathy with negative emotional states, Emotional reactions provoked by empathy, and Empathy as a social role. The final model significantly explains 15 % of the variance of national identity. Employment and Empathy with negative emotional states were singled out as predictors of national identity as well as the Emotional reactions provoked by empathy, where a higher level is associated with less distinctive national identity. The results indicate the consequences of low socio-economic status of members of a nation on the level of their national identity, indicating the personal position of individuals in a group as the main source of identification with a national group. In other words, the identification of an individual with their national group depends on the degree to which it meets their basic needs. The factor which nevertheless contributes to identification with one's own nation and compatriots, regardless of personal economic status, is the ability to empathize with negative emotional states.

Empathy for positive and negative emotions in social anxiety disorder.

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Morrison, Amanda S; Mateen, Maria A; Brozovich, Faith A; Zaki, Jamil; Goldin, Philippe R; Heimberg, Richard G; Gross, James J

2016-12-01

Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is associated with elevated negative and diminished positive affective experience. However, little is known about the way in which individuals with SAD perceive and respond emotionally to the naturally-unfolding negative and positive emotions of others, that is, cognitive empathy and affective empathy, respectively. In the present study, participants with generalized SAD (n = 32) and demographically-matched healthy controls (HCs; n = 32) completed a behavioral empathy task. Cognitive empathy was indexed by the correlation between targets' and participants' continuous ratings of targets' emotions, whereas affective empathy was indexed by the correlation between targets' and participants' continuous self-ratings of emotion. Individuals with SAD differed from HCs only in positive affective empathy: they were less able to vicariously share others' positive emotions. Mediation analyses revealed that poor emotional clarity and negative interpersonal perceptions among those with SAD might account for this finding. Future research using experimental methodology is needed to examine whether this finding represents an inability or unwillingness to share positive affect. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Sex differences in empathy and its relation to juvenile offending.

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Broidy, Lisa; Cauffman, Elizabeth; Espelage, Dorothy L; Mazerolle, Paul; Piquero, Alex

2003-10-01

Implicit in most theoretical accounts of sex differences in offending is the assumption that females are less likely than males to engage in crime--especially serious, violent crime--in part because of their comparatively higher levels of concern for others and stronger affiliative ties. Much research suggests that significant sex differences in both empathy and serious offending emerge in adolescence, with females displaying notably higher levels of empathy and males engaging in notably higher levels of serious offending. However, there has been little empirical work assessing the degree to which sex differences in empathy among adolescents can account for sex differences in offending. This research uses data from a sample of adolescents attending public high schools in Philadelphia (n = 425) and a sample of adolescents incarcerated in the California Youth Authority (CYA) (n = 232) to examine the relation between empathy and serious offending. Results suggest that empathy acts as a protective factor for both males and females but that there are subtle differences among males and females in the relation between empathy and offending.

Predicting Rape Victim Empathy Based on Rape Victimization and Acknowledgment Labeling.

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Osman, Suzanne L

2016-06-01

Two studies examined rape victim empathy based on personal rape victimization and acknowledgment labeling. Female undergraduates (Study 1, n = 267; Study 2, n = 381) from a Northeast U.S. midsize public university completed the Rape-Victim Empathy Scale and Sexual Experiences Survey. As predicted, both studies found that acknowledged "rape" victims reported greater empathy than unacknowledged victims and nonvictims. Unexpectedly, these latter two groups did not differ. Study 1 also found that acknowledged "rape" victims reported greater empathy than victims who acknowledged being "sexually victimized." Findings suggest that being raped and acknowledging "rape" together may facilitate rape victim empathy. © The Author(s) 2015.

Divergent strains of human T-lymphotropic virus type 1 (HTLV-1) within the Cosmopolitan subtype in Argentina.

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Eirin, Maria E; Dilernia, Dario A; Berini, Carolina A; Jones, Leandro R; Pando, Maria A; Biglione, Mirna M

2008-10-01

HTLV-1 Cosmopolitan subtype Transcontinental subgroup A has been described among aboriginal communities from the northwest endemic area of Argentina. Moreover, Transcontinental subgroup A and the Japanese subgroup B were reported among blood donors from the nonendemic central region of the country. We carried out the first HTLV-1 phylogenetic study in individuals residing in Buenos Aires capital city. Phylogenetic analysis performed on the LTR region showed that all 44 new strains clustered within the Cosmopolitan subtype, with 42 (95.4%) belonging to Transcontinental subgroup A. Of them, 20 (45.5%) strains grouped in the large Latin American cluster and 4 (9.1%) in the small Latin American cluster. The majority of them belonged to individuals of nonblack origin, grouped with Amerindian strains. Three (6.8%) were closely related to South African references and two monophyletic clusters including only HIV/HTLV-1 coinfected individuals were observed. Interestingly, two (4.5%) new sequences (divergent strains) branched off from all five known Cosmopolitan subgroups in a well-supported clade. In summary, these findings show that HTLV-1 Cosmopolitan subtype Transcontinental subgroup A is infecting residents of Buenos Aires, a nonendemic area of Argentina, and confirm the introduction of divergent strains in the country.

The influence of affective empathy and autism spectrum traits on empathic accuracy.

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Marije aan het Rot

Full Text Available Autism spectrum disorder is characterized by interpersonal deficits and has been associated with limited cognitive empathy, which includes perspective taking, theory of mind, and empathic accuracy (EA. The capacity for affective empathy may also be impaired. In the present study we aimed to determine if EA in normally developing individuals with varying levels of autism spectrum traits is moderated by trait affective empathy. Fifty male and fifty female participants ('perceivers' completed the Autism-Spectrum Quotient and the Balanced Emotional Empathy Scale to assess autism spectrum traits and trait affective empathy, respectively. EA was assessed using a Dutch-language version of a previously developed task and involved rating the feelings of others ('targets' verbally recounting autobiographical emotional events. Targets varied in trait emotional expressivity, assessed using the Berkeley Expressivity Questionnaire. Perceivers with more autism spectrum traits performed worse on the EA task, particularly when their trait affective empathy was relatively low. Interpersonal deficits in autism spectrum disorder may be partially explained by low cognitive empathy. Further, they might be aggravated by a limited capacity for affective empathy.

Emotion perception and empathy: An individual differences test of relations.

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Olderbak, Sally; Wilhelm, Oliver

2017-10-01

Numerous theories posit a positive relation between perceiving emotion expressed in the face of a stranger (emotion perception) and feeling or cognitively understanding the emotion of that person (affective and cognitive empathy, respectively). However, when relating individual differences in emotion perception with individual differences in affective or cognitive empathy, effect sizes are contradictory, but often not significantly different from zero. Based on 4 studies (study ns range from 97 to 486 persons; n total = 958) that differ from one another on many design and sample characteristics, applying advanced modeling techniques to control for measurement error, we estimate relations between affective empathy, cognitive empathy, and emotion perception. Relations are tested separately for each of the 6 basic emotions (an emotion-specific model) as well as across all emotions (an emotion-general model). Reflecting the literature, effect sizes and statistical significance with an emotion-general model vary across the individual studies (rs range from -.001 to .24 for emotion perception with affective empathy and -.01 to .39 for emotion perception with cognitive empathy), with a meta-analysis of these results indicating emotion perception is weakly related with affective (r = .13, p = .003) and cognitive empathy (r = .13, p = .05). Relations are not strengthened in an emotion-specific model. We argue that the weak effect sizes and inconsistency across studies reflects a neglected distinction of measurement approach-specifically, empathy is assessed as typical behavior and emotion perception is assessed as maximal effort-and conclude with considerations regarding the measurement of each construct. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Who needs empathy? A response to Goldie's arguments against empathy and suggestions for an account of mututal perspective-shifting in contexts of help and care.

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Coeckelbergh, Mark

2007-01-01

According to an influential view, empathy has, and should have, a role in ethics, but it is by no means clear what is meant by 'empathy', and why exactly it is supposed to be morally good. Recently, Peter Goldie has challenged that view. He shows how problematic empathy is, and argues that taking an

Effects of age-related differences in empathy on social economic decision-making.

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Beadle, Janelle N; Paradiso, Sergio; Kovach, Christopher; Polgreen, Linnea; Denburg, Natalie L; Tranel, Daniel

2012-05-01

The ways in which aging affects social economic decision-making is a central issue in the psychology of aging. To examine age-related differences in social economic decision-making as a function of empathy, 80 healthy volunteers participated in the Repeated Fixed Opponent Ultimatum Game (UG-R). Previous economic decision-making research has shown that in younger adults empathy is associated with prosocial behavior. The effects of empathy on older adult social economic decision-making are not well understood. On each of 20 consecutive trials in the UG-R, one player ("Proposer") splits $10 with another player ("Responder") who chooses either to accept (whereby both receive the proposed division) or reject (whereby neither receives anything). Trait cognitive and emotional empathy were measured using the Interpersonal Reactivity Index. UG-R data were examined as a function of age and cognitive empathy. For "unfair" offers (i.e. offers less than $5), older Responders with high cognitive empathy showed less prosocial behavior and obtained greater payoffs than younger Responders with high cognitive empathy. High levels of cognitive empathy may differentially affect economic decision-making behavior in younger and older adults. For older adults, high cognitive empathy may play a role in obtaining high financial payoffs while for younger adults it may instead be involved in facilitating social relationships.

Returning to the Kampung Halaman: Limitations of Cosmopolitan Transnational Aspirations Among Hakka Chinese Indonesians Overseas

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Emily Hertzman

2014-12-01

Full Text Available Migrants originating from Singkawang, West Kalimantan, Indonesia, experience limitations in their ability to engage in host societies overseas despite their hopes and fantasies of becoming cosmopolitan transnational citizens. Marginality, stemming from the lower status associated with being a migrant, as well as forms of parochialism which hinder the ability to adopt a flexible attitude to cultural difference combine and lead to a significant reimagining of those original cosmopolitan fantasies. Essentializing characterizations of “us” versus “them” reveal some of the difficulties of being received in other societies and come to constitute a recuperative discourse in which migrants can preserve a sense of self –as Hakka Chinese Indonesians –when the value of that identity is called into question. In this context, migrants experience practical limitations in translating cosmopolitan fantasies into lived realities. As a response, a romantic nostalgia for the home is constructed, which in turn provides the imaginative resources used for planning a return to the kampung halaman (Indonesian: home/home town.

The idea of university in a cosmopolitan perspective

OpenAIRE

Kemp, Peter

2012-01-01

The aim of this paper is to show why the humanities are more necessary than ever as part of the university education in our contemporary cosmopolitan age. We need the humanities if our educational institutions are to overcome the threats from narrow-minded politicians and business people to reduce education in schools and universities to simple instruction in management without guidance from the cultures of the world as expressed in art and literature, knowledge of languages, history, and phi...

Who Needs Empathy? A Response to Goldie's Arguments against Empathy and Suggestions for an Account of Mutual Perspective-Shifting in Contexts of Help and Care

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Coeckelbergh, Mark

2007-01-01

According to an influential view, empathy has, and should have, a role in ethics, but it is by no means clear what is meant by "empathy", and why exactly it is supposed to be morally good. Recently, Peter Goldie has challenged that view. He shows how problematic empathy is, and argues that taking an external perspective is morally…

Empathy beyond the head. Comment on "Music, empathy, and cultural understanding" by E. Clarke et al.

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Krueger, Joel

2015-12-01

Can art build up our capacity for empathy? Some argue that film and narrative arts-by providing nuanced case studies of characters who act for reasons-serve as cognitive tools that scaffold our imaginative, perceptual, and affective capacities and expand our empathic skillset [1,2]. There is evidence that narrative may be an effective tool for at least modest improvements in children's theory of mind development [3]; other studies suggest reading literary fiction later in life can enhance empathy and perspective-taking [4-7].

Associations of medical student empathy with clinical competence.

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Casas, Rachel S; Xuan, Ziming; Jackson, Angela H; Stanfield, Lorraine E; Harvey, Nanette C; Chen, Daniel C

2017-04-01

Empathy is a crucial skill for medical students that can be difficult to evaluate. We examined if self-reported empathy in medical students was associated with clinical competence. This study combined cross-sectional data from four consecutive years of medical students (N=590) from the Boston University School of Medicine. We used regression analysis to evaluate if self-reported empathy (Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy (JSPE)) predicted scores in clinical clerkships, United States Medical Licensing Examinations, and OBJECTIVE: Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCEs). We separately analyzed overall and OSCE communication scores based on interpersonal skills reported by standardized patients. We controlled for age, gender, debt, and specialty affinity. JSPE scores of medical students were positively associated with OSCE communication scores, and remained significant when controlling for demographics. We found that JSPE score was also predictive of overall OSCE scores, but this relationship was confounded by gender and age. JSPE scores were associated with performance in the Pediatrics clerkship, but not other clerkships or standardized tests. JSPE scores were positively associated with OSCE communication scores in medical students. This study supports that self-reported empathy may predict OSCE performance, but further research is needed to examine differences by gender and age. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Alien life matters: reflections on cosmopolitanism, otherness, and astrobiology

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Andre Novoa

2016-03-01

Full Text Available This is a synaptic paper that invites the reader to take a stroll on the edges of cross-disciplinary knowledge. We will walk the roads of anthropology, history, philosophy, astronomy and biology. It is mainly a theoretical article, where I attempt to provide links between authors and theories that were, at first sight, unrelated. In doing so, this paper is aimed at making one controversial claim: ideologically and politically speaking, cosmopolitanism may never fully transcend itself beyond a debate until and unless humankind encounters alien life forms. The argument is based on a simple equation. Despite all the quarrels and debates around the concept, it seems innocuous to assume that cosmopolitanism is the search for a certain universal identity or, at least, a search for a common culturalia, i.e. the cultural grounds wherein local and global senses of universalism come into being (section 2. In spite of the fact that identities are built in opposition and supported by difference (section 3, cosmopolitanism might only be possible as a political project (cosmopolitics when humankind is faced with life forms that are capable of providing true Otherness. I believe that this may explain why we have been fascinated by the utopias of extra-terrestrials for many centuries now (section 4. These utopias are present in a diverse array of knowledges, ranging from science to art, literature or even religion. They have been around for at least 500 years. Until now, all of them have been trapped in the realm of imagination, but there is one concrete cluster of knowledge that has attempted to transpose these imaginings into reality: the promising discipline of astrobiology. Astrobiology is mainly troubled by the de-naturalisation of Earth in order to create analogues for the study of life elsewhere in the cosmos. Provocatively, I end up this paper stating that this may well be the most cosmopolitical practice available to us (section 5.

Nurses Empathy and Family Needs in the Intensive Care Units

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Sima Moghaddasian

2013-08-01

Full Text Available Introduction: The patients’ families in intensive care units (ICUs experience excessive stress which may disrupt their performance in daily life. Empathy is basic to the nursing role and has been found to be associated with improved patient outcomes and greater satisfaction with care in patient and his/her family. However, few studies have investigated the nursing empathy with ICU patients. This study aimed to assess nursing empathy and its relationship with the needs, from the perspective of families of patients in ICU.Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 418 subjects were selected among families of patients admitted to ICUs in Tabriz, Iran, by convenience sampling, from May to August 2012. Data were collected through Barrett-Lennard Relationship inventory (BLRI empathy scale and Critical Care Family Needs Intervention (CCFNI inventories and were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistical tests. Results: Findings showed that most of the nurses had high level of empathy to the patients (38.8%. There was also statistically significant relationship between nurses’ empathy and needs of patients’ families (p < 0.001. Conclusion: In this study we found that by increasing the nurse’s empathy skills, we would be able to improve providing family needs. Through empathic communication, nurses can encourage family members to participate in planning for the care of their patients. However, further studies are necessary to confirm the results.

Empathy for Carnivores

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2013-05-23

this section. It helps to identify and remove cognitive biases and unseen assumptions. THEORETICAL TIES TO EMPATHY We had been hopelessly labouring ...attempts to gauge the satisfaction of future circumstances and their sustainability in light of the anticipated future system as a whole. In simulating his

Heartfelt Empathy? No Association between Interoceptive Awareness, Questionnaire Measures of Empathy, Reading the Mind in the Eyes test or the Director Task.

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Vivien eAinley

2015-05-01

Full Text Available Interoception, defined as afferent information arising from within the body, is the basis of all emotional experience and underpins the ‘self’. However, people vary in the extent to which interoceptive signals reach awareness. This trait modulates both their experience of emotion and their ability to distinguish ‘self’ from ‘other’ in multisensory contexts. The experience of emotion and the degree of self/other distinction or overlap are similarly fundamental to empathy, which is an umbrella term comprising affect sharing, empathic concern and perspective-taking. A link has therefore often been assumed between interoceptive awareness and empathy despite a lack of clear evidence. To test the hypothesis that individual differences in both traits should correlate, we measured interoceptive awareness in four experiments, using a well-validated heartbeat perception task, and compared this with scores on several tests that relate to various aspects of empathy. We firstly measured scores on the Index of Interpersonal Reactivity and secondly on the Questionnaire of Cognitive and Affective Empathy. Thirdly, because the ‘simulationist’ account assumes that affect sharing is involved in recognising emotion, we employed the ‘Reading the Mind in the Eyes Task’ for the recognition of facial expressions. Contrary to expectation, we found no significant relationships between interoceptive awareness and any aspect of these measures. This striking lack of direct links has important consequences for hypotheses about the extent to which empathy is necessarily embodied. Finally, to assess cognitive perspective-taking ability, which specifically requires self/other distinction, we used the ‘Director Task’ but found no relationship. We conclude that the abilities that make up empathy are potentially related to interoceptive awareness in a variety of conflicting ways, such that a direct association between interoceptive awareness and various

The Profile and Empathy Level of Helping Professionals

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Ma. Lulu L. Loyola

2016-08-01

Full Text Available This study looked into the demographic profile and empathy level of helping professionals enrolled at West Visayas State University, College of Education, Graduate School taking up Master of Education (M.Ed. major in Guidance and Counseling and Doctor of Philosophy in Education (Ph.D. in Ed. major in Psychology and Guidance. Results showed that the participants taking graduate education in the field of teacher education, psychology, guidance and counseling were generally female, younger and are actively teaching. Majority were beginners in the Ph.D. program. Except for the category on sex where females had significantly higher empathy level than males, all the participants had an average level of empathy. However, looking at their individual mean scores, it appeared that the older respondents, married, are teaching and are finishing their degrees had higher mean. These results seem to imply that the females, those with more experience, married, in the field of teaching, and have more training had higher levels of empathy.

Feeling our way into empathy: Carl rogers, Heinz Kohut, and Jesus.

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Goodman, G

1991-09-01

Throughout their academic careers Carl Rogers and Heinz Kohut developed two contrasting definitions of empathy that influenced the ways in which both men sought to help their clients cope with emotional suffering. These two different understandings of empathy are contrasted to each other and finally compared with the understanding of empathy demonstrated in the teachings and actions of Jesus. It is hoped that through studying these ancient religious narratives we might be able to recover a deeper meaning of empathy.

Examining the Permanence of the Effect of an Empathy Program for the Acquisition of Empathy Skills on Gifted Adolescents

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Nedim Bal, Pervin

2015-01-01

This study aimed to examine the permanence of the effect of an Empathy Training Program, administered 8 months ago on gifted adolescents studying in 6th and 7th grades. The sample of this study consisted of 60 students with IQ scores of above 130 and studied in Enderun Gifted Children Center. Bryant's Empathy Scale for Children was administered to…

Empathy, burnout, demographic variables and their relationships in oncology nurses

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Fariba Taleghani

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Introduction: Development of nurse–patient empathic communication in the oncology ward is of great importance for the patients to relieve their psychological stress, however, nursing care of cancer patients is accompanied with high stress and burnout. The present study aimed to define the level of empathy and its association with burnout and some demographic characteristics of oncology nurses. Materials and Methods: This descriptive/correlation study was conducted in a professional cancer treatment center in Isfahan. Through census sampling, 67 oncology nurses were selected. The data collection tools were Jefferson Scale of Nursing Empathy, Maslach Burnout Inventory, and demographic characteristics questionnaire. Results: Mean nurses' empathy and overall burnout scores were 62.28 out of 100 and 38.8 out of 100, respectively. Score of empathy showed an inverse correlation with overall burnout score (r = −0.189, P = 0.04, depersonalization (r = −0.218, P = 0.02, and personal accomplishment (r = −0.265, P = 0.01. Multiple regression test was used to detect which dimension of burnout was a better predictor for the reduction of empathy score. Results showed that the best predictors were lack of personal accomplishment (P = 0.02, depersonalization (P = 0.04, and emotional exhaustion (P = 0.14, respectively. The most influential demographic factor on empathy was work experience (r = 0.304, P = 0.004. One-way analysis of variance showed that official staff had a higher empathy score (f = 2.39, P = 0.045 and their burnout was lower (f = 2.56, P = 0.04. Conclusions: Results showed a negative relationship between empathy and burnout in oncology nurses. Therefore, nursing support from managers to reduce burnout increases empathic behavior of nurses.

Empathy, Burnout, Demographic Variables and their Relationships in Oncology Nurses.

Science.gov (United States)

Taleghani, Fariba; Ashouri, Elaheh; Saburi, Morteza

2017-01-01

Development of nurse-patient empathic communication in the oncology ward is of great importance for the patients to relieve their psychological stress, however, nursing care of cancer patients is accompanied with high stress and burnout. The present study aimed to define the level of empathy and its association with burnout and some demographic characteristics of oncology nurses. This descriptive/correlation study was conducted in a professional cancer treatment center in Isfahan. Through census sampling, 67 oncology nurses were selected. The data collection tools were Jefferson Scale of Nursing Empathy, Maslach Burnout Inventory, and demographic characteristics questionnaire. Mean nurses' empathy and overall burnout scores were 62.28 out of 100 and 38.8 out of 100, respectively. Score of empathy showed an inverse correlation with overall burnout score ( r = -0.189, P = 0.04), depersonalization ( r = -0.218, P = 0.02), and personal accomplishment ( r = -0.265, P = 0.01). Multiple regression test was used to detect which dimension of burnout was a better predictor for the reduction of empathy score. Results showed that the best predictors were lack of personal accomplishment ( P = 0.02), depersonalization ( P = 0.04), and emotional exhaustion ( P = 0.14), respectively. The most influential demographic factor on empathy was work experience ( r = 0.304, P = 0.004). One-way analysis of variance showed that official staff had a higher empathy score ( f = 2.39, P = 0.045) and their burnout was lower ( f = 2.56, P = 0.04). Results showed a negative relationship between empathy and burnout in oncology nurses. Therefore, nursing support from managers to reduce burnout increases empathic behavior of nurses.

Empathy, Burnout, Demographic Variables and their Relationships in Oncology Nurses

Science.gov (United States)

Taleghani, Fariba; Ashouri, Elaheh; Saburi, Morteza

2017-01-01

Introduction: Development of nurse–patient empathic communication in the oncology ward is of great importance for the patients to relieve their psychological stress, however, nursing care of cancer patients is accompanied with high stress and burnout. The present study aimed to define the level of empathy and its association with burnout and some demographic characteristics of oncology nurses. Materials and Methods: This descriptive/correlation study was conducted in a professional cancer treatment center in Isfahan. Through census sampling, 67 oncology nurses were selected. The data collection tools were Jefferson Scale of Nursing Empathy, Maslach Burnout Inventory, and demographic characteristics questionnaire. Results: Mean nurses’ empathy and overall burnout scores were 62.28 out of 100 and 38.8 out of 100, respectively. Score of empathy showed an inverse correlation with overall burnout score (r = −0.189, P = 0.04), depersonalization (r = −0.218, P = 0.02), and personal accomplishment (r = −0.265, P = 0.01). Multiple regression test was used to detect which dimension of burnout was a better predictor for the reduction of empathy score. Results showed that the best predictors were lack of personal accomplishment (P = 0.02), depersonalization (P = 0.04), and emotional exhaustion (P = 0.14), respectively. The most influential demographic factor on empathy was work experience (r = 0.304, P = 0.004). One-way analysis of variance showed that official staff had a higher empathy score (f = 2.39, P = 0.045) and their burnout was lower (f = 2.56, P = 0.04). Conclusions: Results showed a negative relationship between empathy and burnout in oncology nurses. Therefore, nursing support from managers to reduce burnout increases empathic behavior of nurses. PMID:28382057

Mirror neuron system involvement in empathy: a critical look at the evidence.

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Baird, Amee D; Scheffer, Ingrid E; Wilson, Sarah J

2011-01-01

It has been proposed that the human mirror neuron system (MNS) plays an integral role in mediating empathy. In this review, we critically examine evidence from three bodies of research that have been cited as supporting this notion: (1) behavioral studies that have examined the relationship between imitation and empathy, (2) findings from functional neuroimaging studies that report a positive correlation between MNS activation and self-report on an empathy questionnaire, and (3) observations of impaired imitation and empathy in autism spectrum disorders (ASD). In addition, we briefly review lesion studies of the neural correlates of imitation and empathy. Current evidence suggests that the MNS is broadly involved in empathy, but at this stage there has been limited consideration of its various forms, including motor, emotional, and cognitive empathy. There are also various forms of imitation, encompassing emotional and non-emotional, automatic, and voluntary actions. We propose that the relationship between imitation and empathy may vary depending on the specific type of each of these abilities. Furthermore, these abilities may be mediated by partially distinct neural networks, which involve the MNS to a variable degree.

The interaction between embodiment and empathy in facial expression recognition.

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Jospe, Karine; Flöel, Agnes; Lavidor, Michal

2018-02-01

Previous research has demonstrated that the Action-Observation Network (AON) is involved in both emotional-embodiment (empathy) and action-embodiment mechanisms. In this study, we hypothesized that interfering with the AON will impair action recognition and that this impairment will be modulated by empathy levels. In Experiment 1 (n = 90), participants were asked to recognize facial expressions while their facial motion was restricted. In Experiment 2 (n = 50), we interfered with the AON by applying transcranial Direct Current Stimulation to the motor cortex. In both experiments, we found that interfering with the AON impaired the performance of participants with high empathy levels; however, for the first time, we demonstrated that the interference enhanced the performance of participants with low empathy. This novel finding suggests that the embodiment module may be flexible, and that it can be enhanced in individuals with low empathy by simple manipulation of motor activation.

Effects of Age-related Differences in Empathy on Social Economic Decision-Making

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Beadle, Janelle N.; Paradiso, Sergio; Kovach, Christopher; Polgreen, Linnea; Denburg, Natalie; Tranel, Daniel

2012-01-01

Background The ways in which aging affects social economic decision-making is a central issue in the psychology of aging. To examine age-related differences in social economic decision-making as a function of empathy, 80 healthy volunteers participated in the Repeated Fixed Opponent Ultimatum Game (UG-R). Previous economic decision making research has shown that in younger adults empathy is associated with prosocial behavior. The effects of empathy on older adult social economic decision-making are not well understood. Methods On each of 20 consecutive trials in the UG-R, one player (“Proposer”) splits ten dollars with another player (“Responder”) who chooses either to accept (whereby both receive the proposed division) or reject (whereby neither receives anything). Trait cognitive and emotional empathy were measured using the Interpersonal Reactivity Index. Results UG-R data were examined as a function of age and cognitive empathy. For unfair offers (i.e., offers less than $5), older Responders with high cognitive empathy showed less prosocial behavior and obtained greater payoffs than younger Responders with high cognitive empathy. Conclusions High levels of cognitive empathy may differentially affect economic decision making behavior in younger and older adults. For older adults, high cognitive empathy may be involved in obtaining high financial payoffs while for younger adults it may instead facilitate social relationships. PMID:22237008

Bullying involvement and empathy: Child and target characteristics

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Noorden, T.H.J. van; Cillessen, A.H.N.; Haselager, G.J.T.; Lansu, T.A.M.; Bukowski, W.M.

2017-01-01

This study investigated how the bullying involvement of a child and a target peer are related to empathy. The role of gender was also considered. We hypothesized that empathy primarily varies depending on the bullying role of the target peer. Participants were 264 7-12-year-old children

A Quantitative Study of Empathy in Pakistani Medical Students: A Multicentered Approach.

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Tariq, Nabia; Rasheed, Tariq; Tavakol, Mohsen

2017-10-01

To examine the empathy level of undergraduate medical students in Pakistan. Three hypotheses are developed based on the literature review. (1) Female medical students have a higher level of empathy than do male students. (2) Empathy scores vary during the medical school years in Pakistani students. (3) Medical students interested in people-oriented specialties would score higher than the students interested in technology-oriented specialties. This is a quantitative inquiry approach using a cross-sectional design of 1453 students from 8 Pakistani medical schools, both private and state. The sample consists of 41.1% (n = 597) male students and 58.9% (n = 856) female students. Empirical data are collected using the Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy (JSPE), a well-validated self-administered questionnaire. The mean empathy score among students is 4.77 with a standard deviation of 0.72. The results show that there is no statistically significant association between the empathy scores and gender, t(1342.36) = -0.053, P = .95). There is a statistically significant difference between the empathy scores and the years of medical school, F(14, 1448) = 4.95, P = .01. Concerning the specialty interests, there is no statistically significant difference between the empathy score and specialty interests. The findings of this study showed that in Western countries, medical students performed better than Pakistani medical students on the empathy scale. This finding has important implications for Pakistani medical educators to improve the interpersonal skills of medical students in the context of patient care. Inconsistent with our expectations and experiences, our findings do not support that female medical students scored better than their male counterparts on the empathy scale. Because of the nature of a cross-sectional study, it is impossible to argue the decline of empathy during medical school training.

Empathy and the Internet: Positive Potentials vs. Risks

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Tatjana Milivojević

2015-09-01

Full Text Available Internet enables the exchange of information with incredible speed, allowing at the same time users to share their feelings, thoughts and opinions. This exchange that can be carried out virally spreading the interest about people and events that transcends our geographical and social horizons, represents a civilizational progress when it’s not recognized just as technological progress, but also as an increasing process of humanization of man and society. Empathy, which was once reserved for the narrowest community, can now be expanded globally. This optimistic view, however, doesn’t take under consideration that human capacity for empathy isn't limitless. Perceptual, cognitive, and emotional overload can lead to saturation and desensitization or dissociation where there is apperception of others, but without any emotional involvement. The paradox of empathy lays within its possibility of being used as a means of control and manipulation: it’s then a pure mimicry of empathy. It can serve a better acquaintance, rapprochement and understanding of other people and cultures, or, on the contrary, non-relations such as impersonation, inauthentic communication, and ultimately online harassment. Therefore, the possibility that Internet gives us to be connected to others is less important than the personal attitude that each individual has towards it and to others via the network. Internet isn't empathic by itself, but it can help one’s basic empathy, which is developing in vivid interpersonal contacts in the real world, to expand to the remote and sensory unobservable others. In this article we’ll analyze the empathic potential of social networks, as well as their features that can narrow or even shut down empathy.

The left amygdala: A shared substrate of alexithymia and empathy.

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Goerlich-Dobre, Katharina Sophia; Lamm, Claus; Pripfl, Juergen; Habel, Ute; Votinov, Mikhail

2015-11-15

Alexithymia, a deficit in emotional self-awareness, and deficits in empathy, which encompasses the awareness of other's emotions, are related constructs that are both associated with a range of psychopathological disorders. Neuroimaging studies suggest that there is overlap between the neural bases of alexithymia and empathy, but no systematic comparison has been conducted so far. The aim of this structural magnetic resonance imaging study was to disentangle the overlap and differences between the morphological profiles of the cognitive and affective dimensions of alexithymia and empathy, and to find out to what extent these differ between women and men. High-resolution T1 anatomical images were obtained from 125 healthy right-handers (18-42 years), 70 women and 55 men. By means of voxel-based morphometry, region of interest (ROI) analyses were performed on gray matter volumes of several anatomically defined a-priori regions previously linked to alexithymia and empathy. Partial correlations were conducted within the female and male group using ROI parameter estimates as dependent variables and the cognitive and affective dimensions of alexithymia and empathy, respectively, as predictors, controlling for age. Results were considered significant if they survived Holm-Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons. The left amygdala was identified as a key substrate of both alexithymia and empathy. This association was characterized by an opposite pattern: The cognitive alexithymia dimension was linked to smaller, the two empathy dimensions to larger left amygdala volume. While sex-specific effects were not observed for empathy, they were evident for the affective alexithymia dimension: Men-but not women-with difficulty fantasizing had smaller gray matter volume in the middle cingulate cortex. Moreover, structural covariance patterns between the left amygdala and other emotion-related brain regions differed markedly between alexithymia and empathy. These differences

The idea of university in a cosmopolitan perspective

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Peter Kemp

2012-05-01

Full Text Available The aim of this paper is to show why the humanities are more necessary than ever as part of the university education in our contemporary cosmopolitan age. We need the humanities if our educational institutions are to overcome the threats from narrow-minded politicians and business people to reduce education in schools and universities to simple instruction in management without guidance from the cultures of the world as expressed in art and literature, knowledge of languages, history, and philosophy.

Cosmopolitan cities: The frontier in the 21st century?

OpenAIRE

A. Timur Sevincer; Shinobu eKitayama; Michael E. W. Varnum

2015-01-01

People with independent (vs. interdependent) social orientation place greater priority on personal success, autonomy, and novel experiences over maintaining ties to their communities of origin. Accordingly, an independent orientation should be linked to a motivational proclivity to move to places that offer economic opportunities, freedom, and diversity. Such places are cities that can be called cosmopolitan. In support of this hypothesis, Study 1 found that independently oriented young adult...

Cosmopolitan cities: the frontier in the twenty-first century?

OpenAIRE

Sevincer, A. Timur; Kitayama, Shinobu; Varnum, Michael E. W.

2015-01-01

People with independent (vs. interdependent) social orientation place greater priority on personal success, autonomy, and novel experiences over maintaining ties to their communities of origin. Accordingly, an independent orientation should be linked to a motivational proclivity to move to places that offer economic opportunities, freedom, and diversity. Such places are cities that can be called “cosmopolitan.” In support of this hypothesis, Study 1 found that independently oriented young adu...

Feeling cybervictims' pain-The effect of empathy training on cyberbullying.

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Schultze-Krumbholz, Anja; Schultze, Martin; Zagorscak, Pavle; Wölfer, Ralf; Scheithauer, Herbert

2016-01-01

As the world's population increasingly relies on the use of modern technology, cyberbullying becomes an omnipresent risk for children and adolescents and demands counteraction to prevent negative (online) experiences. The classroom-based German preventive intervention "Medienhelden" (engl.: "Media Heroes") builds on previous knowledge about links between cognitive empathy, affective empathy, and cyberbullying, among others. For an evaluation study, longitudinal data were available from 722 high school students aged 11-17 years (M = 13.36, SD = 1.00, 51.8% female) before and six months after the implementation of the program. A 10-week version and a 1-day version were conducted and compared with a control group (controlled pre-long-term-follow-up study). Schools were asked to randomly assign their participating classes to the intervention conditions. Multi-group structural equation modeling (SEM) showed a significant effect of the short intervention on cognitive empathy and significant effects of the long intervention on affective empathy and cyberbullying reduction. The results suggest the long-term intervention to be more effective in reducing cyberbullying and promoting affective empathy. Without any intervention, cyberbullying increased and affective empathy decreased across the study period. Empathy change was not generally directly linked to change in cyberbullying behavior. "Media Heroes" provides effective teaching materials and empowers schools to address the important topic of cyberbullying in classroom settings without costly support from the outside. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Alexithymia and empathy predict changes in autonomic arousal during affective stimulation.

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Bogdanov, Volodymyr B; Bogdanova, Olena V; Gorlov, Dmytro S; Gorgo, Yuriy P; Dirckx, Joris J J; Makarchuk, Mykola Y; Schoenen, Jean; Critchley, Hugo

2013-09-01

Alexithymia, the inability to describe one's own emotions, is linked to deficits in empathy, manifesting as a diminished capacity to recognize or understand the emotions and mental states of others. Several brain centers of autonomic control and interoception that are activated in empathy are thought to misfunction in alexithymia. We hypothesized that individual differences in autonomic changes under affective stimulation might be associated with differences in alexithymia and empathy. We studied 21 healthy volunteers, comparing their alexithymia and empathy scores with changes in their sympathetic autonomic arousal, indexed by the palmar skin potential level, during 3 tasks: playing a computer game, performing mental arithmetic, and watching a negative emotional valence video. Both autonomic and subjective sense of arousal increased at the beginning of each task and then gradually subsided over the course of the task. Higher autonomic arousal at the onset of the computer game was associated with higher empathy scores, and at the onset of the negative video with higher scores for both empathy and alexithymia. Alexithymia delayed the habituation of autonomic arousal during the computer game, while the empathy score was related to a faster decline in arousal during the negative video task. High alexithymia and high empathy scores were linked to increased autonomic arousal at the onset of emotional stimulation, but were distinguishable in the rates of habituation of the evoked arousal. Our data provide insight into the relationships among interacting psychological traits, physiologic regulation, and the arousal dimension of emotional experience.

Mediating Effects of Patients' Stigma and Self-Efficacy on Relationships Between Doctors' Empathy Abilities and Patients' Cellular Immunity in Male Breast Cancer Patients.

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Yang, Ningxi; Cao, Yingnan; Li, Xiaoyan; Li, Shiyue; Yan, Hong; Geng, Qingshan

2018-06-12

BACKGROUND Doctors' empathy is closely related to patients' health. This study aimed to examine whether patients' stigma and self-efficacy play a mediating role in the relationship between doctors' empathy abilities and patients' cellular immunity in male patients with breast cancer. MATERIAL AND METHODS Doctors' empathy scores and patients' demographic data, disease condition, stigma, and self-efficacy were measured. Patient T cell subset was tested at admission and 3 months after the operation and was compared by paired t test. The multivariate linear regression model was applied to analyze the factors influencing the immune index. Pearson correlation analysis and structural equation modeling were applied to explore the relationships among patients' stigma, self-efficacy, and cellular immunity and doctors' empathy abilities. RESULTS At the 2 time points, only the change in NK subset was statistically significant, while the changes in percentage of CD3+, CD4+, CD8+, and B cells were not statistically significant. The doctors' empathy abilities were negatively correlated with patients' stigma and were positively related to patients' self-efficacy. Patients' stigma was negatively related to NK subset, while self-efficacy was positively associated with NK subset. Patients' stigma and self-efficacy played a mediating role in the relationship between doctors' empathy abilities and patients' NK subset, and stigma had a stronger effect than self-efficacy. CONCLUSIONS Doctors' empathy abilities affected breast cancer patients' NK subset through their stigma and self-efficacy. The mental health of male breast cancer patients need more attention and empathy education needs to be improved.

Neural activity related to cognitive and emotional empathy in post-traumatic stress disorder.

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Mazza, Monica; Tempesta, Daniela; Pino, Maria Chiara; Nigri, Anna; Catalucci, Alessia; Guadagni, Veronica; Gallucci, Massimo; Iaria, Giuseppe; Ferrara, Michele

2015-04-01

The aim of this study is to evaluate the empathic ability and its functional brain correlates in post-traumatic stress disorder subjects (PTSD). Seven PTSD subjects and ten healthy controls, all present in the L'Aquila area during the earthquake of the April 2009, underwent fMRI during which they performed a modified version of the Multifaceted Empathy Test. PTSD patients showed impairments in implicit and explicit emotional empathy, but not in cognitive empathy. Brain responses during cognitive empathy showed an increased activation in patients compared to controls in the right medial frontal gyrus and the left inferior frontal gyrus. During implicit emotional empathy responses patients with PTSD, compared to controls, exhibited greater neural activity in the left pallidum and right insula; instead the control group showed an increased activation in right inferior frontal gyrus. Finally, in the explicit emotional empathy responses the PTSD group showed a reduced neural activity in the left insula and the left inferior frontal gyrus. The behavioral deficit limited to the emotional empathy dimension, accompanied by different patterns of activation in empathy related brain structures, represent a first piece of evidence of a dissociation between emotional and cognitive empathy in PTSD patients. The present findings support the idea that empathy is a multidimensional process, with different facets depending on distinct anatomical substrates. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Doing methodological cosmopolitanism in a mobile world

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Tyfield, David; Blok, Anders

2016-01-01

A decade of mobilities research has responded to the key question of how a ‘world on the move’ can and should be studied, including in terms of futures thereby brought into view and possibly shaped into being. What happens, however, if we shift our focus from the ‘world on the move’ to the ‘world...... imperatives, specifically regarding dynamic, interactive and power-attentive forms of social knowledge-making or phronesis, a situated practical wisdom. We illustrate these points in brief with insights from our own methodologically cosmopolitan research on key contemporary cosmopolitized issues, undertaken...

Performance-based empathy mediates the influence of working memory on social competence in schizophrenia.

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Smith, Matthew J; Horan, William P; Cobia, Derin J; Karpouzian, Tatiana M; Fox, Jaclyn M; Reilly, James L; Breiter, Hans C

2014-07-01

Empathic deficits have been linked to poor functioning in schizophrenia, but this work is mostly limited to self-report data. This study examined whether performance-based empathy measures account for incremental variance in social competence and social attainment above and beyond self-reported empathy, neurocognition, and clinical symptoms. Given the importance of working memory in theoretical models of empathy and in the prediction of functioning in schizophrenia, we also examined whether empathy mediates the relationship between working memory and functioning. Sixty outpatients and 45 healthy controls were compared on performance-based measures of 3 key components of empathic responding, including facial affect perception, emotional empathy (affective responsiveness), and cognitive empathy (emotional perspective-taking). Participants also completed measures of self-reported empathy, neurocognition, clinical symptoms, and social competence and attainment. Patients demonstrated lower accuracy than controls across the 3 performance-based empathy measures. Among patients, these measures showed minimal relations to self-reported empathy but significantly correlated with working memory and other neurocognitive functions as well as symptom levels. Furthermore, cognitive empathy explained significant incremental variance in social competence (∆R (2) = .07, P working memory and social competence. Performance-based measures of empathy were sensitive to functionally relevant disturbances in schizophrenia. Working memory deficits appear to have an important effect on these disruptions in empathy. Empathy is emerging as a promising new area for social cognitive research and for novel recovery-oriented treatment development. © The Author 2013. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Mitigating Psychological Reactance: The Role of Message-Induced Empathy in Persuasion

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Shen, Lijiang

2010-01-01

This article examines the role of message-induced state empathy in persuasion. Message-induced empathy is conceptualized as a perception-action process that consists of affective, cognitive, and associative components. Twenty professionally produced public service announcements (PSAs) were used as stimuli messages in a 2 (high vs. low empathy) x 2…

Empathic concern and professional characteristics associated with clinical empathy in French general practitioners.

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Lelorain, Sophie; Sultan, Serge; Zenasni, Franck; Catu-Pinault, Annie; Jaury, Philippe; Boujut, Emilie; Rigal, Laurent

2013-03-01

Clinical empathy, i.e. the ability of physicians to adopt patient perspective, is an essential component of care, which depends in part on empathic concern, i.e. compassionate emotions felt for others. However, too much empathic concern can be challenging for physicians. Aim of this study was to examine physician practice characteristics that could explain clinical empathy beyond empathic concern. We were also interested in testing whether professional reflective activities, such as Balint group attendance or clinical supervision, might make clinical empathy less dependent on empathic concern. A total of 295 French general practitioners (response rate of 37%) completed self-reported questionnaires on empathic concern and clinical empathy, using the Toronto empathy questionnaire (TEQ) and the Jefferson scale of physician empathy (JSPE), respectively. We also recorded information on their professional practice: professional experience, duration of consultations, and participation in Balint groups or being a clinical supervisor. Hierarchical regression analyses were carried out with clinical empathy as dependent variable. Empathic concern was an important component of clinical empathy variance. The physician practice characteristics 'consultation length' and 'being a Balint attendee or a supervisor,' but not 'clinical experience' made a significant and unique contribution to clinical empathy beyond that of empathic concern. Participating to one reflective activity (either Balint group attendance or clinical supervision) made clinical empathy less dependent on empathic concern. Working conditions such as having enough consultation time and having the opportunity to attend a professional reflective activity support the maintenance of clinical empathy without the burden of too much empathic concern.

Clinical practice and self-awareness as determinants of empathy in undergraduate education: a qualitative short survey at three medical schools in Germany.

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Ahrweiler, Florian; Scheffer, Christian; Roling, Gudrun; Goldblatt, Hadass; Hahn, Eckhart G; Neumann, Melanie

2014-01-01

Physician empathy constitutes an outcome-relevant aim of medical education. Yet, the factors promoting and inhibiting physician empathy have not yet been extensively researched, especially in Germany. In this study, we explored German medical students' views of the factors promoting and inhibiting their empathy and how their experiences were related to their curricula. A qualitative short survey was conducted at three medical schools: Bochum University, the University of Cologne and Witten/Herdecke University. Students were invited to complete an anonymous written questionnaire comprised of open-ended questions inquiring about the educational content of and situations during their medical education that positively or negatively impacted their empathy. Data were analyzed through qualitative content analysis according to the methods of Green and Thorogood. A total of 115 students participated in the survey. Respondents reported that practice-based education involving patient contact and teaching with reference to clinical practice and the patient's perspective improved their empathy, while a lack of these inhibited it. Students' internal reactions to patients, such as liking or disliking a patient, prejudice and other attitudes, were also considered to influence their empathy. Although each of the three schools takes a different approach to teaching interpersonal skills, no relevant differences were found in their students' responses concerning the possible determinants of empathy. Providing more training in practice and more contact with patients may be effective ways of promoting student empathy. Students need support in establishing therapeutic relationships with patients and in dealing with their own feelings and attitudes. Such support could be provided in the form of reflective practice training in order to promote self-awareness. More research is needed to evaluate these hypothetical conclusions.

Nostalgia and the New Cosmopolitan: Literary and Artistic Interventions in the City of Casablanca

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Katarzyna Pieprzak

2009-01-01

Full Text Available In the past ten years, groups of local artists, architects, writers and activists have become concerned not only with the changing material conditions of Casablanca, but also with the city’s memory. This essay is concerned with two projects that reveal how nostalgic modes of recollection expose and limit geographies of cosmopolitan identity in the city. The first project, a collection of twelve booklets written by prominent novelists and poets with well-known photographers, is entitled Casablanca, fragments d’imaginaire . This collection argues that nostalgia and phantasm are key organizing concepts through which the city should be recollected, claiming that these modes of representation produce multiple, plural and heterogeneous forms and imaginations that allow the “soul” of the city to emerge. The second project is a participatory urban archeology art project started by the art collective La Source du lion . The collective practices a non-nostalgic curation of memory that moves cosmopolitanism in the city beyond a historical category into a contemporary practice and ethos. Read comparatively, these projects shed light on two post-colonial generations of writers and artists, their claims to the colonial past, identity politics about cosmopolitanism in the present, and struggles over cultural capital for the future.

Genetic characterization of four native Italian shepherd dog breeds and analysis of their relationship to cosmopolitan dog breeds using microsatellite markers

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bigi, D.; Marelli, S. P.; Randi, Ettore

2015-01-01

-defined cosmopolitan dog breeds. As the Border Collie seems closer to the Italian breeds than the other cosmopolitan shepherd dogs considered here, a possible utilization of this breed to improve working performance in Italian traditional working shepherd dogs cannot be ignored. The data and information found here can...

Empathy, Projection and Negation in Seven Countries.

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Alexander, Ralph A.; And Others

This report describes an experimental study designed to manipulate and test cross-cultural similarities and differences in interpersonal perception despite the increasingly cosmopolitan nature of people from all cultures, greater frequency of social, business, educational and governmental contact among people from different countries, and the…

Impact of a narrative medicine programme on healthcare providers' empathy scores over time.

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Chen, Po-Jui; Huang, Chien-Da; Yeh, San-Jou

2017-07-05

The cultivation of empathy for healthcare providers is an important issue in medical education. Narrative medicine (NM) has been shown to foster empathy. To our knowledge, there has been no research that examines whether a NM programme affects multi-professional healthcare providers' empathy. Our study aims to fill this gap by investigating whether a NM programme effects multi-professional healthcare providers' empathy. A pre-post questionnaire method was used.142 participants (n = 122 females) who attended the NM programme were divided into single (n = 58) and team groups (n = 84) on the basis of inter-professional education during a period of 2 months. Perceptions of the NM programme were collected using our developed questionnaire. Empathy levels were measured using the Chinese version of Jefferson Scale of Empathy - Healthcare Providers Version (JSE-HP) - at three time points: prior to (Time 1), immediately after (T2), and 1.5 years (T3) after the programme. Participants' perceptions about the NM programme (n = 116; n = 96 females) suggested an in enhancement of empathy (90.5%). Empathy scores via the JSE-HP increased after the NM programme (T1 mean 111.05, T2 mean 116.19) and were sustainable for 1.5 years (T3 mean 116.04) for all participants (F(2297) = 3.74, p empathy scores was found (F(1298) = 5.33, p empathy scores at T2, sustaining at T3, but males demonstrating a slow rise in empathy scores over time. NM programme as an educational tool for empathy is feasible. However, further research is needed to examine gender difference as it might be that males and females respond differently to a NM programme intervention.

The Future of Empathy: Teaching the Millennial Generation

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Dolby, Nadine

2014-01-01

Recent research points to a 40% decline in college students' capacity for empathy over the past 4 decades (Konrath, O'Brien, & Hsing, 2011). In this article, the author reflects on undergraduates' reaction to the case study "Toys for Haiti," which the author created and designed to foster empathy in her students. She…

Cultural influences on neural basis of intergroup empathy.

Science.gov (United States)

Cheon, Bobby K; Im, Dong-Mi; Harada, Tokiko; Kim, Ji-Sook; Mathur, Vani A; Scimeca, Jason M; Parrish, Todd B; Park, Hyun Wook; Chiao, Joan Y

2011-07-15

Cultures vary in the extent to which people prefer social hierarchical or egalitarian relations between individuals and groups. Here we examined the effect of cultural variation in preference for social hierarchy on the neural basis of intergroup empathy. Using cross-cultural neuroimaging, we measured neural responses while Korean and American participants observed scenes of racial ingroup and outgroup members in emotional pain. Compared to Caucasian-American participants, Korean participants reported experiencing greater empathy and elicited stronger activity in the left temporo-parietal junction (L-TPJ), a region previously associated with mental state inference, for ingroup compared to outgroup members. Furthermore, preferential reactivity within this region to the pain of ingroup relative to outgroup members was associated with greater preference for social hierarchy and ingroup biases in empathy. Together, these results suggest that cultural variation in preference for social hierarchy leads to cultural variation in ingroup-preferences in empathy, due to increased engagement of brain regions associated with representing and inferring the mental states of others. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

L’imagination et les biais de l’empathie

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Morgane Paris

2010-05-01

Full Text Available Empathy is an emotional mode associating the point of view of other people to physiological sensations. This phenomena tends to be more significant with certain people than others. And yet, there are sometimes good moral reasons to promote a more egalitarian empathy. Our hypo- thesis of moral psychology is that it is possible to use imagination – and in particular its volon- tary dimension and its openness to emotions – to modify certain empathic biaises.RÉSUMÉL'empathie est un mode émotionnel qui associe le point de vue d'autrui à des sensations phy- siologiques. Ce phénomène a tendance à être plus important envers certaines personnes qu'en- vers d'autres. Or, il existe parfois de bonnes raisons morales de promouvoir une empathie plus égalitaire. Notre hypothèse de psychologie morale est qu'il est possible d'utiliser l'imagination, et en particulier sa dimension volontaire et sa transparence aux émotions, pour corriger certains biais empathiques.

Perspective-Taking and Empathy Mitigate Family-of-Origin Risk for Electronic Aggression Perpetration Toward Dating Partners: A Brief Report.

Science.gov (United States)

Ramos, Michelle C; Miller, Kelly F; Moss, Ilana K; Margolin, Gayla

2017-12-01

Electronic dating aggression among emerging adults is prevalent and has adverse consequences, yet factors that increase or decrease the risk for perpetrating electronic aggression against a romantic partner are understudied. This investigation advances the literature in two novel ways. First, based on intergenerational transmission of violence theories, we tested the link between family-of-origin aggression (FOA) history and electronic aggression toward romantic partners, using a diverse sample of emerging adults. Second, we examined whether perspective-taking and empathy each moderated the association between FOA and electronic dating aggression and explored the moderating role of gender. Participants included 359 undergraduate students (50% female; 42% White) from an urban university. Results indicated that greater FOA during childhood was associated with perpetrating greater electronic aggression against romantic partners. Furthermore, significant interactions indicated that perspective-taking and empathy separately buffered these associations. Youth from aggressive families did not exhibit increased electronic dating perpetration when they had higher perspective-taking or empathy. Males were especially sensitive to the protective effects of perspective-taking. Findings highlight potential points of intervention (i.e., cognitive and affective empathy training) to decrease electronic aggression in romantic relationships and break intergenerational cycles of aggression.

MDMA enhances emotional empathy and prosocial behavior

Science.gov (United States)

Hysek, Cédric M.; Schmid, Yasmin; Simmler, Linda D.; Domes, Gregor; Heinrichs, Markus; Eisenegger, Christoph; Preller, Katrin H.; Quednow, Boris B.

2014-01-01

3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA, ‘ecstasy’) releases serotonin and norepinephrine. MDMA is reported to produce empathogenic and prosocial feelings. It is unknown whether MDMA in fact alters empathic concern and prosocial behavior. We investigated the acute effects of MDMA using the Multifaceted Empathy Test (MET), dynamic Face Emotion Recognition Task (FERT) and Social Value Orientation (SVO) test. We also assessed effects of MDMA on plasma levels of hormones involved in social behavior using a placebo-controlled, double-blind, random-order, cross-over design in 32 healthy volunteers (16 women). MDMA enhanced explicit and implicit emotional empathy in the MET and increased prosocial behavior in the SVO test in men. MDMA did not alter cognitive empathy in the MET but impaired the identification of negative emotions, including fearful, angry and sad faces, in the FERT, particularly in women. MDMA increased plasma levels of cortisol and prolactin, which are markers of serotonergic and noradrenergic activity, and of oxytocin, which has been associated with prosocial behavior. In summary, MDMA sex-specifically altered the recognition of emotions, emotional empathy and prosociality. These effects likely enhance sociability when MDMA is used recreationally and may be useful when MDMA is administered in conjunction with psychotherapy in patients with social dysfunction or post-traumatic stress disorder. PMID:24097374

Physician empathy: Definition, outcome-relevance and its measurement in patient care and medical education [Ärztliche Empathie: Definition, Outcome-Relevanz und Messung in der Patientenversorgung und medizinischen Ausbildung

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Neumann, Melanie

2012-02-01

Full Text Available [english] Objective: The present study gives a brief introduction into FurthermoreThe latter topic will be explored in detail as we conducted a pilot study on the German versions of two self-assessment instruments of empathy, which are mostly used in medical education research, namely the “Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy, Student Version” (JSPE-S and the “Interpersonal Reactivity Index” (IRI.Methods: We first present an overview of the current empirical and theoretical literature on the definition and outcome-relevance of PE. Additionally, we conducted basic psychometric analyses of the German versions of the JSPE-S and the IRI. Data for this analyses is based on a cross-sectional pilot-survey in N=44 medical students and N=63 students of other disciplines from the University of Cologne. Results: PE includes the of the patient as well as verbal and non-verbal , which should result in a helpful therapeutic action of the physician. Patients’ health outcomes in different healthcare settings can be improved considerably from a high quality empathic encounter with their clinician. Basic psychometric results of the German JSPE-S and IRI measures show first promising results.Conclusion: PE as an essential and outcome-relevant element in the patient-physician relationship requires more consideration in the education of medical students and, thus, in medical education research. The German versions of the JSPE-S and IRI measures seem to be promising means to evaluate these education aims and to conduct medical education research on empathy.[german] Ziel: Die vorliegende Studie gibt einen kurzen Überblick Des Weiteren werden Letzteres Thema wird ausführlich behandelt, da eine Pilotstudie zur Testung zwei deutscher Versionen von Selbsteinschätzungsinstrumenten durchgeführt wurde, die derzeit am häufigsten in der internationalen Medizinischen Ausbildungsforschung genutzt werden. Dazu gehören die “Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy

Empathy Inhibits Aggression in Competition: The Role of Provocation, Emotion, and Gender.

Science.gov (United States)

Stanger, Nicholas; Kavussanu, Maria; McIntyre, David; Ring, Christopher

2016-02-01

Although the empathy-aggression relationship has been well documented, research has yet to establish whether emotions mediate and gender moderates this relationship in athletes, under conditions of low and high provocation. In this experiment, we assigned team-sport athletes to either a high (n = 40) or a low (n = 40) empathy group, and asked them to compete in a reaction-time task against a (fictitious) opponent, under conditions of low and high provocation. Empathy reduced aggression (i.e., intensity of electrical shock administered to the opponent) at low provocation in men, and at both low and high provocation in women. Guilt mediated the effect of empathy on aggression at low provocation in men; anger did not mediate any effects of empathy on aggression. Our findings indicate that the inhibitory effect of empathy on aggression and the mediating role of guilt are moderated by provocation and gender.

Effectiveness of empathy in general practice: a systematic review

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Derksen, F.; Bensing, J.; Lagro-Janssen, A.

2013-01-01

BACKGROUND: Empathy as a characteristic of patient-physician communication in both general practice and clinical care is considered to be the backbone of the patient-physician relationship. Although the value of empathy is seldom debated, its effectiveness is little discussed in general practice.

Effectiveness of empathy in general practice: a systematic review.

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Derksen, F.; Bensing, J.; Lagro-Janssen, A.

2013-01-01

Background: Empathy as a characteristic of patient-physician communication in both general practice and clinical care is considered to be the backbone of the patient-physician relationship. Although the value of empathy is seldom debated, its effectiveness is little discussed in general practice.

Role of Genetic and Environmental Factors in the Development of Empathy

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Yudina T.O.,

2017-08-01

Full Text Available The paper provides a review of studies on factors influencing empathy development in early childhood and on conditions promoting manifestation of empathy in children later in life. The outcomes of several studies shed light on the character of empathic response at early stages of child development, particularly in infancy and toddlerhood. This review covers research on the role of biological factors and mechanisms in empathy development (for instance, features of temperament and neuronal bases, as well as research on the relationship between genetic and environmental factors in the development of empathy in ontogenesis. Another part of the paper describes studies on the role of social conditions in the development of empathy in childhood: it focuses primarily on family relations and, in particular, on the mother/child relationship. The paper concludes with several suggestions concerning further research of the specified problem.

The Relationship Between Empathy and Reading Fiction: Separate Roles for Cognitive and Affective Components

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John Stansfield

2014-07-01

Full Text Available Research suggests that both life-time experience of reading fiction and the extent to which a reader feels ‘transported’ by the narrative are associated with empathy. This study examined these relationships further by delineating empathy into cognitive and affective components. Thirty-three participants were tested on prior exposure to fiction, transportation, and different measures of cognitive empathy, affective empathy and helping tendency. The results revealed that exposure to fiction was associated with trait cognitive, but not affective, empathy, while the experience of being transported was associated with story-induced affective empathy. Story-induced affective empathy was also associated with helping tendency. The results are discussed by considering implications for relationships between reactions to fictional worlds and reactions to real-world behaviours.

Uncommon Commonalities: Cosmopolitan Ethics as a Framework for Music Education Policy Analysis

Science.gov (United States)

Richerme, Lauren Kapalka

2016-01-01

Contemporary American education policy rhetoric is problematic because its authors' assertions, particularly those about the goals of education, frequently conflict with their implied moral and/or ethical commitments. This philosophical policy analysis uses Appiah's cosmopolitan principles to examine the ethical implications of current education…

Historical biogeography of two cosmopolitan families of flowering plants: Annonaceae and Rhamnaceae

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Richardson, J.E.; Chatrou, L.W.; Mols, J.B.; Erkens, R.H.J.; Pirie, M.D.

2004-01-01

Annonaceae are a pantropically distributed family found predominantly in rainforests, so they are megathermal taxa, whereas Rhamnaceae are a cosmopolitan family that tend to be found in xeric regions and may be classified as mesothermal. Phylogenetic analyses of these families are presented based on

Impact of an Aging Simulation Game on Pharmacy Students' Empathy for Older Adults.

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Aleda M H; Kiersma, Mary E; Yehle, Karen S; Plake, Kimberly S

2015-06-25

To evaluate changes in empathy and perceptions as well as game experiences among student pharmacists participating in an aging simulation game. First-year student pharmacists participated in an aging simulation game. Changes were measured pre/post-activity using the Kiersma-Chen Empathy Scale (KCES) and Jefferson Scale of Empathy--Health Professions Scale (JSE-HPS) for empathy and the Aging Simulation Experience Survey (ASES) for perceptions of older adults' experiences and game experiences. Wilcoxon signed rank tests were used to determine changes. One hundred fifty-six student pharmacists completed the instruments. Empathy using the KCES and JSE-HPS improved significantly. Of the 13 items in the ASES, 9 significantly improved. Simulation games may help students overcome challenges demonstrating empathy and positive attitudes toward elderly patients.

Evaluating The Role Of Empathy In Crowdsourcing User Interfaces

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Khan, J.V.; Dey, D.; Buchina, N.

2016-01-01

Empathy induced altruism is believed to motivate people in a crowdsourcing environment to produce better quality work. However, there hasn’t been any considerable investigation regarding how empathy can be effectively conveyed through user interfaces (UI). We conducted a study to find the effects of

A developmental perspective on the neural bases of human empathy.

Science.gov (United States)

Tousignant, Béatrice; Eugène, Fanny; Jackson, Philip L

2017-08-01

While empathy has been widely studied in philosophical and psychological literatures, recent advances in social neuroscience have shed light on the neural correlates of this complex interpersonal phenomenon. In this review, we provide an overview of brain imaging studies that have investigated the neural substrates of human empathy. Based on existing models of the functional architecture of empathy, we review evidence of the neural underpinnings of each main component, as well as their development from infancy. Although early precursors of affective sharing and self-other distinction appear to be present from birth, recent findings also suggest that even higher-order components of empathy such as perspective-taking and emotion regulation demonstrate signs of development during infancy. This merging of developmental and social neuroscience literature thus supports the view that ontogenic development of empathy is rooted in early infancy, well before the emergence of verbal abilities. With age, the refinement of top-down mechanisms may foster more appropriate empathic responses, thus promoting greater altruistic motivation and prosocial behaviors. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Clinical practice and self-awareness as determinants of empathy in undergraduate education: A qualitative short survey at three medical schools in Germany

Science.gov (United States)

Ahrweiler, Florian; Scheffer, Christian; Roling, Gudrun; Goldblatt, Hadass; Hahn, Eckhart G.; Neumann, Melanie

2014-01-01

Study aim: Physician empathy constitutes an outcome-relevant aim of medical education. Yet, the factors promoting and inhibiting physician empathy have not yet been extensively researched, especially in Germany. In this study, we explored German medical students’ views of the factors promoting and inhibiting their empathy and how their experiences were related to their curricula. Methods: A qualitative short survey was conducted at three medical schools: Bochum University, the University of Cologne and Witten/Herdecke University. Students were invited to complete an anonymous written questionnaire comprised of open-ended questions inquiring about the educational content of and situations during their medical education that positively or negatively impacted their empathy. Data were analyzed through qualitative content analysis according to the methods of Green and Thorogood. Results: A total of 115 students participated in the survey. Respondents reported that practice-based education involving patient contact and teaching with reference to clinical practice and the patient’s perspective improved their empathy, while a lack of these inhibited it. Students’ internal reactions to patients, such as liking or disliking a patient, prejudice and other attitudes, were also considered to influence their empathy. Although each of the three schools takes a different approach to teaching interpersonal skills, no relevant differences were found in their students’ responses concerning the possible determinants of empathy. Conclusion: Providing more training in practice and more contact with patients may be effective ways of promoting student empathy. Students need support in establishing therapeutic relationships with patients and in dealing with their own feelings and attitudes. Such support could be provided in the form of reflective practice training in order to promote self-awareness. More research is needed to evaluate these hypothetical conclusions. PMID:25489346

Clinical practice and self-awareness as determinants of empathy in undergraduate education: A qualitative short survey at three medical schools in Germany

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ahrweiler, Florian

2014-11-01

Full Text Available [english] Study aim: Physician empathy constitutes an outcome-relevant aim of medical education. Yet, the factors promoting and inhibiting physician empathy have not yet been extensively researched, especially in Germany. In this study, we explored German medical students’ views of the factors promoting and inhibiting their empathy and how their experiences were related to their curricula. Methods: A qualitative short survey was conducted at three medical schools: Bochum University, the University of Cologne and Witten/Herdecke University. Students were invited to complete an anonymous written questionnaire comprised of open-ended questions inquiring about the educational content of and situations during their medical education that positively or negatively impacted their empathy. Data were analyzed through qualitative content analysis according to the methods of Green and Thorogood. Results: A total of 115 students participated in the survey. Respondents reported that practice-based education involving patient contact and teaching with reference to clinical practice and the patient’s perspective improved their empathy, while a lack of these inhibited it. Students’ internal reactions to patients, such as liking or disliking a patient, prejudice and other attitudes, were also considered to influence their empathy. Although each of the three schools takes a different approach to teaching interpersonal skills, no relevant differences were found in their students’ responses concerning the possible determinants of empathy. Conclusion: Providing more training in practice and more contact with patients may be effective ways of promoting student empathy. Students need support in establishing therapeutic relationships with patients and in dealing with their own feelings and attitudes. Such support could be provided in the form of reflective practice training in order to promote self-awareness. More research is needed to evaluate these

Cognitive and Emotional Empathy in Alcohol-Dependent Patients (ADs): a Review of the Literature

OpenAIRE

Dethier, Marie; Douws, Laetitia; Blairy, Sylvie

2011-01-01

The purpose of this article is to assert the current state of the scientific literature on the issues regarding empathy in alcohol-dependents patients (ADs). We will first explain what the term « empathy » covers and the distinction made between cognitive and emotional empathy. We will describe then the different studies that got interested in the capacities for empathy in ADs patients. These studies concern predominantly one precise aspect of cognitive empathy: the capacity to infer an emoti...

Impact of an Aging Simulation Game on Pharmacy Students’ Empathy for Older Adults

Science.gov (United States)

Kiersma, Mary E.; Yehle, Karen S.; Plake, Kimberly S.

2015-01-01

Objective. To evaluate changes in empathy and perceptions as well as game experiences among student pharmacists participating in an aging simulation game. Methods. First-year student pharmacists participated in an aging simulation game. Changes were measured pre/post-activity using the Kiersma-Chen Empathy Scale (KCES) and Jefferson Scale of Empathy – Health Professions Scale (JSE-HPS) for empathy and the Aging Simulation Experience Survey (ASES) for perceptions of older adults’ experiences and game experiences. Wilcoxon signed rank tests were used to determine changes. Results. One hundred fifty-six student pharmacists completed the instruments. Empathy using the KCES and JSE-HPS improved significantly. Of the 13 items in the ASES, 9 significantly improved. Conclusion. Simulation games may help students overcome challenges demonstrating empathy and positive attitudes toward elderly patients. PMID:26396274

Theory of Mind and Empathy in Children With ADHD.

Science.gov (United States)

Maoz, Hagai; Gvirts, Hila Z; Sheffer, Maya; Bloch, Yuval

2017-05-01

The current study compared empathy and theory of mind (ToM) between children with ADHD and healthy controls, and assessed changes in ToM among children with ADHD following administration of methylphenidate (MPH). Twenty-four children with ADHD (mean age = 10.3 years) were compared with 36 healthy controls. All children completed the interpersonal reactivity index (IRI), a self-reported empathy questionnaire, and performed the "faux-pas" recognition task (FPR). Children with ADHD performed the task with and without MPH. Children with ADHD showed significantly lower levels of self-reported empathy on most IRI subscales. FPR scores were significantly lower in children with ADHD and were improved, following the administration of MPH, to a level equal to that found in healthy controls. Children with ADHD show impaired self-reported empathy and FPR when compared with healthy controls. Stimulants improve FPR in children with ADHD to a level equal to that in healthy controls.

Why contagious yawning does not (yet) equate to empathy.

Science.gov (United States)

Massen, Jorg J M; Gallup, Andrew C

2017-09-01

Various studies and researchers have proposed a link between contagious yawning and empathy, yet the conceptual basis for the proposed connection is not clear and deserves critical evaluation. Therefore, we systematically examined the available empirical evidence addressing this association; i.e., a critical review of studies on inter-individual differences in contagion and self-reported values of empathy, differences in contagion based on familiarity or sex, and differences in contagion among individuals with psychological disorders, as well as developmental research, and brain imaging and neurophysiological studies. In doing so, we reveal a pattern of inconsistent and inconclusive evidence regarding the connection between contagious yawning and empathy. Furthermore, we identify study limitations and confounding variables, such as visual attention and social inhibition. Future research examining links between contagious yawning and empathy requires more rigorous investigation involving objective measurements to explicitly test for this connection. Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Neuronal correlates of theory of mind and empathy: a functional magnetic resonance imaging study in a nonverbal task.

Science.gov (United States)

Völlm, Birgit A; Taylor, Alexander N W; Richardson, Paul; Corcoran, Rhiannon; Stirling, John; McKie, Shane; Deakin, John F W; Elliott, Rebecca

2006-01-01

Theory of Mind (ToM), the ability to attribute mental states to others, and empathy, the ability to infer emotional experiences, are important processes in social cognition. Brain imaging studies in healthy subjects have described a brain system involving medial prefrontal cortex, superior temporal sulcus and temporal pole in ToM processing. Studies investigating networks associated with empathic responding also suggest involvement of temporal and frontal lobe regions. In this fMRI study, we used a cartoon task derived from Sarfati et al. (1997) [Sarfati, Y., Hardy-Bayle, M.C., Besche, C., Widlocher, D. 1997. Attribution of intentions to others in people with schizophrenia: a non-verbal exploration with comic strips. Schizophrenia Research 25, 199-209.]with both ToM and empathy stimuli in order to allow comparison of brain activations in these two processes. Results of 13 right-handed, healthy, male volunteers were included. Functional images were acquired using a 1.5 T Phillips Gyroscan. Our results confirmed that ToM and empathy stimuli are associated with overlapping but distinct neuronal networks. Common areas of activation included the medial prefrontal cortex, temporoparietal junction and temporal poles. Compared to the empathy condition, ToM stimuli revealed increased activations in lateral orbitofrontal cortex, middle frontal gyrus, cuneus and superior temporal gyrus. Empathy, on the other hand, was associated with enhanced activations of paracingulate, anterior and posterior cingulate and amygdala. We therefore suggest that ToM and empathy both rely on networks associated with making inferences about mental states of others. However, empathic responding requires the additional recruitment of networks involved in emotional processing. These results have implications for our understanding of disorders characterized by impairments of social cognition, such as autism and psychopathy.

Are Empathy and Compassion Bad for the Professional Social Worker?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Peter Nilsson

2014-11-01

Full Text Available Recent studies have shown that social workers and other professional helpers who work with traumatized individuals run a risk of developing compassion fatigue or secondary traumatic stress. Some researchers have hypothesized that helpers do this as a result of feeling too much empathy or too much compassion for their clients, thereby implying that empathy and compassion may be bad for the professional social worker. This paper investigates these hypotheses. Based on a review of current research about empathy and compassion it is argued that these states are not the causes of compassion fatigue. Hence, it is argued that empathy and compassion are not bad for the professional social worker in the sense that too much of one or the other will lead to compassion fatigue.

Functions of personal and vicarious life stories: Identity and empathy

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Lind, Majse; Thomsen, Dorthe Kirkegaard

2018-01-01

The present study investigates functions of personal and vicarious life stories focusing on identity and empathy. Two-hundred-and-forty Danish high school students completed two life story questionnaires: One for their personal life story and one for a close other’s life story. In both...... questionnaires, they identified up to 10 chapters and self-rated the chapters on valence and valence of causal connections. In addition, they completed measures of identity disturbance and empathy. More positive personal life stories were related to lower identity disturbance and higher empathy. Vicarious life...... stories showed a similar pattern with respect to identity but surprisingly were unrelated to empathy. In addition, we found positive correlations between personal and vicarious life stories for number of chapters, chapter valence, and valence of causal connections. The study indicates that both personal...

MDMA enhances emotional empathy and prosocial behavior.

Science.gov (United States)

Hysek, Cédric M; Schmid, Yasmin; Simmler, Linda D; Domes, Gregor; Heinrichs, Markus; Eisenegger, Christoph; Preller, Katrin H; Quednow, Boris B; Liechti, Matthias E

2014-11-01

3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA, 'ecstasy') releases serotonin and norepinephrine. MDMA is reported to produce empathogenic and prosocial feelings. It is unknown whether MDMA in fact alters empathic concern and prosocial behavior. We investigated the acute effects of MDMA using the Multifaceted Empathy Test (MET), dynamic Face Emotion Recognition Task (FERT) and Social Value Orientation (SVO) test. We also assessed effects of MDMA on plasma levels of hormones involved in social behavior using a placebo-controlled, double-blind, random-order, cross-over design in 32 healthy volunteers (16 women). MDMA enhanced explicit and implicit emotional empathy in the MET and increased prosocial behavior in the SVO test in men. MDMA did not alter cognitive empathy in the MET but impaired the identification of negative emotions, including fearful, angry and sad faces, in the FERT, particularly in women. MDMA increased plasma levels of cortisol and prolactin, which are markers of serotonergic and noradrenergic activity, and of oxytocin, which has been associated with prosocial behavior. In summary, MDMA sex-specifically altered the recognition of emotions, emotional empathy and prosociality. These effects likely enhance sociability when MDMA is used recreationally and may be useful when MDMA is administered in conjunction with psychotherapy in patients with social dysfunction or post-traumatic stress disorder. © The Author (2013). Published by Oxford University Press. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Examining empathy and its association with aggression in young ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Objective: In a context of disturbing rates of violent crime, this pilot study initiated examination of the association between empathy and aggressive behaviour in young Western Cape children. Establishing which empathy measures are appropriate for our context was a primary concern. Method: To capture various aspects of ...

A technology enhanced course for communication incorporating empathy

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tosh Yamamoto

2013-09-01

Full Text Available This paper aims at the dissemination of a new course design, which reports and shares our experience of designing a new course to meet the new needs in the society. The higher education has been focusing on developing students’ logical thinking or reasoning skills through debate, believing that such skills would make the students succeed in the society after graduation. However, from the view point of resilience in the society after a natural disaster, which usually demolishes the fundamental infrastructure as well as human bonding through trust, the communication with empathy to build trust seems to play a more important role than the skill to debate. Is there any way to incorporate such advanced communication skill with empathy in the higher education responding to the current needs from the society before the students become members of the society? Kansai University has developed a new experimental course for advanced communication with empathy to be implemented in the general education enhanced with ICT. This paper reports Kansai University’s successful problem-solving process and endeavor in the curriculum development for the communication with empathy.

Measurement and correlates of empathy among female Japanese physicians

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Kataoka Hitomi U

2012-06-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background The measurement of empathy is important in the assessment of physician competence and patient outcomes. The prevailing view is that female physicians have higher empathy scores compared with male physicians. In Japan, the number of female physicians has increased rapidly in the past ten years. In this study, we focused on female Japanese physicians and addressed factors that were associated with their empathic engagement in patient care. Methods The Jefferson Scale of Empathy (JSE was translated into Japanese by using the back-translation procedure, and was administered to 285 female Japanese physicians. We designed this study to examine the psychometrics of the JSE and group differences among female Japanese physicians. Results The item-total score correlations of the JSE were all positive and statistically significant, ranging from .20 to .54, with a median of .41. The Cronbach’s coefficient alpha was .81. Female physicians who were practicing in “people-oriented” specialties obtained a significantly higher mean empathy score than their counterparts in “procedure-” or “technology-oriented” specialties. In addition, physicians who reported living with their parents in an extended family or living close to their parents, scored higher on the JSE than those who were living alone or in a nuclear family. Conclusions Our results provide support for the measurement property and reliability of the JSE in a sample of female Japanese physicians. The observed group differences associated with specialties and living arrangement may have implications for sustaining empathy. In addition, recognizing these factors that reinforce physicians’ empathy may help physicians to avoid career burnout.

Does empathy have a cost? Diverging psychological and physiological effects within families.

Science.gov (United States)

Manczak, Erika M; DeLongis, Anita; Chen, Edith

2016-03-01

Parental empathy is associated with a host of beneficial psychosocial outcomes for children. However, less is known about the effects of being empathic for parents. The current study tested the hypothesis that, although parental empathy may be beneficial to children both psychologically and physiologically, it may take a physiological toll on parents. The current study examined psychological and physiological correlates of parental empathy in 247 parent-adolescent dyads. During a baseline laboratory visit, parents and adolescents provide blood samples from which markers of systemic inflammation, including interleukin 1-ra, interleukin 6, and C-reactive protein, were assayed. Parents completed self-report questionnaires of empathy, well-being, and self-esteem, and also reported on their child's emotion regulation. Following the laboratory visit, adolescents completed 2 weeks of daily diary reporting on their emotion regulation abilities. In adolescents, parental empathy was significantly associated with both better emotion regulation and with less systemic inflammation. For parents, being empathic was associated with greater self-esteem and purpose in life, but also with higher systemic inflammation. These findings reinforce the importance of simultaneously considering both psychological and physical health-related effects of psychosocial traits and suggests that empathy may have diverging effects across providers and recipients of empathy. (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

Impact of Patient Empathy Modeling on Pharmacy Students Caring for the Underserved

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Judy T.; LaLopa, Joseph

2008-01-01

Objective To determine the impact of the Patient Empathy Modeling pedagogy on students' empathy towards caring for the underserved during an advanced pharmacy practice experience (APPE). Design Pharmacy students completing an APPE at 2 primary care clinics participated in a Patient Empathy Modeling assignment for 10 days. Each student “became the patient,” simulating the life of an actual patient with multiple chronic diseases who was coping with an economic, cultural, or communication barrier to optimal healthcare. Students completed the Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy (JSPE) before and after completing the assignment, and wrote daily journal entries and a reflection paper. Assessment Twenty-six students completed the PEM exercises from 2005-2006. Scores on the JSPE improved. Students' comments in journals and reflection papers revealed 3 major themes: greater appreciation of the difficulty patients have with adherence to medication and treatment regimens, increased empathy for patients from different backgrounds and patients with medical and psychosocial challenges, and improved ability to apply the lessons learned in the course to their patient care roles. Conclusion A Patient Empathy Modeling assignment improved pharmacy students' empathy toward underserved populations. Integrating the assignment within an APPE allowed students to immediately begin applying the knowledge and insight gained from the exercise. PMID:18483606

The role of empathy in experiencing vicarious anxiety.

Science.gov (United States)

Shu, Jocelyn; Hassell, Samuel; Weber, Jochen; Ochsner, Kevin N; Mobbs, Dean

2017-08-01

With depictions of others facing threats common in the media, the experience of vicarious anxiety may be prevalent in the general population. However, the phenomenon of vicarious anxiety-the experience of anxiety in response to observing others expressing anxiety-and the interpersonal mechanisms underlying it have not been fully investigated in prior research. In 4 studies, we investigate the role of empathy in experiencing vicarious anxiety, using film clips depicting target victims facing threats. In Studies 1 and 2, trait emotional empathy was associated with greater self-reported anxiety when observing target victims, and with perceiving greater anxiety to be experienced by the targets. Study 3 extended these findings by demonstrating that trait empathic concern-the tendency to feel concern and compassion for others-was associated with experiencing vicarious anxiety, whereas trait personal distress-the tendency to experience distress in stressful situations-was not. Study 4 manipulated state empathy to establish a causal relationship between empathy and experience of vicarious anxiety. Participants who took an empathic perspective when observing target victims, as compared to those who took an objective perspective using reappraisal-based strategies, reported experiencing greater anxiety, risk-aversion, and sleep disruption the following night. These results highlight the impact of one's social environment on experiencing anxiety, particularly for those who are highly empathic. In addition, these findings have implications for extending basic models of anxiety to incorporate interpersonal processes, understanding the role of empathy in social learning, and potential applications for therapeutic contexts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Empathy Examined From Perspectives of Neuroscience and Artistic Imagination.

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Franklin, Michael A; Grossenbacher, Peter G

2016-01-01

This response to Ian E. Wickramasekera II's article, Mysteries of Hypnosis and the Self Are Revealed by the Psychology and Neuroscience of Empathy, is addressed from a joint perspective on consciousness comprising two related orientations: neuroscience and artistic imagination. We find that the central importance of empathy to empathic involvement theory (Wickramasekera II, 2015) reflects the pivotal nature of empathy in the brain and in the relational exchange implicit in the psychotherapeutic process, particularly when using art in therapy. We offer a preliminary unpacking of the roles related to key psychological processes, such as imagination, that are implicated in clinical uses of verbal and visual empathic resonance.

Student-centered tutoring as a model for patient-centeredness and empathy.

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Meirovich, Adaya; Ber, Rosalie; Moore, Michael; Rotschild, Avi

2016-01-01

Curriculum planners and medical teachers attempt to enhance medical students' empathy and patient-centeredness. Despite educational efforts, there is stability in medical students' empathy and patient-centered medicine during the preclinical stage and a decline in both of them throughout the clinical years. Student-tutor relationship plays a key role in students' learning. This study tests the effect of learner-centered tutoring on students' empathy, patient-centeredness, and behavior. The cohort of 55 students was divided into groups of seven or eight. The experimental group's tutors underwent LC mentoring. Empathy was assessed with the Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy for Students; PC attitude was assessed with the Patient-Provider Orientation Scale (PPOS). Behavior was assessed by simulations of doctor-patient encounters with 32 students at the end of the third year. Each student participated in three such simulations, during which we analyzed ten aspects of physician-patient communication via Roter interaction analysis system (RIAS)-coded audiotapes. A significant group difference was found for three RIAS categories: building a relationship and patient-centeredness, where the mean percentage of the experimental group was significantly higher than that of the control group, and gathering data, where the mean percentage of the experimental group was significantly lower than that of the control group. A significant correlation was found in the experimental group between empathy and positive talk and between PPOS and three of the RIAS categories: gathering data, psychosocial talk, and patient-centeredness. A significant negative correlation was found in the experimental group between PPOS and two of the RIAS categories: negative talk and doctor-centeredness. Two significant negative correlations were found in the control group: between empathy and patient-centeredness and PPOS and negative talk. The LC approach supports two of the RIAS categories, corresponding

Cosmopolitanism and foreign policy for health: ethics for and beyond the state.

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Lencucha, Raphael

2013-07-08

Foreign policy holds great potential to improve the health of a global citizenship. Our contemporary political order is, in part, characterized by sovereign states acting either in opposition or cooperation with other sovereign states. This order is also characterized by transnational efforts to address transnational issues such as those featured so prominently in the area of global health, such as the spread of infectious disease, health worker migration and the movement of health-harming products. These two features of the current order understandably create tension for truly global initiatives. National security has become the dominant ethical frame underlying the health-based foreign policy of many states, despite the transnational nature of many contemporary health challenges. This ethical approach engages global health as a means to achieving national security objectives. Implicit in this ethical frame is the version of humanity that dichotomizes between "us" and "them". What has been left out of this discourse, for the most part, is the role that foreign policy can play in extending the responsibility of states to protect and promote health of the other, for the sake of the other. The principal purpose of this paper is to review arguments for a cosmopolitan ethics of health-based foreign policy. I will argue that health-based foreign policy that is motivated by security interests is lacking both morally and practically to further global health goals. In other words, a cosmopolitan ethic is not only intrinsically superior as a moral ideal, but also has potential to contribute to utilitarian ends. This paper draws on the cosmopolitanism literature to build robust support for foreign policies that contribute to sustainable systems of global health governance.

Empathy: The Charismatic Chimera.

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Macarov, David

1978-01-01

Three major meanings of "empathy" are discussed with reference to the widespread imprecision in its use. It is suggested that undifferentiated use of the term in social work education is dangerous, particularly in view of the positive valence associated with being empathetic. (Author/BH)

Empathy: Implications of Three Ways of Knowing in Counseling

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Clark, Arthur J.

2004-01-01

From a humanistic orientation, Carl Rogers (1964) described 3 ways of knowing with reference to empathic understanding: subjective, interpersonal, and objective. In the context of a threefold perspective of knowledge, the author expands on Rogers's conception of empathy. As a consequence of a conceptual change in the direction of empathy,…

Is empathy necessary to comprehend the emotional faces? The empathic effect on attentional mechanisms (eye movements), cortical correlates (N200 event-related potentials) and facial behaviour (electromyography) in face processing.

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Balconi, Michela; Canavesio, Ylenia

2016-01-01

The present research explored the effect of social empathy on processing emotional facial expressions. Previous evidence suggested a close relationship between emotional empathy and both the ability to detect facial emotions and the attentional mechanisms involved. A multi-measure approach was adopted: we investigated the association between trait empathy (Balanced Emotional Empathy Scale) and individuals' performance (response times; RTs), attentional mechanisms (eye movements; number and duration of fixations), correlates of cortical activation (event-related potential (ERP) N200 component), and facial responsiveness (facial zygomatic and corrugator activity). Trait empathy was found to affect face detection performance (reduced RTs), attentional processes (more scanning eye movements in specific areas of interest), ERP salience effect (increased N200 amplitude), and electromyographic activity (more facial responses). A second important result was the demonstration of strong, direct correlations among these measures. We suggest that empathy may function as a social facilitator of the processes underlying the detection of facial emotion, and a general "facial response effect" is proposed to explain these results. We assumed that empathy influences cognitive and the facial responsiveness, such that empathic individuals are more skilful in processing facial emotion.

Affective and cognitive empathy in adolescents with autism spectrum disorder

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Monica eMazza

2014-10-01

Full Text Available The broad construct of empathy incorporates both cognitive and affective dimensions. Recent evidence suggests that the subjects with Autistic Spectrum disorder (ASD show a significant impairment in empathic ability. The aim of this study was to evaluate the cognitive and affective components of empathy in adolescents with ASD compared to controls. Fifteen adolescents with ASD and fifteen controls underwent paper and pencil measures and a computerized Multifaceted Empathy Test. All measures were divided into Mentalizing and Experience sharing abilities. Adolescents with ASD compared to controls showed deficits in all mentalizing measures: they were incapable of interpreting and understanding the mental and emotional states of other people. Instead, in the sharing experience measures, the adolescents with ASD were able to empathize with the emotional experience of other people when they express emotions with positive valence, but were not able to do so when the emotional valence is negative. These results were confirmed by the computerized task. In conclusion, our results suggest that adolescents with ASD show a difficulty in cognitive empathy, whereas the deficit in affective empathy is specific for the negative emotional valence.

Emotional reactions in moral decision-making are influenced by empathy and alexithymia.

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Cecchetto, Cinzia; Korb, Sebastian; Rumiati, Raffaella Ida; Aiello, Marilena

2018-04-01

The role of emotional processes in driving moral choices remains debated. In particular, diminished emotional processing and reduced empathy have been associated with unusual high rates of utilitarian responses in moral judgments while, to date, the effects of diminished emotional processing and empathy on moral decision-making have been only partially considered. In this study, we investigated the influence of empathy and alexithymia on behavior and emotional responses while participants performed a moral decision task. Self-report (valence and arousal ratings) and physiological (skin conductance and heart rate) measures were collected during the task. Results showed that empathy and alexithymia shaped emotional reactions to moral decisions but did not bias moral choices. The more empathic the participants, the more dilemmas were perceived as unpleasant and arousing, and the greater the increase in skin conductance. Conversely, alexithymia was characterized by a reduced physiological activation during moral decisions, but normal self-report ratings. Heart rate was not modulated by empathy or alexithymia. These results add new evidence to the field of moral decision showing that empathy and alexithymia modulate emotional reactions to moral decision.

Factorial structure and convergent and discriminant validity of the E (Empathy) scale.

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Tran, Ulrich S; Laireiter, Anton-Rupert; Schmitt, David P; Neuner, Christine; Leibetseder, Max; Szente-Voracek, Sara Leyla; Voracek, Martin

2013-10-01

The Empathy (E) scale has been proposed as a theoretically and psychometrically more satisfying alternative to existing self-report measures of empathy. Its four scales (facets) cover both components (cognitive vs. emotional) and both reality statuses (fictitious vs. real-life) of empathy in pairwise combinations. Confirmatory factor analyses of the E-scale in an Austrian community sample (N = 794) suggested that one prior assumption, namely the mutual orthogonality of these facets, may partly need revision; particularly, the E-scale facets seemed to reflect more strongly differences in the reality statuses than in the components of empathy. Utilizing numerous informative psychological traits, the scale's convergent and discriminant validity were examined. E-scale scores were consistently predicted by sex-related and relationship-related constructs and measures of antisocial attitudes and behavior. Among the Big Five personality dimensions, openness emerged as a major positive correlate of empathy. Sex and age were demographic correlates of E-scale scores (higher in women and the younger). Findings were discussed with regards to the definition and measurement of empathy.

Becoming a science teacher: moving toward creolized science and an ethic of cosmopolitanism

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Seiler, Gale

2011-03-01

Although communities and schools in North America are increasingly diverse and positioned in a global web, schools continue to adhere to Western norms and the teacher workforce remains largely White, continuing an ideology of collective sameness and conformity. Hybridization of teacher identity and of science teaching are suggested as ways to advance an ethic of solidarity through difference (cosmopolitanism) with science teaching as its vehicle. In this paper, I explore identity hybridization among non-dominant science teachers as they merge identity narratives, or who they are around science and science teaching, with who they are out-of-school. Our attention is focused on their experiences of dis-identification with science in terms of diaspora, or the sense of being taken away from what one knows and values. By generating a creolized approach to science teaching, teachers create possibilities for greater student identification with science in school, which in turn has potential for changing the face of who does science and of science itself.

The cost of empathy: Parent-adolescent conflict predicts emotion dysregulation for highly empathic youth.

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Van Lissa, Caspar J; Hawk, Skyler T; Koot, Hans M; Branje, Susan; Meeus, Wim H J

2017-09-01

Empathy plays a key role in maintaining close relationships and promoting prosocial conflict resolution. However, research has not addressed the potential emotional cost of adolescents' high empathy, particularly when relationships are characterized by more frequent conflict. The present 6-year longitudinal study (N = 467) investigated whether conflict with parents predicted emotion dysregulation more strongly for high-empathy adolescents than for lower-empathy adolescents. Emotion dysregulation was operationalized at both the experiential level, using mood diary data collected for 3 weeks each year, and at the dispositional level, using annual self-report measures. In line with predictions, we found that more frequent adolescent-parent conflict predicted greater day-to-day mood variability and dispositional difficulties in emotion regulation for high-empathy adolescents, but not for average- and low-empathy adolescents. Mood variability and difficulties in emotion regulation, in turn, also predicted increased conflict with parents. These links were not moderated by empathy. Moreover, our research allowed for a novel investigation of the interplay between experiential and dispositional emotion dysregulation. Day-to-day mood variability predicted increasing dispositional difficulties in emotion regulation over time, which suggests that experiential dysregulation becomes consolidated into dispositional difficulties in emotion regulation. Moderated mediation analyses revealed that, for high-empathy adolescents, conflict was a driver of this dysregulation consolidation process. Finally, emotion dysregulation played a role in overtime conflict maintenance for high-empathy adolescents. This suggests that, through emotion dysregulation, high empathy may paradoxically also contribute to maintaining negative adolescent-parent interactions. Our research indicates that high empathy comes at a cost when adolescent-parent relationships are characterized by greater negativity

Sibling Relationships and Empathy across the Transition to Adolescence

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Lam, Chun Bun; Solmeyer, Anna R.; McHale, Susan M.

2012-01-01

Although socioemotional competencies have been identified as key components of youths' positive development, most studies on empathy are cross-sectional, and research on the role of the family has focused almost exclusively on parental socialization. This study examined the developmental course of empathy from age 7 to 14 and the within-person…

Global Citizenship and Global Universities. The Age of Global Interdependence and Cosmopolitanism

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Torres, Carlos Alberto

2015-01-01

This article focuses on the role of global universities and globalisations in an age of global interdependence and cosmopolitanism. Competing agendas that result from actions and reactions to multiple globalisations are considered in relation to global citizenship education. These agendas are crucial in understanding dilemmas of the local and the…

Cultural diversity, democracy and the prospects of cosmopolitanism: a theory of cultural encounters.

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Delanty, Gerard

2011-12-01

The most appropriate way of theorizing cultural diversity is to situate it in the context of a broader relational theory of culture in which the key dynamic is cultural encounters. The relational conception of culture places the emphasis on the relations between social actors and the processes by which some of these relations generate enduring cultural regularities and forms. This has important implications for political community and in particular for cosmopolitanism. It is in relationships that cultural phenomena are generated and become the basis of different kinds of political community. The paper outlines a typology of six kinds of cultural encounters and discusses four major cultural trends that variously emerge from these encounters. This approach with its emphasis on cultural encounters is the broad sociological context in which questions about cultural change and the prospects of cosmopolitanism should be discussed. © London School of Economics and Political Science 2011.

The Evolution of Empathy

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Hackney, Harold

1978-01-01

Therapeutic empathy has been an often-used construct by counseling professionals. Through that usage, the term has evolved in meaning and significance from its original presentation by Carl Rogers. This article traces that evolution by identifying its users and contributors over the past 20 years. (Author)

PHENOMENOLOGY OF LIFE IN UNDERSTANDING THE COSMOPOLITAN HUMANNESS

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CARMEN COZMA

2013-05-01

Full Text Available One of the most significant directions of the world-wide contemporary philosophy, phenomenology of life of Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka represents a major path of thinking and acting for the promotion of what does mean the universal valuable in human beingness by disclosing and unfolding an essential modality of understanding and shaping some paradigms of world culture. We face an original author and a reputed activist doing exceptional work to foster a culture of dialogue in the world. The impressive Tymienieckan philosophical work has imposed itself as a great contribution to the heralding of a “New Enlightenment” encompassing humanity in the endeavour of creating, maintaining and developing the wellbeing and the common good of mankind, in securing the human common destiny. Putting in act a holistic and dynamic philosophy upon life and human condition, phenomenology of life offers a viable pattern of communication between different cultures, of overcoming any kind of contradictions in dealing with the fundamental issues of living together and sharing-in-life. We can find elements for tackling and comprehending in a better way our cosmopolitan humanness, due to the opening of a creative approach of identity and otherness, by admitting differentiation and also by working for harmony in the play of life. Throughout new concepts and a very own complex vision of the respect for life, the philosophy-in-act of AnnaTeresa Tymieniecka manifests valences of an integrator enterprise in interpreting the cosmopolitan status of the philosopher in nowadays, in affirming the role of a responsible citizen of the world.

Metacognitive self-reflectivity moderates the relationship between distress tolerance and empathy in schizophrenia.

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Bonfils, Kelsey A; Minor, Kyle S; Leonhardt, Bethany L; Lysaker, Paul H

2018-07-01

Deficits in empathy seen in schizophrenia are thought to play a major role in the social dysfunction seen in the disorder. However, little work has investigated potential determinants of empathic deficits. This study aimed to fill that gap by examining the effects of two variables on empathy - distress tolerance and metacognitive self-reflectivity. Fifty-four people with schizophrenia-spectrum disorders receiving services at an urban VA or community mental health center were assessed for empathy, metacognition, and distress tolerance. Bivariate correlations and moderation methods were used to ascertain associations amongst these variables and examine interactions. Results revealed that, against hypotheses, empathy was not related at the bivariate level to either distress tolerance or metacognitive self-reflectivity. However, consistent with hypotheses, moderation analyses revealed that participants with higher self-reflectivity showed no relationship between distress tolerance and empathy, while those with lower self-reflectivity showed a relationship such that reduced ability to tolerate distress predicted reduced empathy. Taken together, results of this study suggest that lack of distress tolerance can negatively affect empathy in people with schizophrenia with lesser capacity for metacognitive self-reflection; thus, fostering self-reflectivity may help overcome that negative impact. Future work is needed investigating the impact of metacognitively-tailored interventions on empathy in this population. Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Understanding Preschool Teachers' Perspectives on Empathy: A Qualitative Inquiry

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Peck, Nancy Farstad; Maude, Susan P.; Brotherson, Mary Jane

2015-01-01

Empathy is a trait and skill necessary for teachers working with children and for partnering with families. This qualitative study focused on how teachers expressed empathy in the context of early childhood education. Diversity has increased in the United States and as diversity increases, the need for teachers to be able to empathize with…

Re-Examining Empathy: A Relational-Feminist Point of View

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Freedberg, Sharon

2007-01-01

This article reviews the literature on the concept of empathy in the social work profession from the days of Mary Richmond to its use in traditional literature today. Empathy is reexamined in light of recent developments in feminist scholarship, in particular the relational-cultural theory developed at the Stone Center at Wellesley College. Moving…

Gender, Empathy, and the Choice of the Psychology Major

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Harton, Helen C.; Lyons, Patrick C.

2003-01-01

We compared male and female psychology majors to psychology minors and nonmajors to understand the trends in a growing major in which women outnumber men. A total of 451 psychology majors, minors, and nonmajors from 4 institutions completed a questionnaire measuring empathy, career goals, and perceptions of the importance of empathy for therapy.…

Empathy and Drug Use Behaviors among African-American Adolescents

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Nguyen, Anh B.; Clark, Trenette T.; Belgrave, Faye Z.

2011-01-01

The current study proposed that empathy may indirectly play a protective role for adolescents in drug use behaviors and that this relationship will be mediated by self-regulatory strategies found in drug refusal efficacy. We predict that empathy will be linked to prosocial behavior and aggression, though we do not believe that they will mediate…

The effects of Cosmopolitanism and Tradition on the Evaluation and Intentions of the Users of Fast Food Restaurants

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Srdjan Sapic

2017-08-01

Full Text Available In terms of modern life, consumers have an increasing number of options when it comes to choosing a restaurant when they do not wish to eat at their homes. Fast food restaurants represent one of those options. In addition to domestic fast food restaurants, the development of global restaurant chains is also noticeable. The purpose of this paper is to identify the factors that affect the evaluations of products and services and the intentions of users in terms of using the services of fast food restaurants. In relation to that, it is important to analyze the factor of cosmopolitanism and tradition. Cosmopolitanism, as the willingness of people to cooperate with other cultures and tradition, and tradition, as a reflection of respect for the customs and ideas that are imposed on individuals by their culture or religion, affect consumers’ intentions and their willingness to use the services of foreign fast food restaurants. In accordance with that, the purpose of this research study is to determine if and how cosmopolitanism and tradition affect the evaluations of products and services and consumers’ intention concerning foreign restaurant chains and domestic fast food restaurants of both the local and the family types. The results of the conducted empirical research show that cosmopolitanism positively affects the evaluations of the products and services of foreign restaurants and that tradition positively affects the evaluations of the products and services of domestic fast food restaurants.

How right-wing versus cosmopolitan political actors mobilize and translate images of immigrants in transnational contexts

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Doerr, Nicole

2017-01-01

This article examines visual posters and symbols constructed and circulated transnationally by various political actors to mobilize contentious politics on the issues of immigration and citizenship. Following right-wing mobilizations focusing on the Syrian refugee crisis, immigration has become one...... of the most contentious political issues in Western Europe. Right-wing populist political parties have used provocative visual posters depicting immigrants or refugees as ‘criminal foreigners’ or a ‘threat to the nation’, in some countries and contexts conflating the image of the immigrant...... with that of the Islamist terrorist. This article explores the transnational dynamics of visual mobilization by comparing the translation of right-wing nationalist with left-wing, cosmopolitan visual campaigns on the issue of immigration in Western Europe. The author first traces the crosscultural translation and sharing...

Roots of Empathy: responsive parenting, caring societies.

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Gordon, Mary

2003-12-01

What is common in aggression and in abusive/neglectful parenting is low levels of empathy. Fostering empathy--the ability to identify with another person's feelings--can serve as an antidote to aggression and is crucial to good parenting. Poor parenting and aggression cut across all socioeconomic levels of the community and, as such, empathy needs to be fostered in all children. During the period of rapid brain development, adversity has a devastating impact on the baby's developing brain. Repeated experiences of stress are hardwired into the brain, creating damaging pathways. Risk factors such as domestic violence, child abuse and neglect, maternal depression, maternal addictions, and poverty are not just additive to the vulnerable developing brain; they are multiplicative in their impact. The parent is the baby's lifeline, mitigating stress for them and helping them to learn to regulate their emotions. The impact of poor parenting on a child's life is profound, resulting in insecure attachments which lead to a spectrum of inadequate coping mechanisms, poor emotional regulation, diminished learning potential and low competence. Responsive and nurturing parenting is the key to optimal early childhood development; it allows the young brain to develop in a way that is less aggressive and more emotionally stable, social and empathic. Good early childhood development leads to good human development. We must match our investment where the opportunity is most ripe--building parenting capacity. The 'Roots of Empathy' program offers real hope in breaking the intergenerational transference of poor parenting and violence.

Considering others in Need: On altruism, empathy and perspective taking

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Niezink, Lidewij Welmoed

2008-01-01

In the social psychological literature, empathy is seen as an emotional response which evokes the altruistic motivation to help others. One cognitive tool to increase the experience of empathy is perspective taking. The current dissertation investigates how different perspectives on the suffering of

Dexter’s Plastic Brain: Mentalizing and Mirroring in Cinematic Empathy

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Pisters, P.

2014-01-01

This essay revisits the question of empathy in film theory by looking at recent neuroscientific findings on affect, emotion and empathy. In film theory there is a classic division between cognitive approaches toward emotional engagement with characters, based on mentalizing or projecting oneself

Using Role-plays as an Empathy Education Tool for Ophthalmology Postgraduate.

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Singh, Kirti; Bhattacharyya, Mainak; Veerwal, Vikas; Singh, Arshi

2017-12-01

To assess the role of an "empathy sensitizing module" (ESM) in ophthalmology postgraduates in promoting effective empathetic communication. Thirty-nine ophthalmology postgraduates were taught effective empathetic communication using specially designed module, comprising of five illustrative role-plays. We evaluated the impact of the training by (a) self-assessment of empathy quotient by residents using Jefferson Scale of Empathy (JSE scale) before and 6 weeks after ESM training and (b) nonparticipant observation (NPO) by trained faculty in real-life settings over the next 4 months. A peer-validated, self-designed checklist was used for NPO. The change in score was analyzed using Student's paired t -test. The faculty observed the use of empathy in real-life patient encounters of the trainees over the next 6 months. In addition, secondary qualitative data were collected and analyzed to assess the impact of the module on other stakeholders such as the role-playing undergraduate students and core faculty. Pretraining assessment revealed that concept of empathy during patient communication was understood by only 10% students. PostESM training, the self-rated mean empathy score, on JSE, significantly increased from 95.9 to 106.7 (of a maximum of 140). This was also confirmed by a significant improvement in externally rated empathy and soft skills scores (from 29.3 to 39.1; of a maximum of 55) using the NPO tool. Focus group discussion was done on the continued display of empathy by the trainees in real-life situation over 6 months of observation by the faculty. The group agreed that there was a gradual attrition of initial gain in empathy behavior over the observation period of 6 months. The spillover benefits of the training process were observed among the role-playing undergraduates as well. A thematic analysis of their reflections on the process revealed a substantial change with an improved understanding of effective communication. There is a definite scope for

Documentary, Multi-Platform Production and Cosmopolitan Dialogues

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Bondebjerg, Ib

2015-01-01

This article analyzes the strategies followed in the transnational documentary projects Why Democracy? (2007) and Why Poverty? (2012), both initiated by the BBC and DR, the main British and Danish public service broadcasters, in collaboration with the NGO organization Steps International. The ana......This article analyzes the strategies followed in the transnational documentary projects Why Democracy? (2007) and Why Poverty? (2012), both initiated by the BBC and DR, the main British and Danish public service broadcasters, in collaboration with the NGO organization Steps International....... The analysis is based on theories of globalization and cosmopolitanism and takes up issues in documentary theory connected to the social, cultural, and political forms and functions of documentary in a global context....

Cosmopolitans or Locals: Who Will Lead the Next Generation of Community Colleges?

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Anderson, Melanie Oakes

2014-01-01

The impact of cosmopolitan and local latent social roles on different professional occupations and organizational behavior has been studied since Gouldner's seminal study was published in 1957. This study was conducted to understand the relationship between the latent social role of the public community college chief academic officer and his…

Parsing cognitive and emotional empathy deficits for negative and positive stimuli in frontotemporal dementia.

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Oliver, Lindsay D; Mitchell, Derek G V; Dziobek, Isabel; MacKinley, Julia; Coleman, Kristy; Rankin, Katherine P; Finger, Elizabeth C

2015-01-01

Behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) is a debilitating neurodegenerative disorder characterized by frontal and temporal lobe atrophy primarily affecting social cognition and emotion, including loss of empathy. Many consider empathy to be a multidimensional construct, including cognitive empathy (the ability to adopt and understand another's perspective) and emotional empathy (the capacity to share another's emotional experience). Cognitive and emotional empathy deficits have been associated with bvFTD; however, little is known regarding the performance of patients with bvFTD on behavioural measures of emotional empathy, and whether empathic responses differ for negative versus positive stimuli. 24 patients with bvFTD and 24 healthy controls completed the Multifaceted Empathy Test (MET; Dziobek et al., 2008), a performance-based task that taps both cognitive and emotional facets of empathy, and allows for the discrimination of responses to negative versus positive realistic images. MET scores were also compared with caregiver ratings of patient behaviour on the Interpersonal Reactivity Index, which assesses patients' everyday demonstrations of perspective taking and empathic concern. Patients with bvFTD were less accurate than controls at inferring mental states for negative and positive stimuli. They also demonstrated lower levels of shared emotional experience, more positive emotional reactions, and diminished arousal to negative social stimuli relative to controls. Patients showed reduced emotional reactions to negative non-social stimuli as well. Lastly, the MET and IRI measures of emotional empathy were found to be significantly correlated within the bvFTD group. The results suggest that patients with bvFTD show a global deficit in cognitive empathy, and deficient emotional empathy for negative, but not positive, experiences. Further, a generalized emotional processing impairment for negative stimuli was observed, which could contribute to the

Teaching Empathy: the Implementation of a Video Game into a Psychiatry Clerkship Curriculum.

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