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Self-Concern and the Unwillingness to Be Helpful
Abstract
Two experiments sought to demonstrate that self-concern lowers the willingness to be helpful. In the first study, high self-concern was established in half of the male subjects by giving them a test of "social intelligence." Then, ostensibly in an unrelated manner, all of the participants were asked to help the experimenter, but half thought this aid was important for the supplicant personally. The subjects worked hardest for the supplicant when the help was important-but only if the men were not preoccupied with themselves at the time. The second experiment, employing female subjects, manipulated self-concern in a similar fashion and also asked the participants to do a supposedly extraneous task for the experimenter. Half of the women were led to think they were doing one favor, while the others believed they were given two requests for help. The self-preoccupied subjects exhibited the greatest decline in work rate for the experimenter after the second favor was asked. Several explanations for the help-dampening effects of self-concern are considered. In the second study the self-preoccupied women may have been most susceptible to the reactance presumably generated by the second request.
... Si les auteurs s'accordent généralement à dire que l'affect positif augmente les comportements d'aide, il apparaît que l'affect négatif puisse tantôt augmenter (e.g., Aderman & Berkowitz, 1983), tantôt diminuer ces comportements (e.g., Bierhoff, 1988). Une étude de Rosenhan, Salovey et Hargis (1981) clarifie les conditions d'apparition de l'un ou l'autre de ces phénomènes. ...
... Plusieurs explications du phénomène d'altruisme en humeur négative ont été avancées sans qu'aucune ne fasse véritablement l'unanimité : sensibilité au foyer d'attention que représente autrui (Aderman & Berkowitz, 1983), réduction de la culpabilité et restauration de l'image de soi (Isen, Horn & Rosenhan, 1973), ou encore simplement le désir de se sentir mieux ("feel bad -do good", Cialdini, Baumann & Kenrick, 1981). Ce phénomène qui traduit paradoxalement une volonté d'approche en humeur négative peut également être interprété selon l'angle qui nous occupe. ...
Affect et stratégies d'approche/évitement = Affect and approach / avoidance strategies Auteur(s) / Author(s) GREGOIRE Christine (1) ; DARDENNE Benoit (2) ; Affiliation(s) du ou des auteurs / Author(s) Affiliation(s) (1) Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique, rue du Village, 7, 4670 Mortier, BELGIQUE (2) Service de psychologie sociale, Université de Liège, 5 bld du rectorat, B 32, faculté de psychologie et des sciences de l'éducation, 4000 liège, BELGIQUE Résumé / Abstract Après avoir présenté certaines conceptions de l'approche et de l'évitement en tant que régulateurs du comportement humain, nous défendons l'idée que les individus ressentant des affects positifs développent une stratégie d'approche en situation sociale. Sur base de la théorie du «feeling-as-information» (Schwarz & Clore, 1988), l'affect peut être vu comme une information contextuelle sur l'environnement. L'information selon laquelle l'environnement ne pose pas de problème conduit les individus ressentant des affects positifs à adopter un comportement adapté vis-à-vis d'autrui et des situations sociales, alors que l'information selon laquelle l'environnement est menaçant conduit les individus ressentant des affects négatifs à davantage éviter autrui et les situations sociales. Nous illustrons notre propos par des recherches traitant de la quantité et de la qualité des activités sociales, ainsi que des comportements prosociaux.
... He noted that people's doubts or uncertainty about self‐worth might prevent their helpfulness from coming into play or could even lessen their empathy with those in distress. In line with this, Kidd and Marshall (1982) demonstrated that a high level of self‐concern induced by negative thoughts about the self reduced compliance with a request for assistance Furthermore, according to Aderman and Berkowitz (1983), this self‐concern could also intensify reactance so that the pressure they feel to come to the aid of those in need is more strongly experienced. ...
... This is probably because such individuals concentrate exclusively on themselves, paying little or no attention to the needs of others. Alternatively, this effect can be explained by the fact that the negative mood that springs from a state of self‐worry interferes with altruistic responses (Aderman and Berkowitz, 1983; Berkowitz, 1972; Kidd and Marshall, 1982). To manipulate self worry the presence vs. absence of violation of personal space have been introduced. ...
The present field experiment examines the relationship between self-awareness, violation of personal space and helping behavior. A beggar asking for alms on the streets. To induce the first experimental condition, the state of objective self-awareness, the beggar had a mirror at chest height, suspended from a string round his neck. In the control condition, in place of the mirror, the beggar held a similarly dimensioned piece of cardboard in the same position. Both mirror and cardboard bore the message "A FEW PENNIES THANKS." As concerned the second experimental condition, the beggar either stood still waiting for people to come up to him, or walked toward the people as they approached, thereby entering their personal space. The results show that anxiety caused by the violation of personal space interacts with the self-awareness in determining the helping behavior.
... It is also probable that a heightened focus on the self may diminish one's concern for other people's emotional experiences (i.e., empathy) as well as their need for help or assistance (i.e., altruism). Past experiments have shown that individuals who were preoccupied about themselves were less willing to help primarily due of their reduced consideration of others' interest and desires (Aderman & Berkowitz, 1983). The unique negative mediation role of confidence warrants further exploration and may also be understood within the context of religious humility, where members of religious congregations tend to emphasize the virtues of meekness and obedience over pride and assertiveness. ...
Religiousness has been proposed to promote prosociality among young people. Few investigations, however, have examined the underlying processes that facilitate these links, especially in non-Western and collectivistic societies. This study investigated the mediating role of the 5Cs (competence, confidence, connection, character, and caring) of positive youth development on the associations between religiousness, empathy, and altruism, while controlling for age and gender, among Southeast Asian emerging adults during COVID-19. Data were obtained from 1,888 emerging adults ( M age = 21.85; SD age = 2.81) from Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, and Thailand. Structural equation modeling showed that confidence, connection, and character mediated religiousness and altruism while confidence, connection, character, and caring mediated religiousness and empathy, even after controlling for the covariates. However, confidence yielded negative relations with both outcomes. The results highlight the importance of distinguishing self-oriented and other-oriented thriving characteristics in facilitating empathy and altruistic behaviors in difficult situations.
... Even so, two conclusions can be drawn from this difficult navigation in the definitions and components of empathy. The first is that an excessive preoccupation with oneself (of the subject who intends to act empathically) is an obstacle to helping others [24]. It is necessary to detach from the image itself to understand the other and understand him as "another me". ...
Outcomes, guidelines, and clinical trials are at the forefront of the current medical training. However, we observe well-trained technological physicians with a reduced humanistic perspective which leads to attitudes that lack ethics and professionalism. There is a growing concern about the human dimension of the future physician and how it can be taught or reinforced in the educational environment allowing to integrate technical science with the humanism. Empathy could bridge the gap between patient-centered medicine and evidence-based medicine. Role modeling and caring carefully for the emotional dimension of medical students are possible resources for preventing the erosion of empathy. Humanities and arts help in building a humanistic perspective of doctoring because they enable doctors to understand patients in their whole context. The inclusion of humanities in the curriculum occasions deep rethinking of what it means to be sick and what it means to take care of the sick.
... La mayoría de los autores coinciden en la dificultad que entraña separar los atributos cognitivos de los emotivos; pero es un consenso que, para desarrollar ambos componentes y mantener viva la empatía, es necesario evitar el exceso de preocupación consigo mismo. Quien está centrado en sus propios problemas no consigue ayudar efectivamente al otro 5 . ...
Resumen
La medicina vive tiempos de vertiginoso crecimiento técnico y, al mismo tiempo, nunca se han alcanzado niveles tan bajos de despersonalización en la relación médico paciente. La empatía es un elemento fundamental para construir una relación médico paciente eficaz, y se constituye en un puente entre la medicina basada en evidencias y la práctica clínica centrada en el paciente. Los estudios que evalúan la empatía muestran su desgaste a lo largo de los años de formación médica. Este hecho ha impulsado el desarrollo de herramientas que evalúen la empatía como la escala de Jefferson y la escala multidimensional de reactividad interpersonal adaptada por Davis. El desafío consiste en promover estrategias que puedan desarrollar la empatía y evitar su deterioro, lo que en definitiva implica la búsqueda de una educación de la afectividad del estudiante, las emociones y sentimientos intrínsecamente relacionados con la empatía. La academia y los estudiosos de la educación médica se esfuerzan por encontrar respuestas al desafío de mejorar la educación de las emociones del estudiante y su consecuente desarrollo afectivo. Entre la variedad de posibilidades educativas surge la música, las narrativas, la literatura, la ópera y, de modo especial, la educación con el cine.
... Perception of need seems to be a threshold function of two situational factors: First, the discrepancy (real or apparent) between what is and what is desirable must be noticed (Clark & Word, 1972, 1974Latané & Darley, 1970). Second, attention must be focused on the person in need, not on the self or some other aspect of the (Aderman & Berkowitz, 1983;Gibbons & Wicklund, 1982;Mathews & Canon, 1975;Milgram, 1970;Weiner, 1976;Wicklund, 1975). Both of these conditions must simultaneously be satisfied to perceive another's need. ...
... However, the extent to which they are oriented towards own and/or others' interest is not equal between individuals, implying variation in their behaviour (Bobocel, 2013;De Dreu, 2006;De Dreu & Nauta, 2009;Gerbasi & Prentice, 2013;. Empirical studies have shown that self-concerned individuals are less helpful (Aderman & Berkowitz, 1983), more affected by individual-level job attributes (De Dreu & Nauta, 2009) and more often older men (Gerbasi & Prentice, 2013). Regarding otherorientation, research findings indicated that other-oriented individuals reach greater agreement between self-ratings and ratings provided by supervisors (Korsgaard, Meglino, & Lester, 2004), are more influenced by group-level job attributes (De Dreu & Nauta, 2009), place less importance on personal outcomes in decision-making processes (Korsgaard, Meglino, & Lester, 1996), are more empathetic (Batson, 1998), perspective taking (Davis, 1983) and more often older women (Gerbasi & Prentice, 2013). ...
Using three separate studies in the context of ethnic and gender diversity, this dissertation will contribute to theory and research on diversity and human resource management by extending knowledge of how line managers’ experiences, values and orientations may predict their effectiveness in diversity management on the line.
These three independent, yet connected, studies aim to answer three questions emerging from the literature and practice: Do line managers’ (LMs) experiences with different others, values and orientations affect their willingness to implement human resource (HR) diversity practices? Do these LMs’ experiences and traits relate to subordinates’ outcomes in a multicultural workplace? Are these LMs’ experiences and traits associated with subordinates’ outcomes in male-dominated settings? With these three papers, this dissertation contributes to theory and research on the role of LMs in effective diversity management (DM) on the line.
The first study, “Support for diversity practices: Depends on who you are and whom you have met”, demonstrates that contact experiences with diverse others, diversity values and orientation towards other’s interests are associated with willingness to support HR diversity practices.
The second study, “Who is an inclusive leader? – The relationship between line managers’ experiences and traits, and employees’ perceived inclusion”, complements the first study by showing that LMs’ contact experiences with different others and orientation matter for effective DM on the line.
The third study, “Inclusive leadership in male-dominated occupations – Do line managers’ experiences and traits matter?”, continues the investigation of LMs’ experiences and traits, which may be important for DM on the line. In this study, another dimension of diversity was investigated – gender. The findings showed that none of the investigated male LMs’ experiences and traits were related to perceptions of supportive and/or inclusive leader for female subordinates, which might imply that perceptions of LMs and their support is more important in such a context than who they are.
Consequently, the three studies unite to demonstrate that more comprehensive research within the area of effective DM on the line may be achieved by acknowledging the uniqueness of HR diversity practices and taking into account LMs’ individual experiences and characteristics, as well as employees’ perceptions of their supportive behaviour. The findings of this dissertation highlight that explicitly recognising and taking into account LMs’ intergroup contact quality, other-orientation and how supportive they are perceived by subordinates would improve our ability to predict effectiveness of DM on the line across settings and diversity dimensions. Accordingly, this dissertation broadens and supplements existing literatures on DM and HRM by disentangling who delivers effective DM and how they do it on the line.
... Two conclusions might be drawn from our discussion of definitions and our questions regarding the right location (affective, cognitive or both) in which empathy occurs. First is that a prerequisite for both affective and cognitive empathy is that an individual should not be overly preoccupied with himself and his own concerns, because, if the experience is to a greater extent focused on the individual himself, then the willingness to help the other person decreases (Aderman & Berkowitz, 1983). Only through self-awareness is it possible to see the behavior of the observed person as an expression of his emotional state and to make a mental distinction between oneself and the ''other self''. ...
We live in an era where outcomes, guidelines, and clinical trials are at the forefront of medical training. However, to care implies having an understanding of the human being and build reflective practitioners impregnated of a humanistic perspective of doctoring. Although technical knowledge and skills can be acquired through training with little reflective process, it is impossible to refine attitudes, acquire virtues, and incorporate values without reflection. Empathy, which is required for a deep understanding of the human condition, could bridge the gap between patient-centered medicine and evidence-based medicine therefore representing a profound therapeutic potential. The challenge is how to teach empathy, an important issue in medical education, hard to teach and to measure. The authors' broad experience in medical education using movies points out an innovative methodology to promote empathy because it reaches the learners' affective domain. A description of the cinematic teaching methodology is provided and an extensive list of movie scenes are included so faculty and educators can try it in their own teaching scenario.
... Estudios recientes demuestran el deterioro que la empatía sufre durante los años de formación médica. Los estudiantes que, en los primeros años de la facultad, conservan el entusiasmo por ser médico y se muestran sensibles al sufrimiento del enfermo, pierden esa capacidad con el paso del tiempo (23,24,25). En los años finales de la formación universitaria se crea una cultura de distanciamiento del enfermo para no implicarse emotivamente. ...
Among physicians, it is common to see reasonable technical training existing alongside a deficient humanistic stance, which results in ethical shortcomings and a lack of professionalism. This disparity suggests the need to broaden the scope of medical humanism and to find a new, modern balance particular to today's world. Teaching bioethics involves setting boundaries and rules but, above all, it requires creativity and going beyond what is stipulated in order to do all that is possible for the patient. The question is: How to combine creativity with the necessary prudence and wisdom required of ethics education? Ethical issues often are surrounded by emotions that cannot be ignored. Rather, they must be contemplated and used, because they are an essential element in the learning process. This involves sharing emotions, sheltering them in frank discussions, opening up paths to genuinely constructing emotions and encouraging empathy towards the patient. Among the modern educational resources that exist to develop emotional education the narrative is a particularly important one; that is, listening, telling and sharing stories of life - film and music - representatives of the current culture of entertainment, which the authors mention on in light of their teaching experience. Emotions, in and of themselves, are not enough to educate. Skill is required of the teacher to create a situation where emotion is transformed into experience, encourages reflection and is internalized. This process is the catalyst. Taking advantage of the fertile ground of emotion, it leaves an educational footprint by producing the experience that is the gateway to adopting stable and lasting attitudes.
... He noted that people's doubts or even uncertainty about their self-worth might keep their helpfulness ideals from coming to mind or lessen their empathy with those in distress. Furthermore, according to results reported by Aderman and Berkowitz (1983), this self-concern could also intensify reactance so that the felt pressure to aid those in need is more strongly resented. In line with all this, Kidd and Marshall (1982) showed that a high level of self-concern, induced by negative thoughts about the self, reduced compliance with a request for assistance. ...
Two experiments using female subjects investigated the effects of mood and self-focused attention on the willingness to help another. Experiment 1 induced a positive, negative, or neutral mood and also two kinds of high self-awareness (by either the mirror procedure or requiring essays) as well as a low self-awareness condition. Experiment 2 used a different technique to induce the three moods and also established either high or low attention to the self with the mirror procedure. In both studies, self-awareness did not interact significantly with mood in affecting the subjects' reported feelings, although there were indications in Experiment 2 of an intensification of the negative mood under self-focus. Furthermore, in both studies self-awareness operated together with the positive mood to increase the subjects' effort in behalf of the supplicant, whereas the joint operation of self-focus and negative mood was much weaker. Also in the second experiment, self-awareness raised the frequency of positive ideas about the self in the happy subjects and increased the frequency of negative self-ideas in the negative mood group. In a multiple regression analysis, these frequencies of positive and negative ideas about the self, but not a mood index, successfully predicted the amount of work the subject did for the supplicant. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
... Yet there were no differences across mood conditions in reported feelings of pressure in the high social inducement condition. Third, if the high social inducement produced strong compliance pressure, then a reactance effect (Brehm, 1966;Aderman & Berkowitz, 1983) should have reduced helping in the neutral and depression conditions, where subjects were not concerned with protecting their moods. Yet neutral and negative mood participants did not display reductions in helping in the high, compared to the low, social inducement conditions, suggesting that excessive compliance pressure was not operating in the high social inducement condition. ...
The Separate Process analysis suggests that individuals in an elated mood are most affected by social concerns associated with a helping request, whereas individuals in a depressed mood are most influenced by the personal hedonic considerations involved with the request. In Experiment 1, subjects received either an elating, neutral, or depressing mood induction, after which they were asked to help either on a task of high interest valence, described as fun, or low interest valence, described as dull. After the request, a confederate volunteered to help and provided either high social inducement to help for the subject by encouraging volunteering, or low social inducement to help by volunteering for the self alone. Suggesting increased social interest, elated subjects were more likely than neutral subjects to help with both high and low interest tasks. Elated subjects also were significantly more likely to volunteer under conditions of high social inducement, but that variable had little impact on negative and neutral mood subjects. The personal concern associated with negative mood was evident in the finding that depression significantly increased helping only when the task had a positive interest valence. Experiment 2 replicated Experiment 1, but operationalized both social and personal concerns in terms of the content of the helping opportunity. Positive mood subjects were significantly more likely than neutral and negative mood subjects to volunteer for a Social task, involving a group discussion. Negative mood subjects, by contrast, were significantly more likely to volunteer for a task having positive hedonic consequences, involving the rating of jokes, than for the Social task.
The utilisation of collaboration and collaborationism as a strategy to address the Kurdish question in Iraq and the involvement of the collaborators in the perpetration of mass violence and genocide is a subject that has not been thoroughly investigated. The objective of this study is to gain a deeper understanding of the underlying motivations that drove a specific subset of the Kurdish population to engage in collaboration and collaborationism with the Iraqi regime. Additionally, the study seeks to comprehend the factors that contributed to the behavioural changes within those collaborationists “Jashes”, as they shifted from a collaborative role to assuming a rescue role during the Anfal Campaign. This study employs the theoretical frameworks of collaboration and collaborationism, as well as altruism and egoism, to analyse data obtained from indepth interviews with the Jashes. By employing qualitative content analysis, this research could be able to gain insights into the motivations underlying their actions. This study posits that the collaborative activities observed in southern Kurdistan can be most accurately categorised as collaborationism. The motivations behind participating in these activities were varied, encompassing factors such as evading conscription and punishment, tribal conflict, economic incentives, and internal political disputes within the Kurdish political parties. Moreover, this research contends that the incentives behind behavioural changes within jashes encompassed both egoistic and altruistic motivations.
Outcomes, guidelines, and clinical trials are at the forefront of the current medical training. However, we observe well-trained technological physicians with a reduced humanistic perspective which leads to attitudes that lack ethics and professionalism. There is a growing concern about the human dimension of the future physician and how it can be taught or reinforced in the educational environment allowing to integrate technical science with the humanism that medical practice requires.
Although research on the self has a long history with various psychological perspectives, the role of the self in visiting green restaurants has not been sufficiently explored. This study investigated the influence of public self-awareness (PSA) as a mechanism of the motivation for green restaurant consumption on customers’ satisfaction and customer citizenship behaviour (CCB). Additionally, this study examined customers’ pride and mindfulness as antecedents of their PSA. A survey of 341 regular customers of green restaurants was conducted, and the partial least square method was used to analyse the data. The findings indicated a positive association between pride and PSA, as well as between mindfulness and PSA. Furthermore, PSA influenced affective satisfaction and CCB, and affective satisfaction had a positive impact on CCB. The theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.
Das Schlagwort, das bei Veröffentlichungen zu solchen und ähnlichen Ereignissen sofort auftaucht, ist Zivilcourage.
The empathy-altruism hypothesis predicts that empathically aroused individuals will report negative mood change after an unsuccessful attempt to help, even if the failure is fully justified. Two experiments tested this prediction. In Experiment 1, subjects'failure at a helping task was either justified or not. As predicted, low-empathy subjects showed relatively little negative mood change when theirfailure was justified, whereas high-empathy subjects showed substantial negative mood change. In Experiment 2 a different manipulation of empathy was used, and mood change was assessed after success on a helping task failed to relieve the other's need. Again as predicted, low-empathy subjects showed little mood change, whereas high-empathy subjects showed substantial negative mood change. Results of each experiment, then, supported the empathy-altruism hypothesis.
a b s t r a c t Grandiosity and vulnerability are distinct dimensions of narcissism, but little research has examined their differences regarding prosocial behavior. This investigation is the first to test the hypotheses that gran-diose narcissism predicts withholding help under high social pressure, whereas vulnerable narcissism predicts withholding help under low social pressure. Undergraduate participants (N = 220, M age = 19.5, 142 women) were partnered with a confederate for the supposed purpose of a mock counseling session. The confederate ruined the session by demonstrating inconsiderate behavior, after which the participant encountered two opportunities to help the confederate: one presented under high social pressure to help, the other presented under low social pressure to help. Measures also assessed participants' prosocial emotions, including empathy for and forgiveness of the confederate. Consistent with hypotheses, grandi-ose narcissism predicted less helping under high social pressure, whereas vulnerable narcissism pre-dicted less helping under low social pressure, the latter relationship being mediated by reduced forgiveness. Vulnerable narcissism was also associated with less empathy and forgiveness. Grandiose and vulnerable narcissism differentially predicted helping behavior depending on the amount of social pressure to help. These results conform to theoretical distinctions between grandiosity and vulnerability regarding social dominance and internalization.
When designing a reference service point, there are numerous issues to explore. The author covers some of them here: a review of the counter-desk debate; research on personal space applied to both patrons and professionals; the need for ergonomically correct positioning; and the Americans with Disabilities Act. In conclusion, the author offers a reference service point design for consideration.
This chapter provides an overview of motivational, cognitive, and situational factors that influence helping behavior and altruism. The emotional experience of arousal as well as the overall level of arousal appears to be a critical determinant of prosocial behavior. There are several different types of emotion that can mediate intervention. The strong feelings of upset associated with high levels of psychophysiological activity motivates helping in emergency situations. Several empirical contradictions and the precise interrelationships in the cognition–affect–helping sequence are identified in the chapter. The chapter focuses on the arousal—the cost-reward model. Arousal is the process through which bystanders are mobilized for action that could lead to intervention and helping. The model may also be valuable for encouraging the orderly theoretical development of inquiry and for suggesting new research, new ideas, and new regions for study. Various conditions produce different emotions and levels of arousal and differentially influence the relative impact of costs and rewards; this suggests that there may be different types of helping situations and different types of motivations.
In watersheds where conflicts between rural and urban stakeholders related to water quality are increasing, a trust-based collaborative approach is needed. Even though development of such a collaborative framework can be time consuming, it is necessary to bring all stakeholders to the table. Without a stakeholder-guided process, the cooperation of stakeholders may be limited, and key information may not be obtainable. Any person, especially one who works for the government, must convincingly show that they are interested and that they are willing to work collaboratively with all the stakeholders. This is done by listening to stakeholders and keeping in mind that some problems can be fixed on the spot while larger problems need to be brought to the attention of a specialist or agency. It is very important to discuss the concerns of stakeholders before trying to solicit their participation in any project. Without finding a common denominator that all parties share, it may be next to impossible to entice an alienated or isolated group of people to voluntarily participate in any kind of government program that does not provide an immediate benefit. Through the development of trusting relationships, our CEAP project team was successful in achieving a level of necessary trust with watershed stakeholders in order to accomplish project goals regardless of existing political constraints.
ABSTRACT The aim of this study was to test whether the concept of an altruistic personality was valid for first aiders who intervened to help the victims of a traffic accident. We derived a number of relevant personality variables that should be related to the willingness to administer first aid. These include locus of control, social responsibility, belief in a just world, empathy, and instrumentality. We obtained data from proven first aiders who had intervened after a traffic accident. Thirty-four of these first aiders were matched to respondents from a subject pool on the basis of sex, age, and socioeconomic status. In addition, the willingness of these respondents to offer help after a traffic accident was taken into account. Only people who indicated that they had witnessed an accident and had not helped were included in the control group. Multivariate analyses of variance and covariance indicated that proven first aiders deviated from the control group on several dimensions: They described themselves as more internal, believed more in a just world, and emphasized more social responsibility and empathy.
Researchers often ask subjects to commit considerable time and effort to completing tasks that are not especially enjoyable. In a multistage investigation of sixth-grade boys and their families, we hypothesized that boys who were prone to high levels of distress (i.e., anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, and low well-being) but only low or moderate levels of self-restraint (i.e., consideration of others, impulse control, suppression of aggression, and responsibility) would be particularly unlikely to agree to participate. Consistent with this hypothesis, boys from 33 classrooms who were nominated by their peers as high in distress and moderate or low in self-restraint were significantly less likely than other boys to take part in an in-class survey. In addition, the families of boys who scored high in distress and moderate or low in self-restraint on the Weinberger Adjustment Inventory (WAI) were less likely than other families to agree to an observation session in their homes and to a series of telephone interviews about daily events in the boys' lives. Across the 3 phases of the research, the cumulative attrition rate of these at-risk boys was approximately 80%, compared to only 50% for those low in distress and/or high in self-restraint. These results suggest that the children of greatest interest in studies of social competence and family interaction may often be among those least adequately represented.
Die Erinnerung an die lange Geschichte der “Nichtseßhaftenhilfe” könnte zu der Erwartung verleiten, es sei leicht, einen umfassenden empirischen und theoretischen Einblick in die professionelle und gleichzeitig altruistische Praxis sowie die beruflichen Probleme jener Personen zu geben, die den in der Sprache der heutigen Sozialbürokratie als “Nicht-seßhafte” bezeichneten Menschen helfen, die früher scheinbar weniger freundlich “Landstreicher” oder “Wanderarme” genannt wurden. In Wirklichkeit verhält es sich jedoch ganz anders. Wenn wir uns nicht auf “Hagiographien” der großen Initiatoren und Neuerer dieses Hilfesystems oder aber ideologieverdächtige Festschriften verlassen wollen, so wissen wir wenig Genaues über Motive, Erwartungen und Verhaltensweisen von Helfern sowie über die Auswirkungen dieser Ausgangsbedingungen für die konkrete Praxis der Nichtseßhaftenhilfe, einschließlich ihrer Erfolge und Mißerfolge. Unsere Analyse bleibt daher vorläufig, vage und spekulativ. Sie beschränkt sich zudem auf einige Aspekte des Problems.
Objective:
To establish sound empirical evidence that clinical empathy (abbreviated as CE) is a core element in the clinician-patient relationship with profound therapeutic potential, a substantial theoretical-based understanding of CE in medical care and medical education is still required. The two aims of the present paper are, therefore, (1) to give a multidisciplinary overview of the "nature" and "specific effectiveness" of CE, and (2) to use this base as a means of deriving relevant questions for a theory-based research agenda.
Method:
We made an effort to identify current and past literature about conceptual and empirical work focusing on empathy and CE, which derives from a multiplicity of disciplines. We review the material in a structured fashion.
Results:
We describe the "nature" of empathy by briefly summarizing concepts and models from sociology, psychology, social psychology, education, (social-)epidemiology, and neurosciences. To explain the "specific effectiveness" of CE for patients, we develop the "Effect model of empathic communication in the clinical encounter", which demonstrates how an empathically communicating clinician can achieve improved patient outcomes. Both parts of theoretical findings are synthesized in a theory-based research agenda with the following key hypotheses: (1) CE is a determinant of quality in medical care, (2) clinicians biographical experiences influence their empathic behavior, and (3) CE is affected by situational factors.
Conclusion:
The main conclusions of our review are twofold. First of all, CE seems to be a fundamental determinant of quality in medical care, because it enables the clinician to fulfill key medical tasks more accurately, thereby achieving enhanced patient health outcomes. Second, the integration of biographical experiences and situational factors as determinants of CE in medical care and medical education appears to be crucial to develop and promote CE and ultimately ensuring high-quality patient care.
Practice implications:
Due to the complexity and multidimensionality of CE, evidence-based investigations of the derived hypotheses require both well-designed qualitative and quantitative studies as well as an interdisciplinary research approach.
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