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Importance of Empathy for Social Work Practice: Integrating New Science
Abstract
Empathy is more important than ever to a national population worried about difficult political and socioeconomic situations. During the last 10 years, an enormous amount of research has been carried out to elucidate the nature, mechanism, and function of empathy. New research from social-cognitive neuroscience and related fields indicates that, like language or eye-hand coordination, empathy is an innate human capability that can be greatly enhanced by purposeful and informed guidance. Empathy is particularly important to social work practice. Clients experiencing empathy through treatment have improved outcomes. Empathic social work practitioners are more effective and can balance their roles better. Social work practitioners can and should learn about emerging research on empathy and use that information to better serve their client populations. This article, emphasizing research of the past decade, focuses on empathy and its benefits as an asset to social work practitioners.
... It enables professionals to understand the emotional and psychological states of their clients, thereby facilitating more effective interventions and support systems. In recent years, the role of empathy in enhancing both job satisfaction among social workers and client success has garnered increasing attention in the literature (Gerdes & Segal, 2011;Kinman & Grant, 2011). However, while the emotional demands of the profession are well-documented, there is a relative paucity of empirical studies that specifically examine how empathy directly influences job satisfaction and the perceived success of client outcomes (Miller et al., 2019). ...
... Client success in social work is often measured by the achievement of goals set during intervention, such as improved well-being, mental health, or social functioning (O'Hare, 2020). Empathy plays a critical role in this process, as it allows social workers to tailor interventions based on a nuanced understanding of their clients' emotional and psychological needs (Gerdes & Segal, 2011). A growing body of literature suggests that empathy fosters more positive outcomes by improving communication and trust between clients and social workers (Elliott, Bohart, Watson, & Greenberg, 2011). ...
... Empathy is defined as the ability to understand and share the feelings of another, while also maintaining an awareness of the self as distinct from the client (Davis, 1983). In the context of social work, this dual aspect of empathy-both cognitive and emotional-facilitates deeper relationships and enhances communication between the social worker and the client (Gerdes & Segal, 2011). The capacity for empathy allows social workers to recognize the emotional states of their clients, respond appropriately, and tailor interventions to the unique needs and experiences of each individual (Gair, 2013). ...
This study examines the role of empathy in social work, focusing on its impact on job satisfaction and perceived client success. Using a sample of 150 social workers, we employed a Likert-scale questionnaire to measure empathy, job satisfaction, and client outcomes. The results revealed significant positive correlations between empathy and both job satisfaction (r = 0.72, p < 0.01) and perceived client success (r = 0.68, p < 0.01). These findings highlight the importance of empathy not only in fostering strong client relationships but also in enhancing the professional well-being of social
workers. However, the study also emphasizes the need for balance, as excessive emotional involvement may lead to compassion fatigue. Future research should focus on longitudinal studies and objective measures of client success to further investigate these relationships.
... It has long been recognized that peer-to-peer role-play benefits students in both the student social worker and client roles (Anderson et al., 1989), especially when enacting situations in which they lack experience. Some of the benefits of playing the client role include deepening empathy toward reallife clients, gathered from insights and new perspectives, heightened selfawareness, and a greater understanding of applying theory to practice (Anderson et al., 1989;Cunningham, 2004;Gerdes & Segal, 2011). However, distress and other negative emotions may surface from the role-play, and these reactions may occur regardless of the amount of preparation done in the classroom. ...
... In the same manner, generalist social work education first asks students to determine client emotions, given their particular circumstances and second, helps students verbalize those emotions through skills such as paraphrasing, summarizing, and interpretation (Bogo, 2018). To a large degree, generalist social work education centers on the process and communication of empathy (Gerdes & Segal, 2011;Greeno et al., 2018). Playing the role of the client affords students the opportunity to develop an empathic connection to the client they are portraying by orienting themselves to what the client would feel in their particular circumstance and to then communicate those feelings to the student practitioner. ...
... In addition, faculty can move beyond the role-play to make the link between emotions felt by the students and actual clients when discussing personal challenges. These discussions may increase students' empathy for clients, a crucial feature in social work practice (Gerdes & Segal, 2011). ...
... Many studies already recognize the value of empathy for workers [7,14,25], Based on their experience, researchers introduced models of empathetic practices for health professionals [23,33], social workers [15] and engineers [38]. ...
... The importance of empathy for practitioners has been explored for some time in nursing literature, approaching it from various perspectives, time frames, measurements, and outcomes [25]. Empathy is essential for social workers, as they must develop empathic abilities to enhance their effectiveness with clients and protect themselves from compassion or practice fatigue and burnout [14]. Empathy is critical in the physician-patient relationship and positively impacts health outcomes [7]. ...
... As empathy can be considered a critical ability in some areas of work [14], this question aims to understand how software practitioners perceive the importance of empathy. • RQ3: In which software engineering activities was empathy applied? ...
Context: Empathy is the ability to understand and share the emotions of others. Despite its relevance for research and practice in software engineering, it is still an under-researched topic. Aims: To investigate the meaning, importance, practices, and effects of empathy from the perspective of software practitioners. Method: We apply a thematic synthesis of grey literature. We analyzed 22 articles from DEV, an online community used by software developers. Results: We found that empathy has different meanings for software practitioners. The word is used to express understanding, compassion, and perspective-taking, among other meanings. Practitioners consider empathy important, undervalued, needed, and wanted. The study points out 19 empathetic practices in SE, such as adopting good programming practices, understanding others, being compassionate, and being mindful. It also lists 28 effects of these practices, including quality improvement, better products, and build trust. Conclusion: We organize this body of knowledge in a framework supporting new research efforts. The framework may also support software professionals to develop empathetic skills in SE.
... n Tutkimuksin on osoitettu, että työn tulokset ovat parempia, jos asiakkaat saavat kokea empatiaa vuorovaikutuksessaan ammattilaisten kanssa (Gerdes & Segal 2011). Toisaalta empatian on todettu vähentävän myös työntekijöiden loppuun palamista (Wagman, Geiger, Shockley & Segal 2014). ...
... Avainsanat: ammatillinen empatia, korkeakoulu, sosiaalipedagogiikka, luova oppiminen, oppimismenetelmät Qualified Empathy -a key element for an empowerment professional Eija Raatikainen, Leigh Anne Rauhala and Seija Mäenpää ABSTRACT n Studies have shown that when clients experience empathy during their interactions with empowerment professionals, the results of the work are better (Gerdes & Segal 2011). Empathy has also been shown to reduce burnout and protect against secondary traumatic stress in professionals (Wagman, Geiger, Shockley & Segal 2014). ...
... In this case, the interaction and emotional skills as well as non-judgmental acceptance of others is of crucial importance. Studies have shown that clients who experienced empathy while working with professionals had better results and higher levels of effectiveness (Gerdes & Segal 2011). We define an empowering professional as someone who is able to use qualified empathy skills as discussed in this article in their work with their clients. ...
Studies have shown that when clients experience empathy during their interactions with empowerment professionals, the results of the work are better (Gerdes & Segal 2011). Empathy has also been shown to reduce burnout and protect against secondary traumatic stress in professionals (Wagman, Geiger, Shockley & Segal 2014). This analysis examines and asks what an empowering professional is and what ”qualified” empathy is all about? How can it be learned and taught effectively in higher education contexts? In this paper, we will describe how teaching and learning to use empathy has been a part of studies for Social Services students. We argue that professional empathy can be approached in multisensory ways when studying empathy (e.g. Austring & Sørensen 2006). In our case, we have used traditional learning and teaching methods alongside creative methods such as visual arts and drama as ways to learn and teach empathy. Social pedagogically speaking, professional empathy is not just seen as a ’tool’ or ’thinking framework’ in encountering clients, increasing empowerment, or supporting the process of inclusion, but it can also be seen as one of the core competencies for students (as future professionals). It also has an important role in their professional growth and activities. This paper presents results of the project called ”Qualified Empathy” (2015–2017, NORDPLUS). The project took place in the Helsinki Metropolia University of Applied Sciences, as well as in Norway and Denmark as a way to develop diverse and creative teaching and learning methods to help Social Services students (N=47) to learn and develop more professional empathy skills as part of the course. As a part of this review, we have paid attention to individual descriptions as well as to pedagogical perspectives on how empathy can be learned and taught in higher education. We will also consider what needs to be addressed in the teaching and learning contexts in the future. The text combines a social pedagogical approach to the learning and teaching of empathy. *** Tutkimuksin on osoitettu, että työn tulokset ovat parempia, jos asiakkaat saavat kokea empatiaa vuorovaikutuksessaan ammattilaisten kanssa (Gerdes & Segal 2011). Toisaalta empatian on todettu vähentävän myös työntekijöiden loppuun palamista (Wagman, Geiger, Shockley & Segal 2014). Tässä katsauksessa tarkastellaan ammatillista empatiaa ja sen oppimista ja opettamista korkeakoulukontekstissa. Kysymme tässä tekstissä, mitä ammatillinen empatia on ja miten sitä voidaan oppia ja opettaa korkeakoulukontekstissa. Ammatillisella empatialla tarkoitetaan tässä yhteydessä moniaistillista tapaa oppia ja opiskella empatiaa (esim. Austring & Sørensen 2006). Tällöin perinteisten oppimis- ja opetusmenetelmien rinnalla myös luovat menetelmät kuten kuvataide ja draama ovat keskeisiä tapoja oppia ja opettaa empatiaa. Sosiaalipedagogisesti ajateltuna ammatillinen empatia ei ole vain ”työväline” tai ”ajattelukehikko” asiakkaan kohtaamiseen, voimaannuttamiseen tai osallistamiseen, vaan se voidaan nähdä myös keskeisenä opiskelijan (tulevan ammattilaisen) ammatillisen kasvun ja ammatillisen toiminnan ytimenä, sosiaalipedagogisena sydämenä. Tässä katsauksessa esitellään NORPLUS-hankkeen ”Qualified Empathy” (2015–2017) aikana Metropolia Ammattikorkeakoulussa ja sen kumppanikorkeakouluissa kehitettyjä monimuotoisia ja luovia opetus- ja oppimismenetelmiä, joiden avulla sosionomiopiskelijoille (n=47) opetettiin empatiaa osana opintojaksoa. Huomio kiinnittyy yksilöllisten kokemusten lisäksi pedagogiseen näkökulmaan, kuinka empatiaa voidaan oppia ja opettaa ja millaisia asioita siinä yhteydessä tulisi huomioida. Teksti yhdistää sosiaalipedagogisen lähestymistavan empatian oppimiseen ja opettamiseen.
... The report calls for a greater understanding of how social factors impact end-of-life (EOL) care and for a shift in relationships between patients and practitioners from "transactional" to relationships based on "compassion and connection" ( [1], p. 870). The important role compassion and empathy play in improving patient outcomes has been well illustrated through multiple systematic reviews conducted across varied healthcare professions (e.g., [2,3,51,52]). In addition to improving patient outcomes, empathy training is also associated with personal and professional growth of both students and practitioners [55]. ...
... While considerable research suggests that empathy plays a role in improving patient outcomes across a variety of healthcare professions (e.g., [2,3,51,52]), empathy development while working with dying patients is less well understood and may present unique challenges during clinical training. In this study, we examined empathic responses to targeted questions and patient vignettes depicting EOL care-related challenges of both a hospice patient and of a family member who was unable to provide care to her sister. ...
... For instance, in school bullying incidents, bystanders with high basic empathy are more likely to intervene to stop the bullying or support the victim. Additionally, individuals with high basic empathy typically possess stronger social skills, which enable them to establish and maintain healthy interpersonal relationships within groups (68). These social networks provide them with opportunities and support to engage in bystander intervention behaviors. ...
... Zhong et al. 10.3389/fpsyt.2024.1452396 in daily upbringing but also pay attention to the emotional development of adolescents. By guiding adolescents to understand and experience others' emotions, parents can effectively cultivate prosocial behaviors in their children (68). This emotional guidance helps adolescents better identify and respond to others' needs in social situations and can inspire protective and helping behaviors, thereby creating a more positive impact on society (72). ...
Introduction
This study investigates how parental styles, basic empathy, and family violence influence adolescents’ bystander behaviors in school bullying.
Methods
A survey was conducted with 1,067 students from three middle schools in southern China. Multifactor logistic regression and a moderated mediation model were employed to analyze the relationships between positive and negative parental styles, basic empathy, and bystander behaviors.
Results
The study found significant correlations and predictive relationships: Positive parental styles were strongly associated with increased basic empathy (r = 0.29, p < 0.01) and behaviors that protect victims (r = 0.29, p < 0.01). In contrast, negative parental styles correlated positively with behaviors that support bullying (r = 0.12, p < 0.01) and instances of family violence (r = 0.62, p < 0.01). Basic empathy negatively predicted behaviors that promote bullying (β = -0.098, p < 0.01) and positively predicted protective behaviors toward victims (β = 0.249, p < 0.001). Furthermore, family violence weakened the positive effects of positive parental styles on both empathy (β = -0.075, p < 0.001) and protective behaviors (β = -0.025, p < 0.01).
Conclusion
The findings indicate that positive parental styles indirectly promote adolescents’ victim protector behaviors by enhancing their basic empathy, underscoring the importance of emotional cultivation. Meanwhile, family violence weakens the positive impact of these parental styles on basic empathy and protective behaviors, harming adolescents’ emotional security and behavioral norms.
... Thus, we conduct a critical review of the literature to better understand the concept of empathy, how it has been used over time in clinical practice and research, and how we can use this information to inform psychotherapy and contemporary clinical social work practice. A critical literature review synthesizes Empathy is essential for building the therapeutic relationship and has been considered a fundamental mechanism for helping clients change (Gerdes & Segal, 2011;Murphy et al., 2013;Watson et al., 2022). The use of the relationship for promoting client change was recognized by the founder of social casework, Mary Ellen Richmond, and was later influenced by the practice and empathy research of psychologist Carl Rogers and psychoanalyst Heinz Kohut (Watson et al., 2022). ...
... The use of the relationship for promoting client change was recognized by the founder of social casework, Mary Ellen Richmond, and was later influenced by the practice and empathy research of psychologist Carl Rogers and psychoanalyst Heinz Kohut (Watson et al., 2022). Since then, studies have demonstrated that empathy is associated with positive psychotherapy outcomes, regardless of the type of intervention (Elliott et al., 2018;Gerdes & Segal, 2011;Wampold, 2015). Across a variety of social work practice settings (child welfare, medical, and mental health), empathy has also been reported to be a core communication skill that predicts improved clinical outcomes, higher client satisfaction, and increased treatment engagement (Elliot et al., 2018;Forrester et al., 2008). ...
This article focuses on the definition and application of empathy in psychotherapy to strengthen clinical social work’s understanding of the concept and improve consistency in how it is applied in clinical practice, psychotherapy, and research. We conducted a critical review of the conceptual and empirical literature to understand the meaning of empathy and its relation to other components of the helping relationship. Based on this review, we identified that there was lack of consensus regarding how empathy is defined and how it has been operationalized in research. This review also indicated the need to delineate empathy from closely related constructs (e.g., the therapeutic alliance) and focus on frequently overlooked empathy subdomains (e.g., fantasy) to enhance clinical social work practice.
... Affective sharing with others is an automatic unconscious process, which involves the neural networks in our brains to be stimulated when we listen to others' feelings or observe their behavioural expressions of emotions. Gerdes and Segal (2011) argued that affective sharing with others can be promoted by training social workers to observe and listen to their clients mindfully. Self-other awareness and mental flexibility with emotion regulation are not automatic, but rather, they are skills that are learned and developed. ...
... Self-other awareness and mental flexibility with emotion regulation are not automatic, but rather, they are skills that are learned and developed. It is important that all of these four components of empathy are developed through training, including through social work education, and this will in turn enhance social workers' effectiveness with their clients and prevent burnout (Gerdes and Segal, 2011). In their social work model of empathy, Gerdes and Segal (2009) take the above model one step further by proposing another necessary component of empathy-conscious decision making. ...
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all aspects of people’s lives worldwide, including the work of social workers and the education of social work students. Field placements are a significant part of social work education, but during the pandemic they were cut short and most teachings moved online. The current mixed methods study examined the effects of social work education on social work students’ empathy and resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic on the island of Ireland. A matched sample of forty-nine students completed an online survey at the start (T1) of their degree and at the end (T2). A further 229 students who only completed the T1 survey were compared to 70 others who only completed the T2 survey. The results showed improved resilience in the cohort comparison. There were no differences in empathy in the matched sample nor between the cohorts. Thematic analysis of students’ narratives showed that they found the switch to online learning difficult, with some reporting negative impacts on their mental health and the abrupt ending of placements impacting their feelings of preparedness for practice. Implications of this study and future research areas are discussed.
... From a social work perspective, research on empathy and its measurement, including the current analysis, can contribute to the field by increasing awareness of conceptualizing empathy as a multi-dimensional concept and rooting for a more conclusive operationalization of empathy with the help of empirical and cross-cultural evidence. As Gerdes and Segal (2011) argued, empathy is the defining factor in practitioner-client success, and it could lead to desirable outcomes for both parties involved. Through emotion understanding, social work practitioners and counselors can connect more effectively with their clients and through emotion regulation, they can prevent burnout and empathic fatigue and offer more productive treatments to their clients (Gerdes et al., 2010;Yaghoubi Jami et al., 2021a). ...
... As pointed out by Siu and Shek (2005), social work research on empathy is largely limited to western populations, which could threaten the generalizability of findings. Moreover, considering the lack of 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 F o r P e e r R e v i e w consensus among researchers about conceptualization and operationalization of empathy (Gerdes & Segal, 2011) as well as lack of research on empathy in social work field (Siu & Shek, 2005), results from studies, including the current analysis, could move the field forward and help educators and practitioners to design more successful interventions. In line with Gerdes and colleagues (2010), we believe that "social work can and should be at the forefront of developing a consistent definition of empathy and creating measures" (p. ...
Purpose
Although researchers have examined empathy among many populations worldwide, investigations of empathy among Farsi-speakers are limited. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) for Farsi-speakers (IRI-Farsi).
Methods
After translating, we explored psychometric properties of the IRI-Farsi with exploratory factor analysis and item response theory using a sample of Iranians ( N = 517).
Results
The IRI-Farsi appeared to exhibit a four-factor structure and acceptable item properties within each subscale. Moreover, the IRI-Farsi rating scale categories were generally ordered and distinct with emotion-triggering items as easier to endorse compared to more complex cognitively aroused statements.
Conclusions
Results support using the IRI to measure dispositional empathy in mainland Iran. Social work researchers can use these results to inform research and practice related to empathy in this population and design more effective interventions to increase awareness of empathic feelings and understanding for practitioners and clients.
... Furthermore, health-care practitioners who perspective-take have clients who are more satisfied [11] and more likely to adhere to a treatment plan [13] than those who do not. While people can be naturally empathetic, learning self-awareness and how to take others' perspectives in a way that does not involve experiencing others' emotions is important for avoiding burnout [14,15]. Thus, perspective-taking interventions are important for students and practitioners. ...
Background
Health-care practitioners have opportunities to talk with clients about unhealthy behaviors. How practitioners approach these conversations involves skill to be effective. Thus, teaching health-care students to communicate empathetically with clients should promote effective client-practitioner conversations about health behavior change. The primary objective of this pilot trial was to assess the feasibility, acceptability, and appropriateness of a theoretically informed intervention designed to improve perspective-taking.
Methods
For inclusion in this randomized mixed-methods parallel two-arm trial, participants needed to be a student at the investigators’ Canadian university and have completed course content on behavior change communication. Using a 1:1 allocation ratio, participants in Respiratory, Physical, and Occupational Therapy; Nurse Practitioner; and Kinesiology programs were randomly assigned to full or partial intervention conditions. Full intervention participants completed a perspective-taking workshop and practiced perspective-taking prior to an in-lab dialogue with a client-actor (masked to condition) about physical activity. Partial intervention participants received the workshop after the dialogue. We assessed feasibility and appropriateness by comparing recruitment rates, protocol, and psychometric outcomes to criteria. We assessed acceptability (secondary outcome) by analyzing exit interviews.
Results
We screened and randomized 163 participants (82 = full intervention; 81 = partial intervention). We fell slightly short of our recruitment success criteria (10–15 participants per program) when 2/50 Occupational Therapy students participated. We met some but not all of our protocol criteria: Some full intervention participants did not practice perspective-taking before the dialogue, because they did not see anyone during the practice period or did not have a practice opportunity. Psychometric outcomes met the criteria, except for one measure that demonstrated ceiling effects and low reliability (Cronbach’s alpha < .70). There were no adverse events related to participation.
Conclusions
The intervention should be largely feasible, appropriate, and acceptable to deliver. We suggest changes that are large enough to warrant conducting another pilot study. We outline recommended improvements that are applicable to researchers and educators interested in recruitment, adherence to home practice, and online uptake of the intervention.
Trial registration
This trial was registered retrospectively on November 8, 2023, at https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT06123507.
... Social care work standard 1.23 requires graduates 'to see the world as others see it, practice in a non-judgemental manner, understand another's feelings and be able to communicate that understanding' (SCWRB, 2017b, p. 5). This standard (1.23) contains the only reference to feelings in either set of standards, yet the ability to empathise with others is considered a necessary 'rule of engagement' (Phan et al., 2009, p.329), a critical skill across the caring professions (Gerdes & Segal, 2011;Gair, 2012;Moudatsou et al., 2020;Yu et al., 2016). This is not to suggest that there is a lack of empathy in the profession itself, but rather to note its absence from the standards. ...
This article provides a timely intervention to debates and scholarship about the professional regulation of social work and social care. In Ireland, the recent commencement of the statutory regulation of social care by CORU – Ireland’s multi-professional health regulator – offers a watershed opportunity for learning. Social work has been separately regulated by CORU for over a decade, while the social care work register opened in November 2023. We conduct a comparative content analysis of the standards of proficiency for social work and for social care work. Albeit with different historical origins, regulation has now provided these professions with distinctive, as well as shared professional ‘benchmarks’, that may shape the trajectories of their future roles and training. We consider the approach CORU takes to regulation, in terms of the standards and how these differentiate or align the two professions. The novel contribution of the paper lies in its key findings. Namely, that: the format of the standards of proficiency framework itself warrants further consideration; insufficient attention is paid to empathy and emotions across standards; there is an absence of a considered approach to the influence of socio-economic factors on practice; there are variations in the emphasis placed on relational versus socio-political dimensions in practice; and finally, there are differences in the importance paid to ‘critical understanding’ across the standards. These areas particularly illuminate how CORU frames and interprets the nature of both professions. It is concluded that the standards of proficiency for both social care work and social work have much shared terrain, interspersed with infrequent but striking differences, indicative of the many commonalities and overlap in occupational spheres for both professions.
... Цаашлаад хүүхдийн түрэмгий зан үйл бага байхтай холбоотой (Lovett & Sheffield, 2007;Malcolm-Smith et al., 2015) төдийгүй эмпати чадварыг дэмжих сургалтыг бий болгосноор сургуулийн орчинд түрэмгийлэл буурч, сурагчдын сэтгэл ханамж дээшилдэг болохыг онцолжээ (Kokkinos & Kipritsi, 2017). Мөн нийгмийн ажил эрхэлдэг хүмүүст зайлшгүй эзэмшсэн байх чадварын нэг хэмээн тооцогддог (Gerdes & Segal, 2011) ба багш мэргэжилтэй хүмүүст энэхүү чадвар харьцангуй өндөр байх хандлагатай болохыг илрүүлсэн байдаг (Huang et al., 2012). Үүнээс үзэхэд ерөнхий боловсролын сургуулийн сурагчийн эмпати чадварыг үнэлснээр уг чадварыг сайжруулах сургалт, үйл ажиллагааг зохион байгуулах арга хэмжээг авах замаар тэдний нийгмийн харилцааг дэмжих чухал алхам болохыг харуулж байна. ...
Эмпати чадвар нь бусдын мэдрэмж, сэтгэл хөдлөл, туршлагыг ойлгох чадвар бөгөөд нийгмийн харилцаанд чухал болохыг урьд өмнөх судалгаанууд тогтоосон байна. Мөн эмпати чадвар өндөр байдал нь бусадтай харилцаа холбоо тогтоох, сэтгэл зүйн сайн сайхан байдал, амьдралын сэтгэл ханамж өндөр байхтай холбоотой байдаг. Монгол хэл дээр нутагшсан эмпати чадварын танин мэдэхүйн болон сэтгэл хөдлөлийн олон талыг судлах арга зүй одоогоор байхгүй байна. Тиймээс бид судалгаагаар эмпати чадварын олон талыг судлах зорилготой “Хүн хоорондын хариу үйлдлийн индекс” асуулгын монгол хувилбарын психометрик чанарыг шалгалаа. Уг асуулгыг монгол хэл рүү зөвлөлийн аргыг ашиглан орчуулж, салбартаа ажиллаж буй мэргэжлийн шинжээчдийн баг асуулгын агуулгын тохиромжтой байдлыг үнэлсэн. Асуулгын эцсийн хувилбараар ерөнхий боловсролын сургуулийн ахлах ангийн381 өсвөр насны хүүхдээс судалгаа авсан. Хүчин зүйл тайлбарлах (EFA) болон хүчин зүйл батлах (CFA) шинжилгээний үр дүнд анхны 28 асуулттайгаас 18 асуулт бүхий хувилбар нь 4 хүчин зүйлээ илүү тохиромжтой илэрхийлж байгааг тогтоосон. Ийнхүү M-IRI асуулгын найдварт чанарыг шалгаж өсвөр насны хүүхдийг судлахад ашиглах боломжтой, найдвартай арга болохыг баталсан
... The results from this study indicate that MBP participation improves social worker's competencies in being mindful, self-compassionate, and their ability to observe their thinking processes non-judgementally and without defence. It appears that if social workers were to engage in an MBP, the development of these three CBPM domains would allow them to develop increased feelings of empathy for their service users, which is a core therapeutic process in social work (Rogers, 1967;Tanner, 2020), and a key ingredient of effective social work practice (Gerdes & Segal, 2011). ...
Objectives
Growing evidence suggests that mindfulness-based programmes (MBPs) can reduce stress and burnout among social workers. How MBPs support changes in these outcomes is unclear. This study attempts to identify what some of these mechanisms might be, using the clinically modified Buddhist psychological model (CBPM) as a guiding framework.
Method
This study used data from two randomised controlled trials investigating the impact of MBP participation on social worker stress and burnout. The data from participants (n = 94) who completed a Mindfulness-based Social Work and Self-Care (MBSWSC) programme, or a mindfulness and self-compassion programme (MSC) were combined. Structural equation models were constructed, and conditional direct and indirect effect models of changes in the CBPM domains (mindfulness, self-compassion, attention regulation, acceptance, non-attachment, non-aversion), mediating variables (rumination and worry) and outcomes (stress and burnout) were tested.
Results
The results suggest that CBPM models, through mediated effects on stress, depersonalisation, and personal accomplishment, as well as direct and mediated effects on stress, emotional exhaustion, and depersonalisation, can provide useful frameworks for explaining how MBPs reduce stress and burnout among social workers. This study also found several other significant conditional direct and indirect effects. The pattern of these relationships indicate that multiple outcomes could be improved through different CBPM domains.
Conclusion
This study provides initial evidence on the potential mechanisms through which MBP participation acts to reduce stress and burnout in social workers.
Preregistration
https://www.clinicaltrials.gov; Unique identifier: NCT05519267 and NCT05538650.
... Additionally, CEL has increased student empathy, especially when reflection opportunities are integrated into the learning experience (Wilson, 2011). Empathy is critical for effective social work practice; clients who experience empathy about their social worker have improved outcomes (Gerdes & Segal, 2011). In social work education, students complete an intensive field practicum in their senior year, and the practicum is considered the signature pedagogy of social work education (CSWE, n.d.). ...
Undergraduate social work students often have anxiety and aversion to research methods and macro or community-level content. Community-engaged learning (CEL) projects involve an experiential approach to teaching that addresses community needs and have shown promise as a high-impact practice in social work and related disciplines. The present study uses a qualitative design to examine a threaded CEL project executed across two undergraduate courses: Social Work Research Methods, and Community and Organizational Practice. By analyzing reflection essays with a deductive, two-cycle coding strategy, investigators sought to understand how the CEL project affected students’ anxiety, interest, and self-efficacy. Overall, essays illustrated that real-world experience of the CEL process effectively increased interest and self-efficacy while reducing anxiety among students about course content. Implications for implementation and future research are discussed.
... For social work practitioners to be acquainted with the effectiveness of their interventions, they must conduct research. It is through research that social workers are equipped with tools that describe, define, measure, monitor, and evaluate their work (Gerdes & Segal, 2011). Information that seeks to inform the role of social work in the climate change discourse can only be obtained when social workers conduct research and employ research methods to gather relevant data, thereby making informed interventions. ...
... Dealing with emotional distress and being empathic were also identified as central aspects of this work. Empathy has been identified as particularly important to social work and clients as it is associated with improved outcomes (Gerdes and Segal 2011). In this study it equated to showing concern, building rapport and trust ensuring that older patients felt safe and cared for. ...
... This requires practitioners to pay careful attention to all aspects of verbal and nonverbal communication from an open and nonjudgmental position. Practitioners must also have a strong sense of self-awareness that allows them to disentangle their own emotions and experiences from the emotions and experiences of the child and family, and an ability to flexibly alternate between empathic engagement and self-regulation in the helping process (Gerdes & Segal, 2011). ...
This chapter explores strategies to engage and support families of children experiencing mental health challenges during the early elementary school years. A review of child risk and resilience factors and barriers common to family engagement with mental health care is provided alongside practice strategies, such as building empathy and rapport with families, to support early connection to needed services. Collaborative goal setting and education about interventions and support of interventions in the home setting are critical to engagement, facilitating the success of interventions. Critical issues and considerations associated with mental health-care access such as culture, health and social inequality, and social determinants of health are discussed. In the future, policy change to support family engagement and research to examine the impact of care engagement strategies will advance knowledge for engaging the family to promote child quality of life and well-being.
... However, most theorists and researchers propose that empathy involves both a cognitive (e.g., understanding another's point of view) and affective (e.g., sharing another's feelings) response (Jolliffe & Farrington, 2006). While some models view empathy as a stable, dispositional trait (Davis, 2018;Kaplan & Iacoboni, 2006), others contend that empathy is a skill that can be strengthened through practice (Batson et al., 2004;Gerdes & Segal, 2011). Notably, it is proposed that empathy is a key driver of prosocial behaviour (Decety et al., 2016), and a foundational skill from which other wider social attitudes and values are built (Cuff et al., 2016;Wang et al., 2017). ...
... More positive results are obtained in clients who experience empathy during the intervention process. Empathetic social workers are more active and balance their roles better (Gerdes & Segal, 2011). Empathy also allows social workers to understand different phases of life. ...
The study aimed to investigate the attitudes and empathy levels of social work students toward the elderly according to some variables and to reveal the relationship between attitudes and empathy. The research population consisted of 899 students. 480 students were included in the sample. The Personal Information Form, the Kogan’s Attitude toward Old People Scale, and the Empathy Quotient Scale were used to collect data. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, research data were collected by administering the data collection tools face-to-face and using a web-based survey system. The results showed that among the social work students, women students, those who lived in the same house with an elderly person, and those who visited the nursing home had significantly higher positive attitudes toward the elderly. The first and third year students were found to have statistically more positive attitudes toward the elderly than the second and fourth year students. Moreover, the students who communicated with older individuals 1–2 times a week were found to have more positive attitudes toward the elderly than those who never communicated with the elderly. The students who had live in the same house with an elderly person and those who had visited the nursing home were found to have significantly higher empathy levels. The empathy levels of those who visited elderly individuals 1–2 times a week were found to be significantly higher than those who visited them once a month. In addition, a weak, positive, and significant relationship was revealed between the attitudes of social work students toward the elderly and their empathy levels.
... In addition to its frequent use in everyday language, there is also a growing interest in empathy in various research disciplines, for example, in social science (e.g. Gerdes and Segal 2011), pedagogy (e.g. Feshbach and Feshbach 2009), (social) neuroscience (e.g. ...
This study sets out to reveal recipients’ perceptions of empathy in interpersonal communication processes in organisations. Thereby, the goal is to highlight empathy’s relevance for promoting and valuing cooperation and well-being in today’s diverse and rapidly changing work environment. Following an exploratory approach, semi-structured interviews considering 20 everyday work situations were conducted. In order to analyse the interviews, the study applies qualitative content analysis using deductive-inductive category formation. The study identifies seven main categories with underlying statements relevant to empathy recipients. Results show that recipients appreciate the experience of receiving empathy, which leads to an improvement in daily interactions. Likewise, the interviewees outline measures that can be used to help individuals receive empathy. To date, these efforts seem to have been rarely put into practice. However, in-depth knowledge of the recipients’ perspective is essential to get a holistic understanding of empathy and its implications in the professional context. By focusing exclusively on the empathy recipients’ perspective, this study makes an innovative contribution to current research and enriches the picture of empathy perception in the professional context, paving the way for an improvement in interpersonal communication in organisations, while, at the same time, offering valuable solutions for present-day challenges, such as uncertainties due to Covid-19.KeywordsWorkplace empathyEmpathy recipientsEmpathic communicationQualitative content analysisExploratory interview study
... They can be of varying length, frequency, and content, and they are directly connected to preschoolers' learning gains (Connor, Morrison, and Slominski 2006;Piasta et al. 2015). The domain of language and pre-literacy plays a particular pivotal role in preschools (Gerdes and Segal 2011;Viernickel and Schwarz 2009). Related educational activities in preschools encourage children to deal with written and spoken language(s) from an early age on (e.g. through story reading, storytelling, discussion rounds, singing) and thus help children develop respective skills. ...
... This ability should be even more crucial for professional helpers (Gerdes and Segal, 2011). Specifically, individuals who train to be members of helping professions such as psychologist, medical doctor, nurse, or social worker, should plausibly be interested in the wellbeing of others. ...
The relationship between decoding ability (Emotion recognition accuracy, ERA) for negative and positive emotion expressions from only video, only audio and audio-video stimuli and the skill to understand peoples’ unspoken thoughts and feelings (Empathic accuracy, EA) was tested. Participants (N = 101) from three groups (helping professionals with and without therapy training as well as non-helping professionals) saw or heard recordings of narrations of a negative event by four different persons. Based on either audio-video or audio-only recordings, the participants indicated for given time points what they thought the narrator was feeling and thinking while speaking about the event. A Bayesian regression model regressing group and ERA scores on EA scores was showing weak support only for the EA scores for ratings of unspoken feelings from audio only recordings. In a subsample, the quality of self-experienced social interactions in everyday life was assessed with a diary. The analysis of ERA and EA scores in relation to diary scores did not indicate much correspondence. The results are discussed in terms of relations between skills in decoding emotions using different test paradigms and contextual factors.
... That is why factors such as reflective skills (Ferguson, 2018;Ruch, 2013) empathic ability (Gerdes & Segal, 2011), stress resilience and socioemotional competencies (Kinman & Grant, 2011;Stanley & Mettilda, 2020), among others, have lately been shown to be crucial competencies in their professional repertoire. While these elements have been recognized as important for the professional practice of that collective, there is a scarcity of empirical studies regarding these dimensions in the existing literature on social work. ...
Social work, ad hoc emotional regulation intervention program, wellbeing, process-oriented methodology, constructionism of emotions
... Empathy means standing in the shoes of another person, understanding his or her perspective, emotions and the situation he is in (Koski & Sterck 2010in Herlin, Ilona & Laura Visapa¨a, 2016. It is the act of perceiving, understanding, experiencing, and responding to the emotional state and ideas of another person (Barker, 2003in Gerdes & Segal, 2011. Being empathetic is acting ethically and developing more harmonious relationships among people (Claypool & Molnar, 2011). ...
This quasi-experimental study investigated the influence of euphemistic texts (words used to substitute unethical, taboo, or harsh expressions) on the corrupt communication usage, empathy and prejudice levels of 39 education students. The participants, who were purposively chosen, were exposed to selected euphemistic texts for three months. The study utilized three validated researcher-made instruments for data gathering. The descriptive statistics, t-test for dependent sample, and Pearson’s r obtained the quantitative results. The interview, observation, and journal writing were utilized to gather further information. Findings showed that using euphemistic texts diminished the participants’ corrupt communication usage, maintained higher level of empathy and lowered their prejudice level. Avoiding harsh expressions was the most common manifestation of changed behavior among the participants. The study suggests that using euphemistic texts may be an effective alternative strategy in developing higher empathy level and minimizing prejudice, especially in lowering the extent of corrupt communication usage of the participants while speaking.
... Empathy is one facet of social cognition that has long been of interest in research and clinical practice. Psychotherapy and related interventions often target various aspects of empathy for the purpose of improving social functioning [25][26][27][28]. However, the precise nature of the relationship between empathy and various forms of psychopathology is not well understood. ...
Social connectedness is increasingly understood to be a resilience factor that moderates vulnerability to poor physical and mental health. This study examines cognitive and affective processes that support normal socialization and social connectedness, and the impact of schizotypy, in well-functioning college students. In this study, a total of 824 college students completed a series of self-report questionnaires, and structural equation modeling was then employed to identify relationships between cognitive and affective empathy, alexithymia, distress tolerance, social connectedness, and schizotypy. Schizotypy is a trait-like condition, presumed to be genetic in origin, associated with the risk for schizophrenia. Like schizophrenia, schizotypy is thought to have three distinct dimensions or categories, termed positive, negative, and disorganized. Results indicate that the respective dimensions of schizotypy have different pathways to social connectedness, through both direct and indirect effects. Positive schizotypy exerts a counterintuitive positive influence on social connectedness, mediated by positive effects on cognitive empathy, but this is obscured by the high correlations between the schizotypal dimensions and the strong negative influences on empathy and social connectedness of the negative and disorganized dimensions, unless all those intercorrelations are taken into account. Overall, the pathways identified by structural equation modeling strongly support the role of empathy in mediating the impact of schizotypy on social connectedness. Implications for the etiology of social impairments in schizotypy, and for interventions to enhance social connectedness to improve quality of life and reduce health disparities in people at risk for severe mental illness, are discussed.
... Like other traditional societies with a long history built on family ties, empathy, defined as "thinking, feeling and imaging one's way inside of others' experience in order to know and understand them, " has been the strongest inner motivation for taking care of a stranger throughout Chinese history (56). Notably, empathy, particularly cognitive empathy, is considered to be an active skill that could be acquired and enhanced through purposeful and informed guidance (57). From this perspective, it is suggested that using social media to broadcast the problems faced by people so as to elicit empathy from viewers and motivate them to participate in volunteering activities to boost volunteer services to compensate for the human resource shortage in the health system during the COVID-19 pandemic. ...
The health system has encountered great challenges since the COVID-19 outbreak, volunteers are urgently needed in every situation during this crisis. The current study aimed to explore the relationship between empathy and COVID-19 volunteer behavior, along with the moderating role of COVID-19 risk perception in the above relationship. The cross-sectional survey was conducted online using Wenjuanxing from February 12th to March 16th, 2021, in Jiangsu, China. A total of 1,486 participants completed the Toronto Empathy COVID-19 volunteer behavior and COVID-19 risk perception questionnaires. The SPSS PROCESS macro was yielded to examine the moderating effect. Simple slopes analysis was conducted to detect the associations between empathy and COVID-19 volunteer behavior at three levels of the COVID-19 risk perception. The Johnson-Neyman (J-N) technique was used to calculate where the moderating effect is significance. Results showed that empathy was positively related with COVID-19 volunteer behavior (β= 0.080, p < 0.001). COVID-19 risk perception played a moderation effect on association between empathy and COVID-19 volunteer behavior (β = −0.005, p < 0.001), the greater the levels of COVID-19 risk perception, the weaker the associations between empathy and COVID-19 volunteer behavior. The J-N test showed the association between empathy and COVID-19 volunteer behavior was no longer significant when values of COVID-19 risk perception was >10.71. Current findings could enlighten researchers and policy makers, that fostering volunteerism among public during crisis situation through arousing more empathy and reducing unnecessary risk perception of the public.
The existing literature on empathic anger presents a variety of perspectives. While some scholars view it as a constructive expression of anger, others delineate it as a specific form of emotional empathy. On the other hand, the role of religion in society remains a topic of interest among researchers due to the beneficial impact it has on the emergence of prosocial behaviors. These findings suggest that religion plays a significant part in maintaining social order and cohesion. Nevertheless, only a limited number of studies have addressed empathic anger within the context of religion. In light of the aforementioned considerations, the first part of the study aims to ascertain the degree of empathic anger, religious attitude, and level of religious involvement among Generation Z students. The second part of the study examines the influence of religious components on the manifestation of empathic anger in respondents. The results indicated that although empathic anger is only correlated with religious behavior, religious attitudes also exert some influence on the manner in which students relate to injustice.
Asian Americans have been the target of hate crimes in the United States. Data from multiple sources reveals that hate crimes increase following seminal events. Two events in particular, the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the COVID-19 pandemic, led to spikes in hate directed at Asian Americans, including adolescents. These acts of hate can range from bullying on social media to violent attacks. This paper presents four such cases of hate along with the statistics surrounding pre- and post-event hate crimes and incidents. Empathy is the ability to understand and share the perspectives and emotions of others. The lack of empathy leads to prejudice and hate. Adolescence is a unique time for human development. Under the correct circumstances, intergroup contact with empathy activation has the ability to reduce hate. Further, as empathy is a teachable trait, schools have a critical role to play in adolescent social and moral development. A lack of research exists on empathy education in adolescents. This paper reviews the current literature and suggests that empathy education may reduce prejudice. As these events are likely to occur in the future, it is the position of this paper that empathy education may reduce hate, including violent hate.
This article proposes re-evaluating traditional views of empathy in child welfare work, advocating for recognizing the role of affect in empathic relationships. Traditionally, clinical empathy has been described as a unidirectional relationship where clinical workers must remain neutral, setting aside their perceptual frameworks to become ‘mirrors’ of their clients. Through a grounded theory analysis of data collected in Chile, this article reveals that child welfare workers establish dynamic empathic connections via ‘Empathy Affect’. The study underscores the importance of affective dimensions in social work practice and policy design.
Empathy is a human aspect essential for understanding and sharing the emotions of others. It is a critical ability for effective communication. In this article, we aim to highlight how practicing empathy in software engineering can impact software practitioners’ well-being and mental health. We pay special attention to the value of practicing empathy to learn, enhance, and refine this human skill. Our findings lead us to recommend that team members practice empathy by being mindful, being open, understanding others, and taking care, which can reduce blame, improve job motivation, prevent burnout, and create a better work environment. Our key takeaway is that empathy is an important skill for software practitioners, supporting them to build better products and improve their work environment.
Empathy is an important aspect of therapeutic relationships in health and social care settings. Health educators can foster empathy development in learners through creative writing activities. Drawing on the humanities, specifically poetry, this paper offers strategies for educators to support empathy development in learners, with a focus on service user poetry and associated creative writing activities. We discuss how poetry can enable alternative perspectives about care to emerge thereby challenging previously held assumptions about mental and physical states. Using poetry can enable a rehearsal of empathy by bringing experiences to the learner in a safe and facilitated environment. Through creative writing activities, we believe that students can learn to better understand and empathise with others, as well as explore their own feelings and experiences related to caregiving, to support self-care.
Purpose:
Evidence establishing the importance of compassion in the context of social work practice is emerging. Compassion, stemming from the Latin words com and pati, means to suffer with. Given the proximity social workers have to vast experiences of suffering, compassion may play a central role in providing meaningful care to individuals, communities, and systems. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore social workers' definitions of and experiences with compassion.
Method:
Participants included 12 social workers working across levels of practice in two Midwestern states in the United States. Data were collected via semi-structured interviews.
Results:
Thematic analysis demonstrated three themes present in the data. Consistent with previous conceptual scholarship, the findings illustrated that compassion is a central component of social work practice. Additionally, results from the study demonstrated that social workers find compassion to be an imperative component of ethical practice and suggested that both barriers to and facilitators of compassion are present across levels of social work practice.
Discussion and conclusion:
This study adds to the growing body of social work scholarship exploring compassion and highlights implications for the social work discipline across levels of practice to more overtly center compassion in education, practice, and policy. Further research is needed to better understand multilevel barriers to compassion and develop strategies for overcoming them. Moreover, additional research is needed to holistically understand how to leverage and build upon the facilitators of compassion identified by participants in order to foster compassionate social workers, social work organizations, and systems.
This article advances the psychological knowledge on the phenomenon of Changers-for-Good (C4Gs), that is, individuals who extend the range of the possible, addressing pressing and often insurmountable social problems and achieving durable and systemic social change. C4Gs are presented from both conceptual and practical perspectives. It is documented, through the presented examples and literature review, that their approach could be perceived on three axes: Conceptual, performative, and ethical. Each of these dimensions can be broken down into components: Conceptual: Perceiving challenges as doable, divergent thinking, embracing contradictions, and the cognitive part of the Peace-Oriented Mindset (POM); Performative: Entrepreneurial qualities, propensity for building social capital, and action-oriented POM; Ethical: Empathy, compassion, and—possibly—a blend of the two: Empassion. Moreover, assessment methods for each of these components are presented. It is concluded that the C4G model may be a gateway for educating and training future social sector leaders.
The Social Innovation Project focuses on developing and implementing innovative solutions to impact students and the community positively. In this module, students are engaged in an interdisciplinary and collaborative setting to identify opportunities in today's global and local environments that create and capture values. The project-based learning activities for this module emphasize situated learning, which deals with authentic and unique real-world issues. Students will be involved in collaborative decision-making and problem-solving as they have to discuss, consult, collaborate, and solve the problem to provide services or create a product for the desired community. After taking this module, students are able to enhance their creativity and instill values, such as leadership, teamwork, communication, and interpersonal skills, among students through the completion of the group's project.
Background
Good communication is central to effective social work practice, helping to develop constructive working relationships and improve the outcomes of people in receipt of social work services. There is strong consensus that the teaching and learning of communication skills for social work students is an essential component of social work qualifying courses. However, the variation in communication skills training and its components is significant. There is a sizeable body of evidence relating to communication skills training therefore a review of the findings helps to clarify what we know about this important topic in social work education. We conducted this systematic review to determine whether communication skills training for social work students works and which types of communication skills training, if any, were more effective and lead to the most positive outcomes.
Objectives
This systematic review aimed to critically evaluate all studies which have investigated the effectiveness of communication skills training programmes for social work students. The research question which the review posed is: ‘What is the effectiveness of communication skills training for improving the communicative abilities of social work students?’ It was intended that the review would provide a robust evaluation of communication skills training for social work students and help explain variations in practice to support educators and policy‐makers to make evidence‐based decisions in social work education, practice and policy.
Search Methods
We conducted a search for published and unpublished studies using a comprehensive search strategy that included multiple electronic databases, research registers, grey literature sources, and reference lists of prior reviews and relevant studies.
Selection Criteria
Study selection was based on the following characteristics: Participants were social work students on generic (as opposed to client specific) qualifying courses; Interventions included any form of communication skills training; eligible studies were required to have an appropriate comparator such as no intervention or an alternative intervention; and outcomes included changes in knowledge, attitudes, skills and behaviours. Study selection was not restricted by geography, language, publication date or publication type.
Data Collection and Analysis
The search strategy was developed using the terms featuring in existing knowledge and practice reviews and in consultation with social work researchers, academics and the review advisory panel, to ensure that a broad range of terminology was included. One reviewer conducted the database searches, removing duplicates and irrelevant records, after which each record was screened by title and abstract by both reviewers to ensure robustness. Any studies deemed to be potentially eligible were retrieved in full text and screened by both reviewers.
Main Results
Fifteen studies met the inclusion criteria. Overall, findings indicate that communication skills training including empathy can be learnt, and that the systematic training of social work students results in some identifiable improvements in their communication skills. However, the evidence is dated, methodological rigour is weak, risk of bias is moderate to high/serious or incomplete, and extreme heterogeneity exists between the primary studies and the interventions they evaluated. As a result, data from the included studies were incomplete, inconsistent, and lacked validity, limiting the findings of this review, whilst identifying that further research is required.
Authors’ Conclusions
This review aimed to examine effects of communication skills training on a range of outcomes in social work education. With the exception of skill acquisition, there was insufficient evidence available to offer firm conclusions on other outcomes. For social work educators, our understanding of how communication skills and empathy are taught and learnt remain limited, due to a lack of empirical research and comprehensive discussion. Despite the limitations and variations in educational culture, the findings are still useful, and suggest that communication skills training is likely to be beneficial. One important implication for practice appears to be that the teaching and learning of communication skills in social work education should provide opportunities for students to practice skills in a simulated (or real) environment. For researchers, it is clear that further rigorous research is required. This should include using validated research measures, using research designs which include appropriate counterfactuals, alongside more careful and consistent reporting. The development of the theoretical underpinnings of the interventions used for the teaching and learning of communication skills in social work education is another area that researchers should address.
This chapter begins by laying the theoretical foundation upon which insightful empathy can be understood. Insightful empathy entails purposefully sharing and understanding another’s emotions. Music therapists frequently articulate their intention to know their clients and their belief in their capacity to do so through the musical therapeutic relationship. Insightful empathy operates upon this assumption that one can know the inner world of another. The chapter describes the various components of the stance one would assume when engaging in insightful empathy. Self-awareness is presented as a starting point, followed by an examination of the motivation, ability, and capacity to empathise. This chapter also highlights the importance of paying attention, as well as exercising a non-judgemental attitude, and having the courage to engage in playful risk-taking, as one may not know where the process of empathy will lead.KeywordsInsightful empathyReceptivitySelf-awarenessMotivationEmpathic abilityEmpathic capacityAttentionNonjudgmentMusic therapy
Introducción. Las habilidades socioemocionales cobran importancia en el desempeño profesional, en especial en carreras sanitarias, de modo que la empatía y la inteligencia emocional influyen en las relaciones interpersonales vinculadas al ejercicio profesional. El objetivo propuesto es determinar la relación existente entre la empatía, la inteligencia emocional y la autoestima en estudiantes de carreras con una orientación sanitaria en comparación con quienes eligen cursar otro tipo de carreras. Método. Han participado 229 estudiantes universitarios con edades comprendidas entre los 17 y los 30 años (M = 22.06; DT = 3.29). Junto a variables sociodemográficas, se evaluó la satisfacción percibida con la carrera y la elección vocacional y se aplicaron tres escalas: la BES-B, el TMMS y la escala de autoestima de Rosenberg. Resultados. El ámbito académico en sí mismo no determina la presencia de mayores habilidades socioemocionales, resultando variables predictoras la motivación vocacional hacia la carrera, el sexo femenino, la edad y el curso. La empatía afectiva es mayor en las alumnas y las puntuaciones en inteligencia emocional son homogéneas entre población universitaria. Se confirma una relación positiva entre la empatía, la inteligencia emocional y la autoestima con la elección vocacional de la carrera, de modo que esta predice mayores valores en empatía y autoestima, obteniendo los estudiantes de carreras sanitarias puntuaciones más elevadas en habilidades empáticas y autoestima.Discusión y conclusiones. El estudio de las competencias socioemocionales resulta de sumo interés en futuros profesionales con dedicación a actividades terapéuticas y asistenciales.
El Ecuador en el contexto de la pandemia ha adaptado un modelo educativo remoto con el cual ha garantizado la continuidad educativa, en este tipo de educación la empatía entre el estudiante y el docente se convierte de vital importancia para obtener una educación de calidad. El objetivo de este estudio es plantear una propuesta que permita la obtención de aprendizajes significativos a través de clases virtuales motivadoras generadas por la empatía de los actores educativos. Esta investigación es de tipo teórico, en la cual se aplicó una revisión documental a través de un instrumento de ficha mixta, para esto se clasificaron dos componentes: importancia de empatía en la educación virtual y la empatía como estrategia para el aprendizaje; esta información fundamentó el diseño de esta propuesta. Se concluye que la empatía es fundamental en el proceso de enseñanza aprendizaje, debido a que las interacciones positivas y las acciones motivadoras generan vínculos y compromisos académicos, de vital importancia durante la pandemia.
Social work education is designed and devoted to the dissemination, cultivation, and promotion of social justice. Based on the social empathy model that promotes social justice and utilizing primary survey data collected online from a sample of 199 social work educators in the U.S. this study explored the associations between social empathy and attitudes toward social justice (ATSJ) and intentions to engage in social justice (IESJ). The dependent variables ATSJ and IESJ were based on two subscales from the Social Justice Scale, and the independent variable social empathy was based on the Interpersonal and Social Empathy Index. Findings suggest that social work educators with higher level of social empathy have more positive attitudes toward social justice and higher level of intentions to engage in social justice. The study concludes that social empathy is significantly associated with attitudes toward social justice and intentions to engage in social justice and supports the social empathy model that promotes social justice. This study sheds light upon future research on the construct of social justice and calls for more initiatives promoting social justice in social work education, such as curricula reforms and faculty development programs based on the social empathy framework.
The present seven-day diary study evaluated emotional labor strategies as mediators of the relationship between social stressors and disengagement on a short-term and intra-individual basis. The expectation was that surface acting and deep acting should precede higher disengagement. Before and after work, 63 social workers completed daily questions on social stressors with clients, emotional labor strategies, and disengagement. Multilevel analyses of up to 236 daily measurements revealed that more intense social stressors with clients predicted more intense surface acting, deep acting, and disengagement after work. Deep acting anteceded higher disengagement. An analysis of the indirect effects presented a significant positive indirect path from social stressors with clients via deep acting to disengagement. These findings bring to light how emotional labor strategies and disengaging work styles, despite being maladaptive long-term, may have a beneficial function for social workers on a day-today basis and intra-individual level.
Cross-curricular competencies, new academic skills
The debate which exists around the term competencies illustrates the concerns generated by the questioning of models based solely on subject knowledge and their replacement by those based on competencies. Is this the reflection of a profound change, of an ephemeral fashion, of a switch from one model to another or of a semantic shift ? These questions refer to a variation of vocabulary in and for different spheres and uses and at different stages of development of the notion. So-called soft skills take on the appearance of new academic skills at university. These skills find their place in university programmes and in the articulation training-employability-living together.
Empathy and Mental Health: An Integral Model for Developing Therapeutic Skills in Counseling and Psychotherapy. The text features a multiple perspective conception of empathy in the context of facilitating a wide-range of stage and strategic skills in diverse treatment practices.
Хората, които влизат в помагащите професии, се поставят в положение да се сблъскат с негативни събития, които повлияват на различни аспекти от живота им. Емоционалните аспекти на тeзи професии, желанието да се помогне на другите и съпътстващата го емпатия, която социалните работниците изпитват, ги излагат на риск от емоционално изтощение или бърнаут.
Емпатията е важна част от терапевтичната връзка и може да бъде повредена от професионалното прегаряне. Бърнаут има вредно въздействие както върху благосъстоянието на социалните работници, така и на клиентите.
Представеният материал има за цел да разгледа и опише негативната връзка между емпатията и емоционалното изтощение и професионалното прегаряне сред работещите в социалната сфера.
This paper explores the meaning of empathy in clinical social work. It differentiates empathy from the related concepts of sympathy, insight, identification, and intuition. It examines the phenomenon of affect transmission, defines different types of empathy, describes major errors and postulates how empathy can be improved. Clinical illustrations are used throughout.
A sample of 221 11th grade students and their parents were asked to complete the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI; M. H. Davis, 1980), which is comprised of 4 subscales: empathic concern, perspective taking, fantasy, and personal distress; and a global-item measure containing 4 items, 1 for each subscale. The factorial structure that emerged in a previous study (C. Cliffordson, 2000) involving the students was tested on ratings provided by their parents. The results from the IRI scale were also compared to results from the global-item measure. Structural equation modeling was used to examine the structure of empathy and the agreement of self/other judgments. The results support the conclusions from the previous study that the concept of empathy can be considered to be identical to empathic concern, which also explains a great deal of perspective taking and fantasy. The agreement between the students' and their parents' judgments was substantial, and there are several reasons to believe that the interjudge agreement obtained is accurate. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Describes the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) and its relationships with measures of social functioning, self-esteem, emotionality, and sensitivity to others. 677 male and 667 female undergraduates served as Ss. Each of the 4 IRI subscales displayed a distinctive and predictable pattern of relationships with these measures, as well as with previous unidimensional empathy measures. Findings provide evidence for a multidimensional approach to empathy. (29 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved).
Empathy accounts for the naturally occurring subjective experience of similarity between the feelings expressed by self and others without loosing sight of whose feelings belong to whom. Empathy involves not only the affective experience of the other person's actual or inferred emotional state but also some minimal recognition and understanding of another's emotional state. In light of multiple levels of analysis ranging from developmental psychology, social psychology, cognitive neuroscience, and clinical neuropsychology, this article proposes a model of empathy that involves parallel and distributed processing in a number of dissociable computational mechanisms. Shared neural representations, self-awareness, mental flexibility, and emotion regulation constitute the basic macrocomponents of empathy, which are underpinned by specific neural systems. This functional model may be used to make specific predictions about the various empathy deficits that can be encountered in different forms of social and neurological disorders.
Research and theory on the role of emotion and regulation in morality have received considerable attention in the last decade. Much relevant work has concerned the role of moral emotions in moral behavior. Research on differences between embarrassment, guilt, and shame and their relations to moral behavior is reviewed, as is research on the association of these emotions with negative emotionality and regulation.
Recent issues concerning the role of such empathy-related responses as sympathy and personal distress to prosocial and antisocial behavior are discussed, as is the relation of empathy-related responding to situational and dispositional emotionality and regulation. The development and socialization of guilt, shame, and empathy also are discussed briefly. In addition, the role of nonmoral emotions (e.g. anger and sadness), including moods and dispositional differences in negative emotionality and its regulation, in morally relevant behavior, is reviewed.
There is disagreement in the literature about the exact nature of the phenomenon of empathy. There are emotional, cognitive, and conditioning views, applying in varying degrees across species. An adequate description of the ultimate and proximate mechanism can integrate these views. Proximately, the perception of an object's state activates the subject's corresponding representations, which in turn activate somatic and autonomic responses. This mechanism supports basic behaviors (e.g., alarm, social facilitation, vicariousness of emotions, mother-infant responsiveness, and the modeling of competitors and predators) that are crucial for the reproductive success of animals living in groups. The Perception-Action Model (PAM), together with an understanding of how representations change with experience, can explain the major empirical effects in the literature (similarity, familiarity, past experience, explicit teaching, and salience). It can also predict a variety of empathy disorders. The interaction between the PAM and prefrontal functioning can also explain different levels of empathy across species and age groups. This view can advance our evolutionary understanding of empathy beyond inclusive fitness and reciprocal altruism and can explain different levels of empathy across individuals, species, stages of development, and situations.
"For constructive personality change to occur, it is necessary that these conditions exist and continue over a period of time: (1) Two persons are in psychological contact. (2) The first, whom we shall term the client, is in a state of incongruence, being vulnerable or anxious. (3) The second person, whom we shall term the therapist, is congruent or integrated in the relationship. (4) The therapist experiences unconditional positive regard for the client. (5) The therapist experiences an empathic understanding of the client's internal frame of reference and endeavors to communicate this experience to the client. (6) The communication to the client of the therapist's empathic understanding and unconditional positive regard is to a minimal degree achieved." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved).
The abilities to identify with others and to distinguish between self and other play a pivotal role in intersubjective transactions. Here, we marshall evidence from developmental science, social psychology and neuroscience (including clinical neuropsychology) that support the view of a common representation network (both at the computational and neural levels) between self and other. However, sharedness does not mean identicality, otherwise representations of self and others would completely overlap, and lead to confusion. We argue that self-awareness and agency are integral components for navigating within these shared representations. We suggest that within this shared neural network the inferior parietal cortex and the prefrontal cortex in the right hemisphere play a special role in interpersonal awareness.
Philosophers, psychologists, and religious teachers have suggested that imagining yourself in another's place will stimulate moral action. The authors tested this idea in two different situations. In Experiment 1, participants had the opportunity to assign themselves and another research participant to tasks, with one task clearly more desirable than the other. Imagining oneself in the other's place did little to increase the morality (fairness) of the decision. A different form of perspective taking, imagining the other's feelings, increased direct assignment of the other to the desirable task, apparently due to increased empathy. In Experiment 2, participants confronted a different decision: either accept an initial task assignment that would give them highly positive consequences and the other participant nothing or change the assignment so they and the other would each receive moderately positive consequences. In this situation, imagining oneself in the other's place did significantly increase moral action.
A category of stimuli of great importance for primates, humans in particular, is that formed by actions done by other individuals. If we want to survive, we must understand the actions of others. Furthermore, without action understanding, social organization is impossible. In the case of humans, there is another faculty that depends on the observation of others' actions: imitation learning. Unlike most species, we are able to learn by imitation, and this faculty is at the basis of human culture. In this review we present data on a neurophysiological mechanism--the mirror-neuron mechanism--that appears to play a fundamental role in both action understanding and imitation. We describe first the functional properties of mirror neurons in monkeys. We review next the characteristics of the mirror-neuron system in humans. We stress, in particular, those properties specific to the human mirror-neuron system that might explain the human capacity to learn by imitation. We conclude by discussing the relationship between the mirror-neuron system and language.
In the rising quest for evidence-based interventions, recent research often does not give adequate attention to “nonspecific therapeutic factors,” including the effects of attention, positive regard, and therapeutic alliance, as well as the effects of treatment dose, intensity and actual processes mediating therapeutic change. To determine the extent to which recent clinical trial designs fully this problem, the authors conducted a systematic review of PsychLit/Medline of all controlled child psychotherapy treatment studies from 1995 to 2004. A total of 52 studies were identified that met review criteria: two or more therapy conditions and random assignment of participants to intervention groups. Of the 52 studies, one group (n = 29) compared a presumably active treatment with 1 or more similarly intensive treatments (often an attention control group) presumably not containing the active therapeutic ingredients. Of these, 14 studies found evidence of consistent differences between the two groups, whereas 15 did not. An additional group of studies (n = 27) compared therapy groups with different levels of intensity and “dose” of the putatively active treatment; 13 of these found evidence of the effects of different levels of treatment dose/intensity on outcomes and 14 did not. Four studies met criteria for inclusion in both groups. Across both groups of studies, when positive effects were found, few studies systematically explored whether the presumed active therapeutic ingredients actually accounted for the degree of change, nor did they often address plausible alternative explanations, such as nonspecific therapeutic factors of positive expectancies, therapeutic alliance, or attention. Findings suggest that many child psychotherapy treatment studies have not inadequately controlled for nonspecific factors such as attention and treatment intensity and have failed to assess specific mediators of change. Specific recommendations for future studies are offered, specifically:
1.
Initial specification in study design how investigators will test if the intervention is efficacious over and above the effects of positive expectancies, positive regard, or attention;
2.
Planned (rather than post hoc) analyses to explore whether and how a given treatment’s specific ingredients or the overall intensity of its “dose” are related to treatment outcomes;
3.
More studies conducting head-to-head tests of different types but equally credible forms of treatment, with planned analyses testing different mechanisms of change
4.
When positive effects of a treatment vs. a control are found, systematic elimination of specific, competing hypotheses of reasons for treatment efficacy (e.g., attention, therapeutic alliance, face validity of treatment and client’s treatment expectations, changes in self-efficacy), and
5.
When negative effects are reported, appropriate analyses to address alternative explanations (lack of power, floor or ceiling effects, mediator analyses to address possible fidelity or adherence problems, therapist effects, absence of main effects but possible subgroup/moderator effects, etc.).
Empathy is the ability to experience and understand what others feel without confusion between oneself and others. Knowing what someone else is feeling plays a fundamental role in interpersonal interactions. In this paper, we articulate evidence from social psychology and cognitive neuroscience, and argue that empathy involves both emotion sharing (bottom-up information processing) and executive control to regulate and modulate this experience (top-down information processing), underpinned by specific and interacting neural systems. Furthermore, awareness of a distinction between the experiences of the self and others constitutes a crucial aspect of empathy. We discuss data from recent behavioral and functional neuroimaging studies with an emphasis on the perception of pain in others, and highlight the role of different neural mechanisms that underpin the experience of empathy, including emotion sharing, perspective taking, and emotion regulation.
The discovery of premotor and parietal cells known as mirror neurons in the macaque brain that fire not only when the animal is in action, but also when it observes others carrying out the same actions provides a plausible neurophysiological mechanism for a variety of important social behaviours, from imitation to empathy. Recent data also show that dysfunction of the mirror neuron system in humans might be a core deficit in autism, a socially isolating condition. Here, we review the neurophysiology of the mirror neuron system and its role in social cognition and discuss the clinical implications of mirror neuron dysfunction.
Whether observation of distress in others leads to empathic concern and altruistic motivation, or to personal distress and egoistic motivation, seems to depend upon the capacity for self-other differentiation and cognitive appraisal. In this experiment, behavioral measures and event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging were used to investigate the effects of perspective-taking and cognitive appraisal while participants observed the facial expression of pain resulting from medical treatment. Video clips showing the faces of patients were presented either with the instruction to imagine the feelings of the patient (“imagine other”) or to imagine oneself to be in the patient's situation (“imagine self”). Cognitive appraisal was manipulated by providing information that the medical treatment had or had not been successful. Behavioral measures demonstrated that perspective-taking and treatment effectiveness instructions affected participants' affective responses to the observed pain. Hemodynamic changes were detected in the insular cortices, anterior medial cingulate cortex (aMCC), amygdala, and in visual areas including the fusiform gyrus. Graded responses related to the perspective-taking instructions were observed in middle insula, aMCC, medial and lateral premotor areas, and selectively in left and right parietal cortices. Treatment effectiveness resulted in signal changes in the perigenual anterior cingulate cortex, in the ventromedial orbito-frontal cortex, in the right lateral middle frontal gyrus, and in the cerebellum. These findings support the view that humans' responses to the pain of others can be modulated by cognitive and motivational processes, which influence whether observing a conspecific in need of help will result in empathic concern, an important instigator for helping behavior.
To facilitate a multidimensional approach to empathy the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) includes 4 subscales: Perspective-Taking (PT) Fantasy (FS) Empathic Concern (EC) and Personal Distress (PD). The aim of the present study was to establish the convergent and discriminant validity of these 4 subscales. Hypothesized relationships among the IRI subscales between the subscales and measures of other psychological constructs (social functioning self-esteem emotionality and sensitivity to others) and between the subscales and extant empathy measures were examined. Study subjects included 677 male and 667 female students enrolled in undergraduate psychology classes at the University of Texas. The IRI scales not only exhibited the predicted relationships among themselves but also were related in the expected manner to other measures. Higher PT scores were consistently associated with better social functioning and higher self-esteem; in contrast Fantasy scores were unrelated to these 2 characteristics. High EC scores were positively associated with shyness and anxiety but negatively linked to egotism. The most substantial relationships in the study involved the PD scale. PD scores were strongly linked with low self-esteem and poor interpersonal functioning as well as a constellation of vulnerability uncertainty and fearfulness. These findings support a multidimensional approach to empathy by providing evidence that the 4 qualities tapped by the IRI are indeed separate constructs each related in specific ways to other psychological measures.
In a recent paper entitled “Mirror Neurons. Procedural Learning and the Positive New Experience” (Wolf et al., 2000), data were presented about a special type of neuron, the mirror neuron, originally located by Rizzolatti and his colleagues (1995). These neurons were discussed as they related to a particular developmental view of psychoanalysis, developmental systems self psychology (Shane, Shane, and Gales. 1997).In this paper, we focus on how this mirror neuron system might contribute to the development of communicative abilities in humans. First we summarize the research findings about mirror neurons and how they apply to humans. We then attempt to demonstrate how the mirror neuron system might be involved in a developmental sequence hypothesized by Kohut (1984), Stern (1985), and others to begin in infancy. We postulate that this trajectory starts with the onset of “amodal perception” (Stern, 1985) and then proceeds to affect resonance, joint attention, and ultimately to symbolization of language. In this paper, we attempt to integrate these concepts with a formulation of empathy and demonstrate what might go awry in developmental disorders when the normative sequence of development described above does not take place.
It is my thesis in this paper that we should re-examine and re-evaluate that very special way of being with another person which has been called empathic. I believe we tend to give too little consideration to an element which is extremely important both for the understanding of personality dynamics and for effecting changes in personality and behavior. It is one of the most delicate and powerful ways we have of using ourselves. In spite of all that has been said and written on this topic, it is a way of being which is rarely seen in full bloom in a relationship. I will start with my own somewhat faltering history in relation to this topic. Personal Vacillations Very early in my work as a therapist I discovered that simply listening to my client, very attentively, was an important way of being helpful. So when I was in doubt as to what I should do, in some active way, I listened. It seemed surprising to me that such a passive kind of interaction could be so useful. A little later a social worker, who had a background of Rankian training, helped me to learn that the most effective approach was to listen for the feelings, the emotions whose patterns could be discerned through the client's words. I believe she was the one who suggested that the best response was to "reflect" these feelings back to the client-- "reflect" becoming in time a word which made me cringe. But at that time it improved my work as therapist, and I was grateful. Then came my transition to a full-time university position where, with the help of students, I was at last able to scrounge equipment for recording our interviews. I cannot exaggerate the excitement of our learnings as we clustered about the machine which enabled us to listen to ourselves, playing over and over some puzzling point at which the interview clearly went wrong, or those moments in which the client moved significantly forward. (I still regard this as the one best way of learning to improve oneself as a therapist.) Among many lessons from these recordings, we came to realize that listening to feelings and "reflecting" them was a vastly complex process. We discovered that we could pinpoint the therapist response which caused a fruitful flow of significant expression to become superficial and unprofitable. Likewise we were able to spot the remark which turned a client's dull and desultory talk into a focused selfexploration. In such a context of learning it became quite natural to lay more stress upon the content of the therapist response than upon the empathic quality of the listening. To this extent we became heavily conscious of the techniques which the counselor or therapist was using. We became expert in analyzing, in very minute detail, the ebb and flow of the process in each interview, and
This study presents the development and validation of an index of empathy for use with children and adolescents. 56 first graders, 115 fourth graders, and 87 seventh graders were studied. Item means, item-total correlations, test-retest reliabilities, correlations testing the relationship of empathy to aggressiveness and acceptance of individual differences, correlations testing the relationship of this adapted index of empathy to other existing measures of empathy as well as to social desirability response set and reading achievement formed the basis of internal, discriminant, convergent, and general construct validation. The measure demonstrated satisfactory reliability and preliminary construct validity. The study of a subset of items controlling for same-sex versus cross-sex stimulus figures provided the basis for investigating developmental aspects of empathic arousal toward peers of different sexes. Overall, the availability of comparable forms of a measure of empathy for use with children, adolescents, and adults will be useful for exploring the developmental antecedents and conditions surrounding the expression of emotional empathy.
[This book examines] empathy from the standpoint of contemporary social/personality psychology—emphasizing these disciplines' traditional subject matter (e.g., emotion, cognition, helping, aggression) and its research techniques (survey research, laboratory experiments).
[The author's] goal was to provide a thorough, readable . . . summary of contemporary empathy research [primarily for advanced undergraduate and graduate students]. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Enhancement of empathy for victims of sexual abuse may foster a more meaningful therapeutic involvement in sex offenders and may deter relapses. Three studies, with a total of 50 males convicted of sexual abuse (both child abuse and rape), are described here. In Exp 1, a contextual empathy deficit was manifested by sexual abusers while they were experiencing the mood state that preceded their past offenses. In Exp 2, a process evaluation of a structured empathy-enhancing treatment group was performed. In Exp 3, abusers who had completed the empathy-enhancing treatment group were again required to complete the empathy measure while experiencing the mood precursive to past offenses. Collectively, these experiments demonstrate that (1) a contextual empathy deficit existed when sexual abusers were experiencing affective precursors to abuse, (2) specialized treatment enhanced abusers' empathy for victims, and (3) treatment effectively eliminated the contextual empathy deficit that was otherwise evident during precursive moods. Empathy enhancement for sexual abuse survivors must be regarded as a key component of sexual abuser treatment programs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Considers the conditions which cause the consciousness to focus on the self as an object. The theory that self-awareness has motivational properties deriving from social feedback is discussed and considered with relation to conformity, attitude-behavior discrepancies, and communication sets. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Presents a view of empathy as an active ingredient of change that facilitates clients' meta-cognitive processes and emotional self-regulation. The author reviews the research on empathy and argues that it reveals that empathy is an essential component of successful therapy in every therapeutic modality. The author also discusses how empathy informs humanistic and experiential therapists' practice and provides a theoretical model of empathy's role in promoting change in psychotherapy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Communication skills are fundamental to social work practice, yet there is little research on the skills that workers have or how they use them. This study analyses 24 taped interviews between social workers and an actor playing a parent (a ‘simulated client’). Two child protection scenarios with different levels of seriousness were used. On average, social workers asked many closed questions and often raised concerns. They used few reflections and rarely identified positives. In all but one interview, social workers were rated as achieving clarity over issues of concern; however, they tended to demonstrate low levels of empathy. The responses of the simulated client were rated for resistance and information disclosure. The factor that most strongly influenced simulated client responses was empathy. Empathic social workers created less resistance and increased the amount of information disclosed by clients. This was not associated with failure to identify and discuss concerns. Empathy, therefore, appears to be central to good social work communication in child protection situations. Given the comparatively low level of empathy expressed by most participants, development of skills in maintaining empathic communication while raising child protection concerns appears a priority. Practical, theoretical and training implications are discussed.
This study investigated the relationships between use of violence, empathy and exposure to community violence among urban at-risk adolescent males. Participants completed a battery of self-report measures to assess their levels of empathy, exposure to community violence and use of violent behavior. Literature suggests that a negative relationship exists between empathy and violent behavior. Adolescents who report high levels of exposure to violence will also report low levels of empathy and frequent use of violence. Furthermore, low empathy and high exposure to community violence are believed to predict increased use of violence among participants. Data were examined using a multiple regression analysis; results indicate that while low empathy alone does not predict use of violence, low empathy coupled with high levels of exposure to community violence is a significant predictor of use of violence. Implications for violence prevention and treatment, along with directions for future research are discussed.
The purpose of this paper is to report the results of a systematic review and meta-analysis of studies relating measures of cognitive and affective empathy to offending. It was possible to calculate a common measure of effect size (the standardized mean difference) in 35 studies, 21 of cognitive empathy and 14 of affective empathy. Low cognitive empathy was strongly related to offending, while low affective empathy was weakly related to offending. The Hogan Empathy Scale and the Questionnaire Measure of Emotional Empathy produced stronger relationships with offending than the Interpersonal Reactivity Index. The relationship between low empathy and offending was relatively strong for violent offenders, but relatively weak for sex offenders. This relationship was stronger for younger people than for older people. The relationship between low empathy and offending disappeared after controlling for intelligence and SES. More research is needed to investigate the causal links between low SES, low intelligence, low empathy, and offending. Better measures of empathy are needed, and empathy and offending need to be measured using self-reports in prospective longitudinal studies.
Empathic responding is implicated in antisocial behaviors such as bullying, sexual offending, and violent crime. Identifying children and adolescents at risk for antisocial behavior and evaluating interventions designed to address problem behaviors require valid and reliable measures. Definitional controversies and limited measurement models have hindered measurement. This study describes the development and analysis of the Children's Empathic Attitudes Questionnaire (CEAQ) using both classical and modern techniques. Rasch analyses provided probabilistic results over large item and person groups, enabling meaningful inferences from patterns of responses at the construct level. Analyses of fifth through seventh graders' responses to the final version of the CEAQ provide support for its reliability, validity, and functionality. Four meaningful item clusters were identified, each reflecting more cognitively advanced empathic attitudes. These analyses suggest that the CEAQ provides a theoretically sound, hierarchically meaningful measure of empathic attitudes that will be useful in identification and intervention with children and adolescents at risk for antisocial behavior.
We have previously shown that a right inferior frontal mirror neuron area for grasping responds differently to observed grasping actions embedded in contexts that suggest different intentions, such as drinking and cleaning (Iacoboni, Molnar-Szakacs, Gallese, Buccino, Mazziotta, & Rizzolatti, 2005). Information about intentions, however, may be conveyed also by the grasping action itself: for instance, people typically drink by grasping the handle of a cup with a precision grip. In this fMRI experiment, subjects watched precision grips and whole-hand prehensions embedded in a drinking or an eating context. Indeed, in the right inferior frontal mirror neuron area there was higher activity for observed precision grips in the drinking context. Signal changes in the right inferior frontal mirror neuron area were also significantly correlated with scores on Empathic Concern subscale of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index, a measure of emotional empathy. These data suggest that human mirror neuron areas use both contextual and grasping type information to predict the intentions of others. They also suggest that mirror neuron activity is strongly linked to social competence.
Although the theoretical importance of perspective taking has long been recognized, surprisingly little work has documented the cognitions associated with attempts to imagine another's point of view. To explore this issue and to determine whether perspective taking increases the likelihood of self-related thoughts, two experiments were carried out. In the first, a thought-listing procedure was used to assess observer cognitions; in the second, a less reactive measure was used. Instructions to imagine the self in the target's position and instructions simply to imagine the target's perspective produced increased levels of self-related cognition relative to a traditional control condition; the imagine-self condition also produced more self-thoughts and fewer target thoughts than did the imagine-target condition. The control condition produced thoughts suggesting that the observers were distancing themselves from the target. Observers receiving no instructions at all reported cognitions that closely resembled those of observers who received imagine-target instructions.
Este libro trata principalmente sobre una aproximación al procesamiento de información en el análisis de la conducta humana. Contiene: Antecedentes; La Información y el Uso de Esquemas de Reconocimiento; Atención y Motivación; Esperanza y la Decisión de Retraer la Reafirmación; Implicaciones en Problemas Específicos de Psicología Individual y Social.
The construct of empathy may be located conceptually at several different points in the network of interpersonal cognition and emotion. We discuss one specific form of emotional empathy--other-focused feelings evoked by perceiving another person in need. First, evidence is reviewed suggesting that there are at least two distinct types of congruent emotional responses to perceiving another in need: feelings of personal distress (e.g., alarmed, upset, worried, disturbed, distressed, troubled, etc.) and feelings of empathy (e.g., sympathetic, moved, compassionate, tender, warm, softhearted, etc.). Next, evidence is reviewed suggesting that these two emotional responses have different motivational consequences. Personal distress seems to evoke egoistic motivation to reduce one's own aversive arousal, as a traditional Hullian tension-reduction model would propose. Empathy does not. The motivation evoked by empathy may instead be altruistic, for the ultimate goal seems to be reduction of the other's need, not reduction of one's own aversive arousal. Overall, the recent empirical evidence appears to support the more differentiated view of emotion and motivation proposed long ago by McDougall, not the unitary view proposed by Hull and his followers.
We recorded electrical activity from 532 neurons in the rostral part of inferior area 6 (area F5) of two macaque monkeys. Previous data had shown that neurons of this area discharge during goal-directed hand and mouth movements. We describe here the properties of a newly discovered set of F5 neurons ("mirror neurons', n = 92) all of which became active both when the monkey performed a given action and when it observed a similar action performed by the experimenter. Mirror neurons, in order to be visually triggered, required an interaction between the agent of the action and the object of it. The sight of the agent alone or of the object alone (three-dimensional objects, food) were ineffective. Hand and the mouth were by far the most effective agents. The actions most represented among those activating mirror neurons were grasping, manipulating and placing. In most mirror neurons (92%) there was a clear relation between the visual action they responded to and the motor response they coded. In approximately 30% of mirror neurons the congruence was very strict and the effective observed and executed actions corresponded both in terms of general action (e.g. grasping) and in terms of the way in which that action was executed (e.g. precision grip). We conclude by proposing that mirror neurons form a system for matching observation and execution of motor actions. We discuss the possible role of this system in action recognition and, given the proposed homology between F5 and human Brocca's region, we posit that a matching system, similar to that of mirror neurons exists in humans and could be involved in recognition of actions as well as phonetic gestures.
The present study investigated the relationship between characteristics of a violent event, as self-reported by 82 incarcerated juvenile offenders, and personality features measured by the Millon Adolescent Clinical Inventory (MACI). The study predicted that specific personality features that have previously been associated with psychopathy would be associated with the instrumentality, emotional reactivity, and empathy or guilt reported for the incident. Results confirmed that a self-reported pattern of elevated instrumental motivation and reduced empathy or guilt was associated with higher scores on the MACI Forceful, Unruly, Substance Abuse Proneness, Impulsive Propensity, and Family Discord Scales, as well as a recently developed Psychopathy Content Scale. Self-reported elevated instrumental motivation and reduced empathy or guilt was also associated with lower scores on the Submissive, Conforming, Anxious Feelings, and Sexual Discomfort Scales. There were no significant relationships observed between emotional reactivity and personality scales.
This longitudinal study examined individual, family, and peer covariates of distinctive trajectories of juvenile delinquency, using data from a community sample of 318 German adolescents (mean age at the first wave was 11.45 years). Latent growth mixture modelling analysis revealed four trajectory groups: high-level offenders, medium-level offenders, low-level offenders, and rare offenders. The trajectory groups were discriminated better by time-averaged covariates than by initial status covariates. High peer tolerance of deviance and low parental empathy were consistently linked to varying offending trajectories, whereas gender, low academic achievement, and low parental monitoring appeared to be trajectory-specific covariates.
Practitioners understand "meditation," or mental training, to be a process of familiarization with one's own mental life leading to long-lasting changes in cognition and emotion. Little is known about this process and its impact on the brain. Here we find that long-term Buddhist practitioners self-induce sustained electroencephalographic high-amplitude gamma-band oscillations and phase-synchrony during meditation. These electroencephalogram patterns differ from those of controls, in particular over lateral frontoparietal electrodes. In addition, the ratio of gamma-band activity (25-42 Hz) to slow oscillatory activity (4-13 Hz) is initially higher in the resting baseline before meditation for the practitioners than the controls over medial frontoparietal electrodes. This difference increases sharply during meditation over most of the scalp electrodes and remains higher than the initial baseline in the postmeditation baseline. These data suggest that mental training involves temporal integrative mechanisms and may induce short-term and long-term neural changes.
Perspective-taking is a stepping stone to human empathy. When empathizing with another individual, one can imagine how the other perceives the situation and feels as a result. To what extent does imagining the other differs from imagining oneself in similar painful situations? In this functional magnetic resonance imaging experiment, participants were shown pictures of people with their hands or feet in painful or non-painful situations and instructed to imagine and rate the level of pain perceived from different perspectives. Both the Self's and the Other's perspectives were associated with activation in the neural network involved in pain processing, including the parietal operculum, anterior cingulate cortex (ACC; BA32) and anterior insula. However, the Self-perspective yielded higher pain ratings and involved the pain matrix more extensively in the secondary somatosensory cortex, the ACC (BA 24a'/24b'), and the insula proper. Adopting the perspective of the Other was associated with specific increase in the posterior cingulate/precuneus and the right temporo-parietal junction. These results show the similarities between Self- and Other-pain representation, but most interestingly they also highlight some distinctiveness between these two representations, which is a crucial aspect of human empathy. It may be what allows us to distinguish empathic responses to others versus our own personal distress. These findings are consistent with the view that empathy does not involve a complete Self-Other merging.
In this article, we bring together recent findings from developmental science and cognitive neuroscience to argue that perception-action coupling constitutes the fundamental mechanism of motor cognition. A variety of empirical evidence suggests that observed and executed actions are coded in a common cognitive and neural framework, enabling individuals to construct shared representations of self and other actions. We review work to suggest that such shared representations support action anticipation, organization, and imitation. These processes, along with additional computational mechanisms for determining a sense of agency and behavioral regulation, form the fabric of socialinteraction. In addition, humans possess the capacity to move beyond these basic aspects of action analysis to interpret behavior at a deeper level, an ability that may be outside the scope of the mirror system. Understanding the nature of shared representations from the vantage point of developmental and cognitive science and neuroscience has the potential to inform a range of motor and social processes. This perspective also elucidates intriguing new directions and research questions and generates specific hypotheses regarding the impact of early disorders (e.g., developmental movement disorders) on subsequent action processing.
The literature on participant roles in bullying lacks empirical studies that seek to explain what differentiates defenders from outsiders (or passive bystanders). The present study tested a conceptual model in which two personal characteristics of early adolescent students (empathy and perceived social self-efficacy) were considered as possible determinants of their participant behavior in bullying episodes. A total of 294 Italian early adolescents (mean age=13.3 years, range: 12-14) participated in the study. The structural equation modeling showed that high levels of empathic responsiveness were positively associated with both active defending and passive bystanding behavior, as assessed through peer nominations. In contrast, high levels of social self-efficacy were associated with helping behavior, whereas low levels of social self-efficacy were associated with passive bystanding behavior. Results are discussed in terms of theoretical and practical implications for researchers and educational practitioners.
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 re-examined in light of recent developments in feminist scholarship,
in particular the relational—cultural theory developed at the Stone Center at Wellesley College. Moving beyond the more traditional
definitions of empathy, this article presents a framework that conceptualizes empathy in an increasingly mutual, interactive,
and humanist way. Case examples illustrate the need for connection and empathic responsiveness in which both worker and client
feel the impact each has made on the other. Unlike earlier conceptualizations of empathy, this relational approach highlights
the active participation of the worker and client system in a dynamic helping process and illustrates how the worker brings
his or her own thoughts and feelings into the helping relationship. Implications for practice are discussed.
Females frequently score higher on standard tests of empathy, social sensitivity, and emotion recognition than do males. It remains to be clarified, however, whether these gender differences are associated with gender specific neural mechanisms of emotional social cognition. We investigated gender differences in an emotion attribution task using functional magnetic resonance imaging. Subjects either focused on their own emotional response to emotion expressing faces (SELF-task) or evaluated the emotional state expressed by the faces (OTHER-task). Behaviorally, females rated SELF-related emotions significantly stronger than males. Across the sexes, SELF- and OTHER-related processing of facial expressions activated a network of medial and lateral prefrontal, temporal, and parietal brain regions involved in emotional perspective taking. During SELF-related processing, females recruited the right inferior frontal cortex and superior temporal sulcus stronger than males. In contrast, there was increased neural activity in the left temporoparietal junction in males (relative to females). When performing the OTHER-task, females showed increased activation of the right inferior frontal cortex while there were no differential activations in males. The data suggest that females recruit areas containing mirror neurons to a higher degree than males during both SELF- and OTHER-related processing in empathic face-to-face interactions. This may underlie facilitated emotional "contagion" in females. Together with the observation that males differentially rely on the left temporoparietal junction (an area mediating the distinction between the SELF and OTHERS) the data suggest that females and males rely on different strategies when assessing their own emotions in response to other people.
Effortful control Handbook of self-regulation
- N Eisenberg
- C L Smith
- A Sadovsky
- T L Spinard
Eisenberg, N., Smith, C. L., Sadovsky, A., & Spinard, T. L. (2004). Effortful control. In r. F. Baumeister & K. D. Vohs (Eds.), Handbook of self-regulation (pp. 259–282).
Perspective taking as the royal avenue to empathy Other minds: How humans bridge the divide between self and other
- J Decety
Decety, J. (2005). Perspective taking as the royal avenue to empathy. In B. F. Malle & S. D. Hodges (Eds.), Other minds: How humans bridge the divide between self and other (pp. 135–149). New york: Guilford Press.
PhD, is associate professor, and Elizabeth Segal, PhD, is professor, College of Public Programs, School of Social Work, Arizona State University, 411 North Central Avenue, Suite 800, Phoenix, AZ 85004; e-mail: kegerdes@ asu
- Karen E Gerdes
Karen E. Gerdes, PhD, is associate professor, and Elizabeth Segal, PhD, is professor, College of Public Programs, School of Social Work, Arizona State University, 411 North Central Avenue, Suite 800, Phoenix, AZ 85004; e-mail: kegerdes@ asu.edu. Original manuscript received January 26, 2009 Final revision received August 7, 2009 Accepted September 24, 2009