Links between empathy,social behavior,and social understanding in early childhood

The purpose of the current investigation was to examine both social behaviors (i.e., aggression, shyness-withdrawal, and prosocial tendencies) and social understanding (i.e., attitudes and responses to such behaviors in hypothetical peers) of empathic and low-empathic children. Participants were 136 children in kindergarten and grade one. Parents completed ratings of child empathy, shyness, aggression, and prosocial tendencies. Children were presented with vignettes depicting prosocial, aggressive, or shy peers, and asked questions concerning their understanding and responses towards these behaviors. Results indicated that as compared to low-empathic peers, more empathic children were reported to exhibit greater prosocial behavior and less aggression and social-withdrawal. In addition, empathic children demonstrated a more sophisticated understanding of shyness and aggression as compared to less empathic peers. These results suggest that empathic children are more socially sensitive, both in terms of their social understanding of others as well as their own social behaviors.     

Parents' Use of Inductive Discipline: Relations to Children's Empathy and Prosocial Behavior

Relations between parents' discipline, children's empathic responses, and children's prosocial behavior were examined in order to evaluate Martin Hoffman's claim that children's empathy and empathy-based guilt mediate the socialization of children's prosocial behavior. 78 sixth and seventh graders (138–172 months in age), their mothers, and teachers completed multiple measures of Hoffman's constructs. Results were largely consistent with theory. Parents' use of inductive as opposed to power-assertive discipline was related to children's prosocial behavior. Children of inductive parents were more empathic; and more empathic children were more prosocial. Moreover, children's empathy was found to mediate the relation between parents' discipline and children's prosocial behavior. Few relations were obtained for children's guilt indices, but post hoc analyses yielded theoretically consistent results. Contrary to expectations, parents' use of statements of disappointment was the component of the inductive discipline score which was most strongly related to children's prosocial behavior.     

Associations Among Pubertal Development,Empathic Ability,and Neural Responses While Witnessing Peer Rejection in Adolescence

Links among concurrent and longitudinal changes in pubertal development and empathic ability from ages 10 to 13 and neural responses while witnessing peer rejection at age 13 were examined in 16 participants. More advanced pubertal development at age 13, and greater longitudinal increases in pubertal development, related to increased activity in regions underlying cognitive aspects of empathy. Likewise, at age 13 greater perspective taking related to activity in cognitive empathy‐related regions; however, affective components of empathy (empathic concern and personal distress) were associated with activity in both cognitive and affective pain‐related regions. Longitudinal increases in empathic ability related to cognitive and affective empathy‐related circuitry. Findings provide preliminary evidence that physical and cognitive‐emotional development relate to adolescents' neural responses when witnessing peer rejection.     

Analog of parental empathy: Association with physical child abuse risk and punishment intentions

Objectives

Current research has been inconsistent in corroborating that parents’ compromised empathy is associated with elevated physical child abuse risk, perhaps in part because of an emphasis on dispositional empathy rather than empathy directed at their own children. Research has also relied on self-reports of empathy that are susceptible to participant misrepresentation. The present study utilized an analog task of parental empathy to investigate the association of parental empathy toward one's own child with physical child abuse potential and with their tendency to punish perceived child misbehavior.

Methods

A sample of 135 mothers and their 4–9 year old children were recruited, with mothers estimating their children's emotional reactions using a behavioral simulation of parental empathy. Mothers also provided self-reports on two measures of child abuse potential, a measure of negative attributions and expected punishment of children using vignettes, as well as a traditional measure of dispositional empathic concern and perspective-taking.

Results

Findings suggest that parental demonstration of poorer empathic ability on the analog task was significantly related to increased physical abuse potential, likelihood to punish, and negative child attributions. However, self-reported dispositional empathy exhibited the pattern of inconsistent associations previously observed in the literature.

Conclusions

Parental empathy appears to be a relevant target for prevention and intervention programs. Future research should also consider similar analog approaches to investigate such constructs to better uncover the factors that elevate abuse risk.     

Moral reasoning and empathy in adolescents with autism spectrum disorder: implications for moral education

A mixed methods approach was used to understand moral reasoning and empathy in 12- to 18-year-old adolescents with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder (HF-ASD) compared to same age typically developing (TD) youth. Adolescents completed measures assessing empathy (perspective-taking, personal distress, and empathic concern), and moral reasoning, as well as a qualitative interview asking them to discuss a challenging sociomoral situation and recount their moral competencies and strengths in difficult situations. For quantitative results, both groups demonstrated similar empathic concern, but adolescents with HF-ASD had significantly higher personal distress and lower moral reasoning than TD youth. Qualitative results suggest that adolescents with HF-ASD perceived themselves as having empathic concern but struggled to use these feelings to support their actions in spontaneous challenging sociomoral situations. Results suggest that teachers should be educated in providing specific guidance to adolescents with HF-ASD about how to express empathic concern in ways that promote mutually rewarding relationships.     

Empathy among students in engineering programmes

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

Fiction,empathy and lifelong learning

The article aims to demonstrate that the impact of fiction on adult learning could be illuminated by a deeper engagement with research into empathy. It recognises that the lifelong learning literature acknowledges the importance of empathy in adult learning and that discussions of the role of fiction in adult learning often refer to fiction’s capacity to promote empathy. There is limited adult education literature exploring how fiction generates empathic feelings or how such feelings might lead to sustained changes in perceptions or actions. This article analyses an example of Hoffman’s work on empathy to illustrate the benefits of engagement with empathy research. This analysis leads to a consideration of fiction’s capacity to promote an involuntary empathy that can help adult learners develop deeper understandings of difference and of excluded groups. It also shows that an understanding of the factors that inhibit the development of empathy and enable individuals to justify the sufferings of others could be of value to educators. Finally it suggests that Hoffman’s examination of conditions that lead to empathic anger is helpful for educators wanting to use the potential of fiction to encourage and promote action in the cause of social justice.     

The relations of parental warmth and positive expressiveness to children's empathy-related responding and social functioning: a longitudinal study

This study examined the concurrent and cross-time relations of parental observed warmth and positive expressivity to children's situational facial and self-reported empathic responding, social competence, and externalizing problems in a sample of 180 elementary school children. Data was collected when the children were in second to fifth grades (age: M = 112.8 months), and again 2 years later. Cross-sectional and longitudinal structural equation models supported the hypothesis that parents' (mostly mothers') positive expressivity mediated the relation between parental warmth and children's empathy, and children's empathy mediated the relation between parental positive expressivity and children's social functioning. These relations persisted after controlling for prior levels of parenting and child characteristics. Moreover, concurrent and cross-time consistencies were found on measures of parenting, children's situational empathic responding, and social functioning.     

Pre-service teachers’ empathy and cognitions: Statistical analysis of text data by graphical models

This research examines empathic dispositions of 178 pre-service teachers. We analyzed open ended responses to animated narrative vignette simulations (ANVs), which served as stimulated experimental situations depicting students in victim and perpetrator scenarios. Empathy was examined by addressing the following questions: (1) Do participants’ responses differ over vignettes? (2) What is the dimensionality of the empathy construct? (3) Is word count an indicator of empathy? (4) Is there a dispositional effect? (5) To what extent do pre-service teachers express empathy? After the text responses of pre-service teachers were coded, log-linear and log-multiplicative association models, which have graphical representations, were used to analyze the data and to develop a context dependent measure of empathy. The results suggest that a single latent variable underlies the responses, and from our measurement model, very few teachers expressed empathy toward the victim in the ANVs.     

Moral Development and Empathy in Counseling

Of interest to counselor educators are variables associated with helper empathy. The authors investigated the relationship between empathy and moral development. Students enrolled in a facilitative skills development course completed a measure of moral development before making their first counseling audiotape. After approximately 12 weeks of skills training, they were subsequently rated for their demonstration of empathic understanding to client statements on an analog videotape and on a counseling audiotape made for their course evaluation. Empathy ratings of their responses to the analog videotape correlated .61 (p < .001) with moral development scores and .35 (p < .05) with supervisory empathy ratings of their final audiotape and moral development scores. Implications for counselor education are discussed.     

Does Empathy Predict Instructional Assignment-Related Stress? A Study in Special and General Education Teachers

The role of empathy in the teaching profession has been vastly investigated in relation to its effect on students, but research on how teachers’ empathy affects their own well-being at work is limited. This study investigated empathy and instructional assignment-related stress factors of primary school teachers serving in general or special education; moreover, it investigated if empathy predicted instructional assignment-related stress. Data were collected from 190 primary school teachers using the Interpersonal Reactivity Index and the Inventory of Job-related Stress Factors. Teachers reported moderately high levels of perspective-taking and empathic concern and lower levels of fantasising and personal distress. Also, they reported moderate to low levels of stress regarding instructional assignment-related factors. General and special education teachers did not differ in their reported scores on empathy or stress-related factors. Finally, it was found that instructional assignment-related stress factors can be predicted by personal distress and fantasising; however, the core empathy skills (empathic concern and perspective taking) were not found to be strong predictors of the stress factors tested.     

Learning to See with Different Eyes: A Nietzschean Challenge to Multicultural Dialogue

Empathy is a necessity in our multicultural world. Modern democratic societies are home to communities with the most diverse religious, political, and moral convictions, and these convictions often directly, even perilously, contradict one another. Educational theorists differ on how empathy can be taught in the face of these contradictions. Does proper pedagogical action entail an attempt to teach students to understand the other, to see their world through the eyes of the other? Or is such an attempt doomed to fail, a vain and presumptuous striving to surpass the epistemologically preordained limits of subjectivity? While theorists who promote mutual understanding traditionally look to some form of dialogue to establish their empathic pedagogies, those who doubt the possibility of mutual understanding formulate critical, often monological pedagogies in which students are encouraged to “talk back” to their others about their idiosyncratic perspectives. Theorists have thus had choose: dialogue or relativism? Using the robust educational philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, Douglas Yacek demonstrates that this is a most unsatisfactory choice, one that ignores the pedagogical complexity needed to teach students genuine empathy. He argues that Nietzsche's educational writings yield a tripartite empathic pedagogy founded on self‐knowledge, foreign language learning, and experimentalism. Upon these three pedagogical pillars, Yacek problematizes Megan Laverty's recent attempt to formulate an empathic pedagogy as dialogical philosophical inquiry. Although Nietzsche would endorse much of Laverty's pedagogy, Yacek concludes that Nietzsche's pedagogy requires engagement with perspectives across the democratic curriculum and, indeed, beyond.     

Empathy and narcissism in a sample of child abuse perpetrators and a comparison sample of foster parents

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this research was to study the personality variables of empathy and narcissism in a sample of child abuse perpetrators and a comparison sample of foster parents, conceptualized as nonabusive parents, in order to gain further understanding of perpetrators and to provide clues for intervention. METHOD: The sample consisted of two groups: physically and emotionally abusive parents (n=52) and foster parents (n=101). Participants responded to three instruments: the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI), an instrument measuring individual differences in empathy, and two instruments measuring narcissism: the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) and the Hypersensitivity Narcissism Scale (HSNS). RESULTS: Statistically significant differences were found between the two groups on three of the four subscales of the IRI: perspective-taking, empathic concern, and personal distress. Based on the definition of these subscales, the abusive parents as compared to the foster parents were not able to take the perspective of another or see things from another's viewpoint, showed less warmth, compassion and concern for others, and experienced difficulty in tense interpersonal situations. Statistically significant differences were found for the two groups on three of the six subscales of the NPI: authority, exhibitionism, and superiority, and on the HSNS. The abusive parents demonstrated less self-confidence, a greater lack of impulse control and were more narcissistic than their foster parent counterparts. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest that it is how the perpetrators experience aversive behavior in their children that may provoke them to physically and emotionally abuse their children. Their self-centeredness in addition to their deficiencies in empathy may cause them to experience their children's misbehavior as an affront to their authority. Implications for treatment are made from this conceptualization of parental abuse.     

Through the Dąbrowski Lens: Empathy and the Syntonic Continuum

Kazimierz D?browski’s five-level theory of personality development, the Theory of Positive Disintegration, is one in which the experience of all emotions is essential for the process of individual growth toward the personality ideal. In this article, we synthesize D?browski’s conception of syntony and the development of empathy. We discuss the genesis of empathy within the lower levels of human personality development and visually demonstrate the multilevelness of the development of empathy through a diagrammatic representation of syntonic and empathic responses with examples of these traits mapped to the varying levels of development within D?browski’s Theory of Positive Disintegration.     

Teachers’ empathy: can it be predicted by self-efficacy?

Teachers’ social-emotional competencies seem to play a significant role in promoting social-emotional learning in schools. Empathic teachers were found to possess a higher level of morality; to communicate more successfully with their students; to encourage them to forge empathic relationships; and to successfully motivate their students. Yet, there is a dearth of literature on how to develop such empathy in teachers. The present study, which is based on a large body of research, investigated the contribution of teachers’ self-efficacy and emotional self-efficacy to teacher empathy. The sample comprised 543 teachers from the central region of Israel who completed self-report questionnaires. Findings indicated that both types of self-efficacy contribute to empathy in teachers, but the contribution of teacher self-efficacy is greater. These findings can benefit teacher educators, principals and others involved in teacher performance and well-being throughout the world. Findings may suggest that both efficacies are compelling variables that need to be addressed and enhanced in relation to teacher empathy. In addition, the findings strengthen the notion that social-emotional competence in teachers is strongly associated with teachers’ self-beliefs regarding their teaching efficacy.     

从语用移情看“红诗”的英译

分析了两位译者移情的原因,并从语用移情的角度对比分析了两位译者对“红诗”翻译不同处理。     

The Effects of Modeling,Feedback, and Experiential Methods on Counselor Empathy

This study compares the effects of three supervisory techniques—modeling, feedback, and experiential intervention—in teaching counseling students to communicate empathic understanding. The students participated in three simulated counseling interviews during which their responses to standard clients were rated on the degree of empathic understanding conveyed. After each of the first two interviews students in the experimental groups were given one of the three supervisory treatments; students in the control group received no supervision. The ratings indicated that the modeling method of supervision was more effective than the feedback method and the feedback method was more effective than the experiential method in helping the counselors communicate empathy. No significant differences were found between students receiving experiential supervision and those in the control group. The interaction between method and sex was significant in that male students responded better than female students to the feedback method.     

移情教学设计及其网络教育运用研究

本文首先探讨了移情、移情设计以及e-leaming中所应用的移情教学设计，然后分析了网络教育中应用移情教学设计的必要性和其可能对网络教育产生的影响，并在此基础上总结了在网络课程建设中应用移情教学设计的具体方法步骤。     

First-Grade Teacher Behaviors and Children's Prosocial Actions in Classrooms

Research Findings: This study examines whether specific teacher instructional practices in early education are associated with children's engagement in prosocial behavior. Teachers’ verbal encouragement of prosocial behavior and empathy, emotional warmth, positive behavior management, vocabulary instruction, and encouragement of expressive language were explored in relation to children's classroom prosocial behavior. We also examined whether increased prosociability was evident in the classrooms of teachers who both encouraged prosocial behavior and empathy and demonstrated emotional warmth. We observed 124 first-grade classrooms that included 2,098 children. Results indicated that teachers’ verbal encouragement of prosocial behavior and empathy was most strongly associated with classroom prosocial behavior. There was also a significant association between encouragement of expressive language and prosocial behavior. Emotional warmth, positive behavior management, vocabulary instruction, and the joint effect of teacher emotional warmth and encouragement of prosocial behavior and empathy was not associated with prosocial behavior. Practice or Policy: These findings suggest that teachers’ more deliberate encouragement of prosocial and empathic behavior and their creation of a positive, interactive social environment may support students’ prosocial behavior. The implications of these findings are particularly important for young children learning to engage with others.     

移情性情感教学初论

情感教学是一种新的教学思潮,它是对“愉快教育”的一种超越。作为一个新的领域,情感教学的探索还刚刚起步,其理论还不成熟。但可以肯定,移情是情感教学的关键所在,它贯穿情感教学的始终,移情运用到情感教学中,有其可操作性,即教师能移情理解学生,尊重学生,满足学生的依恋需要。移情性地评价学生,最终使师生双方获得移情体验,移情性沟通使情感教学变得现实而可行。