Digital Commons Network^™

Investigation Of The Relationship Between Mindfulness And Empathy In Pre-Nursing Students Exposed To A Four-Week Mindfulness Training, Debra L. Klich

Theses and Dissertations

Objective: To investigate the effects of a four-week mindfulness program on levels of mindfulness, empathy, and anxiety in a group of pre-nursing students.

Methods: This study utilized a multiple-baseline across subjects design. Results from nine study participants were examined.

Results: Data demonstrates that a detectable decrease in anxiety levels can result from participation in self-directed mindfulness program as short as four weeks. Results regarding mindfulness and empathy levels were less conclusive. A specific relationship between empathy and mindfulness cannot be determined from this study.

Conclusions: Because previous studies have demonstrated a persistence of skills, practice, and benefits acquired through mindfulness …

Medical Students' Experiences And Outcomes Using A Virtual Human Simulation To Improve Communication Skills: Mixed Methods Study, Timothy Guetterman, Rae Sakakibara, Srikar Baireddy, Frederick W. Kron, Mark W. Scerbo, James F. Cleary, Michael D. Fetters

Psychology Faculty Publications

Background: Attending to the wide range of communication behaviors that convey empathy is an important but often underemphasized concept to reduce errors in care, improve patient satisfaction, and improve cancer patient outcomes. A virtual human (VH)–based simulation, MPathic-VR, was developed to train health care providers in empathic communication with patients and in interprofessional settings and evaluated through a randomized controlled trial.

Objective: This mixed methods study aimed to investigate the differential effects of a VH-based simulation developed to train health care providers in empathic patient-provider and interprofessional communication.

Methods: We employed a mixed methods intervention design, involving a comparison of …

Psychosocial Impact Of Pet Keeping On Schoolchildren In China, Yanxia Song, Toshiya Hirose, Naoko Koda

People and Animals: The International Journal of Research and Practice

Studies in Western countries have demonstrated the benefits of pets for humans. However, there are not many studies on human-pet relationships in different cultures and societies; for example, few in Asia. This questionnaire survey demonstrated that attachment to pets benefits the psychosocial development of schoolchildren aged 9 to 16 years (n = 599: 340 boys and 259 girls, 284 rural students and 315 urban students) in Hunan Province, central south China. Children with higher attachment to their pets scored higher on the scales of self-efficacy and empathy than those with lower attachment and those who had no pets. Moreover, girls …

Neural Correlates Of Automatic Emotional Processing And Emotion Regulation In Empathy And Psychopathy-Related Coldheartedness, Danielle Difilipo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Psychopathy is a personality disorder that is defined, in part, by a lack of empathy. Psychopathy-related empathic deficits have been associated with atypical behavioral and neural responses to emotional facial expressions. Although the mirror neuron system (MNS) has been implicated in empathy, very few studies have examined the role of MNS functioning as it pertains to empathy impairments in psychopathy. Moreover, there is very little empirical research regarding emotion regulation in psychopathy, and specifically whether emotional responses can be intentionally upregulated. The present study sought to clarify whether the MNS is functionally intact in adults with subclinical psychopathic traits, particularly …

Emotion Processing Deficits In Psychopathy: Does Cueing To Relevant Facial Features Increase Cognitive And Emotional Empathy?, Shawn E. Fagan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Psychopathy is a multifaceted disorder characterized by a lack of cognitive and emotional empathy. The traditional model of psychopathy divides the disorder into two factors: Factor 1 consists of the interpersonal and affective traits of psychopathy while Factor 2 measures antisocial behaviors and lifestyle choices. The attention-to-the-eyes hypothesis argues that psychopathic individuals have impaired emotion recognition (specifically for fear) due to deficits in orienting attention to salient facial features like the eyes. Psychopathic individuals also display blunted autonomic responding to emotional stimuli, though whether this is due to attention-orienting deficits remains to be clarified. The present project investigated whether empathy-related …

Curricula For Empathy And Compassion Training In Medical Education: A Systematic Review., Sundip Patel, Alexis Pelletier-Bui, Stephanie Smith, Michael Roberts, Hope Kilgannon, Stephen Trzeciak, Brian W Roberts

Faculty Scholarship for the College of Science & Mathematics

BACKGROUND: Empathy and compassion are vital components of health care quality; however, physicians frequently miss opportunities for empathy and compassion in patient care. Despite evidence that empathy and compassion training can be effective, the specific behaviors that should be taught remain unclear. We synthesized the biomedical literature on empathy and compassion training in medical education to find the specific curricula components (skills and behaviors) demonstrated to be effective.

METHODS: We searched CENTRAL, MEDLINE, EMBASE, and CINAHL using a previously published comprehensive search strategy. We screened reference lists of the articles meeting inclusion criteria to identify additional studies for potential inclusion. …

Assessment In The Interpersonal Domain: Experiences From Empathy Assessment In Medical Education, Neville Chiavaroli

2009 - 2019 ACER Research Conferences

Frameworks for the teaching and assessment of 21st-century skills commonly recognise the importance of learning and skill development in the interpersonal domain. They also usually acknowledge the challenge of reliably and validly assessing students in this domain. In the field of medical education and in selecting students for medical courses, the concept of empathy has become central to representing the particular interpersonal understandings and skills expected of students and practising doctors. Attempts to assess these attributes during medical training are just as challenging as in school contexts. This presentation draws on several years’ experience of working with medical educators to …

Assessment In The Interpersonal Domain: Experiences From Empathy Assessment In Medical Education, Neville Chiavaroli

Neville Chiavaroli

Frameworks for the teaching and assessment of 21st-century skills commonly recognise the importance of learning and skill development in the interpersonal domain. They also usually acknowledge the challenge of reliably and validly assessing students in this domain. In the field of medical education and in selecting students for medical courses, the concept of empathy has become central to representing the particular interpersonal understandings and skills expected of students and practising doctors. Attempts to assess these attributes during medical training are just as challenging as in school contexts. This presentation draws on several years’ experience of working with medical educators to …

Validating Empathy As Captured By The Meanness In Psychopathy-Self Report, Stephanie Marie Molina

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Psychopathy is a distinctive personality disorder with an array of interpersonal and affective deficits. In particular, deficits in affective and cognitive empathy skills are noted to be a central feature of psychopathy. Specifically, the construct of psychopathic meanness, which is conceptualized as a tendency to act aggressively without regard for others, is preferentially related to deficient empathy. To elucidate the relationship between psychopathic meanness and empathy, three studies were conducted utilizing the Meanness in Psychopathy-Self Report (MiP- SR). The MiP-SR is a new measure that parses apart the construct of psychopathic meanness into three factors: Malice, Coldness, and Imperviousness. MiP-SR …

Do Psychopathic Traits Influence Distractibility By Empathy-Eliciting Pictures?, Priya M. Reji

Student Theses

Empathy is a crucial component in forming interpersonal connections, and reflects the ability to share and understand the feelings of others. Psychopathy is often associated with a reduced ability to feel and display empathetic concern towards other people. The Response Modulation Hypothesis argues that such individuals have an attentional deficit, which makes it difficult for them to shift focus between stimuli, thus individuals who have high scores on the interpersonal-affective factor of psychopathy have an increased ability to ignore emotional stimuli that are goal-irrelevant. The current study investigated whether psychopathic traits would influence distractibility on an emotional Stroop (eStroop) task. …

Empathic Responsivity And Callous-Unemotional Traits Across Development, Julia Elizabeth Clark

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Callous-unemotional (CU) traits are associated with deficits in empathy and emotional responses to others. Specifically, CU traits are consistently correlated with under-reactivity to others’ distress cues. However, it is unknown whether CU traits are also associated with more general deficits in emotional reactivity (e.g., to situations involving threat to the self). Further, the relationship between CU traits and the ability to accurately identify others’ emotions is not well established, and prior work often has not considered possible developmental changes in this relationship. To address these questions, the current study recruited a school-based community sample of children from kindergarten, third, and …

Seeing You From Your Point Of View: Perspective-Taking And First Impression Accuracy, Kathryn Graeff

Masters Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

This study assessed whether perspective-taking (considering another’s perspective, thoughts, and feelings; Davis, 1983) causes greater distinctive accuracy (judging another’s unique traits), normative accuracy (judging another as similar to the average person and positively), and distinctive assumed similarity (judging another’s personality as similar to one’s own personality) in first impressions of personality. College students (N = 429) received either perspective-taking instructions or no specific instructions before watching videos of seven individuals (targets) answering getting-to-know-you questions. Participants then rated each target’s personality. Taking the targets’ perspectives did not improve distinctive accuracy or distinctive assumed similarity. However, participants who reported actively trying or …

The Empathetic Leader, Sarah Romney

Marriott Student Review

Research shows that “empathy” is an important quality in a leader and improves one’s ability to resolve group needs, obtain followers, perform prosocial behaviors, and get positive results. However, many business students do not recognize the value of empathy. Business schools can help improve this by teaching the importance of empathy and giving students the opportunity to develop it.

Rebooting Empathy For The Digital Generation Lawyer, Lauren A. Newell

Law Faculty Scholarship

There is a growing preference in today’s technology-saturated society for online interaction via email, text messages, social networks, and instant messaging, rather than real-world interaction through face-to-face or telephonic conversations. For today’s young people—the Digital Generation—this is more than a mere preference; it is a way of life. Research indicates that the movement toward virtual communication comes with negative consequences, such as poor real-world communication skills and underdeveloped social skills. Most significantly, research suggests that the Digital Generation are less empathic than elder generations are. Some researchers speculate that the rising prominence of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in everyday …

The Art Of Caring: Increasing Empathy Through Conversation, Joy Harlynking

Honors Program Theses

In our every day lives we use empathy more than we would assume, however a current empathy deficit has led us to wonder how we can increase our empathy. The present study aimed to find a way to increase one’s empathy, specifically through an emotional conversation with another individual. There were 61 participants who were separated into either an emotional or factual conversation group. They first took surveys including the IRI, closeness questions, and the pre Revised Eyes Test and then engaged in conversation with another participant. They then took a post Revised Eyes Test after their conversation. The results …

The Relationship Between Cognitive Distortions, Self-Compassion, And Insomnia Severity, Gabriel Stanziano

PCOM Psychology Dissertations

The goal of this study was to examine the relationships between cognitive distortions, self-compassion, and insomnia severity. Individuals were assessed using the Inventory of Cognitive Distortions (ICD), Self-Compassion Scale (SCS), and Insomnia Severity Index (ISI). Data were analyzed using a sample of 67 participants, ranging in age from 18 to 74. A simple linear regression analysis was conducted to test the hypothesis that cognitive distortions would be predictive of insomnia severity. The results were not significant. A multiple regression analysis was used to test the hypothesis that the specific cognitive distortions of fortunetelling, labeling, and jumping to conclusions would be …

Stress And Burnout: Empathy, Engagement, And Retention In Healthcare Support Staff, Burnette Vidal

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Research on stress and burnout and their influence on empathy, engagement, and retention, in healthcare support staff is scarce in the literature. The theoretical framework for this study was the conservation of resources (COR) theory which claims that when people are stressed, emotionally exhausted, and experiencing burnout, they protect and preserve their physical and mental resources from becoming depleted by reducing their effort and withdrawing from work. The key research question was: Does burnout mediate the relationship between stress and empathy, engagement, and turnover intentions in healthcare support staff working in a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC)? This quantitative, non-experimental, …

Mirror Neurons And Humanity’S Dark Side, Gisela Kaplan

Animal Sentience

The last two decades have revealed brain mechanisms in birds and primates showing that, contrary to earlier prejudices, some birds can do things (cognitive and affective) on par with or even better than great apes and humans. The old dichotomies are breaking down; but the dark side is that these insights come at a time in the Anthropocene when humans have caused and continue to cause mass extinctions.

Mobilizing Heads And Hearts For Wildlife Conservation, Valérie A. M. Schoof, Simon L'Allier

Animal Sentience

Highlighting the shared evolutionary relationships between humans and animals — and recognizing that all species, including humans, are unique in their own way — may facilitate caring for and conserving animals by tapping into a human emotion: empathy.

Moral Relevance Of Cognitive Complexity, Empathy And Species Differences In Suffering, John Lazarus

Animal Sentience

I qualify two criticisms made by commentators on Chapman & Huffman’s target article. Responding to the view that differences between humans and other animals are irrelevant to deciding how we should treat other species, I point out that differences between any species in their capacity to suffer are morally relevant. And in response to the claim that suffering is the sole criterion for the moral treatment of animals, I argue that cognitive complexity and a capacity for empathy also have moral relevance to the extent that they influence suffering.

Training Culturally Competent Practitioners: Student Reflections On The Process, Shuntay Z. Tarver, Melvin Herring

Counseling & Human Services Faculty Publications

A major aspect of cultural competence is developing critical self-reflection skills. Critical self-reflection is a culturally competent practice that positions practitioners with the ability to recognize and respond to the influence of power, privilege, and oppression within client interactions. Contributing to the existing literature on cultural competence, this article posits that teaching critical self-reflection is an essential aspect of training culturally competent practitioners. To investigate this connection, researchers qualitatively examined the retrospective accounts of 15 human services students who critically reflected on an assignment: exploring how they were personally impacted by issues of power, privilege, and oppression. Findings unveiled students’ …

Medical Students' Knowledge, Confidence, And Empathy Towards Dementia And Caregiver Stress, Courtney Williamson

PCOM Psychology Dissertations

Early diagnosis of dementia and dementia-related illnesses provides increased time for treatment, which is aimed at maintaining patient function and delaying decline (Teel, 2004). Empirical studies have shown a decline in empathy during undergraduate and graduate medical education (Hojat et al., 2009). This study examines differences between 2nd and 4th year Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine (DO) students’ knowledge, empathy and confidence in working with individuals diagnosed with dementia and addressing caregiver stress. Students from Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine and Rowan University School of Osteopathic Medicine completed an online survey which included the Knowledge in Dementia Scale (KIDE), Jefferson Scale …

The Effects Of Mood On Empathy, Openness To Diversity, Attitudes, And Willingness To Help Marginalized Groups, Angela J. Adams

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Members of marginalized groups such as lesbian women and gay men are often at an increased risk of threat or harm compared to their heterosexual counterparts. They may experience prejudice in the form of discrimination and stigma related behaviors. Due to the stigma lesbian women and gay men face throughout various stages of their lives, it is important to examine and discover which factors increase more acceptance and empathy. Additionally, it is important to examine ways to increase positive regard and reduce discrimination in order to promote psychological and overall wellbeing for lesbians and gay men. Given what we know …

Personal And Educational Differences In College Students’ Attitudes Toward Social Justice, Michael Di Bianca B.A., Perrin Robinson M.S., Mary Jo Coiro Ph.D

Jesuit Higher Education: A Journal

Many colleges and universities encourage students to engage with social justice issues in their education and career discernment. However, a variety of individual attributes and life experiences may predict how college students develop an awareness of and attitudes toward social justice, perhaps including ways in which students relate to their own challenging life experiences and encounter others’ experiences of injustice. This study explored the relationship between individual attributes, educational experiences and social justice attitudes among a sample of 347 college students who completed self-report surveys. Specifically, this study examined a) help-seeking attitudes, b) self-compassion, c) prior experience receiving mental health …

Aces Wild: Making Meaning Out Of Trauma Through Altruism Born Of Suffering, Jessica Gibson

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Childhood exposure to early adverse experiences is prevalent—affecting almost one-half of children from birth to 17 years old—and brings with it the potential for the long-lasting detrimental effects of traumatization. At the same time, a growing body of compelling evidence also suggests that many survivors of trauma exhibit more resilience and prosocial behaviors than individuals who have never experienced a traumatic event. This phenomenon has been coined altruism born of suffering (ABS); it is a relatively new concept in trauma research that seeks to better understand the possible positive outcomes of trauma. Building further beyond the concepts of resilience and …

Servant Leadership Characteristics And Empathic Care: Developing A Culture Of Empathy In The Healthcare Setting, Mark Anthony Martin

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

The purpose of this study was to assess the degree to which servant leadership characteristics are exhibited in medical group practices, and the degree to which servant leadership characteristics correlated with measures of empathic care. This study featured an explanatory mixed methods research design embedded in appreciative inquiry. A total of 189 mid-level practitioners consisting of nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and practice mangers responded to a 32-item scale survey that featured a six-point Likert scale to measure servant leadership items and a 10-point continuous scale to assess measures of empathic care. The servant leadership items were based on the seven …

Developmental Sequelae In Language, Empathy, Self-Control, And Psychopathy From Infancy To Middle Adolescence, Magda Javakhishvili

Theses and Dissertations--Family Sciences

The present empirical work aims to discern the underlying mechanisms of purported developmental links among several key human characteristics including language skills, self-control, empathy, and psychopathic traits. Accordingly, three interrelated studies are carried out testing the longitudinal associations of various kinds (e.g., direct, indirect, bidirectional) among these constructs. All three studies are conceptually framed in consideration of the extant research and relevant theories. They employ the data set provided by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development of Early Child Care and Youth Development Study of N = 1,364 children followed from infancy through middle adolescence.

Study 1 …

A Quantitative Assessment Of Empathy After An Art Prime With Counseling Students, Annette Lisa Coletta

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Empathy skills are necessary to form therapeutic relationships. Previous research showed that participating in the arts engaged similar neuropathways as those needed to produce empathy. The theoretical framework for this study was art therapy relational neuroscience. The purpose of this pretest, posttest quantitative research study, using the Toronto Empathy Questionnaire, was to examine if a single art session could effectively prime for empathy. Using nonprobability, convenience sampling method, 74 graduate counseling students completed online surveys. Four findings are of note: (a) a t-test showed a significant difference between mean values of pre-post test scores, (b) an independent groups t-test indicated …

Relationships Between Broad Aspects Of Personality Functioning And Generalized Anxiety Severity, Ashley A. Lee Lum

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This study looked at the relationship between personality functioning and generalized anxiety severity with the use of the Level of Personality Functioning – Self-Report Scale (LPFS-SR). This scale looks at the four core functions of personality: Identity, Intimacy, Empathy and Self-Direction. The population consisted of undergraduate students from the University of Central Florida who completed the study online (n = 1335; 63.7% female; mean age = 19.85, SD = 3.64, range = 18-57). Findings revealed that generalized anxiety severity related to more identity and empathy problems in both men and women. For both findings, women showed a stronger effect size …

It's Written All Over Your Face : Examining The Relationship Between Socioeconomic Status And Empathic Accuracy, Megan Roherbeck Wirtz

Honors Theses

What, exactly, is the relationship between socioeconomic status (SES) and emotional intelligence? Is it possible that emotional intelligence can explain the well-established positive relationship between SES and wellbeing? The purpose of this study was to investigate a) a potential mediational pathwaybetween SES, emotional intelligence, and wellbeing and b) conflicting research in the relationship between SES and emotional intelligence. This study was conducted using avariety of measures of socioeconomic status and wellbeing, as well as a performance-based measure of empathic accuracy.