Personality and Social Contexts Commons^™

From Physical Correlation To Emotional Connection: The Role Of Passive Haptics On Empathy In Virtual Reality, Jemely Robles

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

Virtual reality is increasingly explored as a tool for cultivating empathy, and haptic feedback as a tool for enhancing immersion. This paper investigates the effects of combining the two.  Fifty-two participants experienced a custom-built VR scene in which a character was shown packing up a room. Participants were assigned to either a haptic condition, receiving passive haptic feedback corresponding to the character's actions, or a non-haptic control condition that did not receive any haptic input. Trait empathy was measured beforehand, and state empathy and engagement were measured after the experience. Thematic analysis was conducted on post-study interviews, and headset recordings …

Who Intervenes When Jews Or Muslims Are Persecuted? Replicating A Profile Pattern From Holocaust Rescuers, Magnus Lindén, Fredrik Björklund, George R. Wilkes

Heroism Science

This study examined whether the characteristics that motivated non-Jews to rescue Jews during the Holocaust also predict morally courageous intentions among contemporary high school students. A sample of Swedish students (N = 231) completed a survey measuring parental role modelling, empathic concern, risk-taking, and identification with outgroups, and then indicated whether they would intervene to help persecuted Jews and Muslims in various hypothetical scenarios. All factors were significant predictors of intention to intervene; however, parental role modelling lost significance in a hierarchical regression analysis. Risk-taking accounted for the largest proportion of explained variance, followed by empathic concern, with a significant …

Grief As Slip: (How Little I Show) An Exploration In Clay, When Words Are Not Enough, Michelle A. Smith

Masters Theses, 2020-current

Grief as Slip (how little I show) implies that even as we acknowledge our mortality and the fleeting nature of life, we still only reveal a fraction of our true selves or our deeper realities. The ceramic artwork in this exhibition carries and conveys a journey through the present and remembered emotions of the artists’ personal narrative. By juxtaposing the tactile nature of clay with the ethereal quality of human experience, Smith contemplates the profound interplay between material transformation and emotional resilience. The exhibition’s intent is to translate the essence of complex emotional states into abstracted forms so they can …

A Laboratory Evaluation Of The Effects Of Empathy Training On Racial Bias, Victoria D. Suarez, Adel C. Najdowski, Angela Persicke, Jonathan Tarbox

Psychology Division Scholarship

The purpose of the current study was to evaluate the efects of behavioral procedures, including relational training and multiple exemplar training on empathic responding of individuals who display racial bias. In particular, this study used a multielement design with fve adult participants to evaluate whether the presentation of relational frames of coordination and distinction between the participants’ values and the values of a person belonging to a group for which a bias existed altered empathic responses toward people belonging to such groups. The results showed empathic responding was higher when relational frames of coordination were presented and lower when relational …

Compassion Cartography: Mapping The Psychological Landscape Of Altruistic Equity And Effectiveness, Kyle Fiore Law

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Psychologists and philosophers have often championed deliberative reasoning over empathy as a better approach to overcoming parochial biases and guiding altruistic equity and effectiveness. Advocates of the effective altruism (EA) philosophy even advise philanthropists to downregulate empathic responses to maximize the impact of their donations. However, recent research reveals that extraordinary altruists (XAs), such as those who donate organs to strangers, are driven primarily by empathy. This dissertation explores whether empathy necessarily impedes altruistic equity (impartial regard for others’ welfare) and effectiveness (prioritizing impact), revealing a more nuanced reality that challenges this perspective. Across two phases of research involving three …

Justifying Antipathy?: Examining Racialized Perceptions Of Incarceration And Support For Mental Healthcare In Prisons, Jared Brassil

Honors Theses

The current U.S. criminal justice system has a disproportionate number of people suffering from mental illness. Additionally, many of these prisons not only lack the ability to properly treat these individuals, but in some cases may even worsen the problem. Public support, and importantly whom the public thinks the prototypical prisoner is, is important to know when advocating for reform. This research aims to investigate whether or not racialized perceptions of the U.S. criminal justice system impact support for mental healthcare reform in prisons. Given the exploratory nature of this work, potentially relevant individual difference variables are also investigated. An …

Prediction Of Bystander Intervention Behavior In A Sexual Assault Situation: The Role Of Religiosity, Empathy, And Gratitude, John D. Foubert, Mwarumba Mwavita, Kelva Hunger, Wei-Kang Kao, Pam Pittman-Adkins

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

Bystander intervention in potential sexual assault situations is a common method of helping to address sexual violence on college campuses. Although numerous variables have been shown to mediate bystander intervention behavior, the pool of potential correlates is limited. The present study used regression analysis to determine the relationship between bystander behavior and three predictors: religiosity, gratitude, and victim empathy. Consistent with prior research, both religiosity and gratitude significantly predicted bystander behavior. Contrary to prior research, the relationship between victim empathy and bystander behavior was negative. Findings are discussed relating to potential bystander intervention programs, and future research, particularly on gratitude, …

Overcoming The Odds: The Effects Of The Relationship Between Childhood Adversity, Lifetime Trauma, And Resiliency On Empathy And Conscientiousness, Victoria West Staples

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

This research sought to understand the connection between trauma and the development of resiliency while examining the effects of that relationship on empathy and conscientiousness. Specifically, this study was created to answer four main questions: (1) Does early childhood adversity predict later life trauma? (2) Does childhood adversity and cumulative lifetime traumatic experiences impact the development of resiliency and its subconstructs (i.e., interpersonal resiliency and intrapersonal resiliency)? (3) Is empathy impacted by the presence of resiliency, specifically examining its effect on cognitive and affective empathy (using questionnaires and galvanic skin response)? (4) And is conscientiousness related to resiliency subconstructs? There …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

Juror Gender And Confession Evidence: An Exploratory Study Of Effects On Empathy And Trial Outcomes For Juvenile Defendants, Cynthia J. Najdowski, Jennifer N. Weintraub

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

Objectives: We explored how relations among juror gender, confession evidence, and empathy impacted verdicts for a juvenile defendant accused of a serious crime. Methods: Jury-eligible women and men (N = 128) participated in a mock trial involving a girl defendant who had either maintained her innocence, confessed voluntarily, or confessed under coercion. Participants reviewed case materials, received juror instructions, and reported their verdict and empathy for the girl defendant. A manipulation check ensured participants attended to details surrounding the confession and participants were grouped by whether they perceived the confession as voluntary or coerced. A logistic regression analysis examined main …

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 …

Development And Validation Of The Single Item Trait Empathy Scale (Sites), Sara Konrath, Brian P. Meier, Brad J. Bushman

Psychology Faculty Publications

Empathy involves feeling compassion for others and imagining how they feel. In this article, we develop and validate the Single Item Trait Empathy Scale (SITES), which contains only one item that takes seconds to complete. In seven studies (N = 5724), the SITES was found to be both reliable and valid. It correlated in expected ways with a wide variety of intrapersonal outcomes. For example, it is negatively correlated with narcissism, depression, anxiety, and alexithymia. In contrast, it is positively correlated with other measures of empathy, self-esteem, subjective well-being, and agreeableness. The SITES also correlates with a wide variety of …

Social Anxiety And Subtypes Of Empathy: The Moderating Influence Of Biological Sex, Samantha K. Berg

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Only a few studies have examined relationships between social anxiety and subtypes of empathy. Findings are mixed. The present study examined social anxiety severity on a continuum and how it related to affective and cognitive empathy in 684 nonpsychiatric adults (77% female). Participants completed an online battery of measures that included: a self-report measure of social anxiety severity (Fear of Negative Evaluation), a self-report measure with subscales for affective and cognitive empathy (Interpersonal Reactivity Index), and a behavioral measure of cognitive empathy (Reading the Mind in the Eyes Task; MIE). After statistically covarying for general anxiety severity, biological sex moderated …

Empathy And Its Effect On Religious Opinion Regarding Homosexuality, Melissa Borah

The Eastern Illinois University Political Science Review

This article examines shifts in opinion, and the reasoning behind these shifts, among Christian-identified Americans regarding their views of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals. After conducting interviews with several Christian-identified Americans, the author finds that when a family member or close friend “comes out” as LGBT, individuals are more likely to change their opinion of those who identify as LGBT, and their change in opinion is more likely to be dramatic. Moreover, the author finds that empathy is the most powerful factor that facilitates an individual’s change in opinion.

Why Some Take Pleasure In Other People’S Pain: The Role Of Attachment, Competition, And Cooperation On Schadenfreude, Alison Baren

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

When witnessing someone’s misfortune, some people may feel empathy and offer to help while others may feel schadenfreude (i.e., joy at other’s misfortunes) and not help. This research examined why people react to others with compassion while others respond more callously. I investigated how individual differences in attachment, empathy, personal distress, and schadenfreude, and the effects of competition versus cooperation, impacted prosocial behavior. As a novel contribution, I looked at attachment’s association with not only state schadenfreude but also trait schadenfreude. After developing a measure of trait schadenfreude (Study 1), I determined if attachment related to schadenfreude (Study 2) and …

Psychopathy, Empathic Concern, And Emotional-Sentence Processing: An N400 Erp Study, Farren Larson

Student Theses

Using an undergraduate sample, the present study examined how psychopathic traits (assessed by the Psychopathic Personality Inventory-Revised) and empathic concern (assessed by the Interpersonal Reactivity Index) affect emotional-information processing using event-related potentials (ERPs) and a sentential priming paradigm. Participants had their electroencephalogram (EEG) recorded while they silently read sentences with three types of endings: congruent, incongruent, and emotionally negative. We hypothesized that participants with high levels of psychopathic traits and participants with low levels of empathic concern would find the emotionally negative sentence endings less unexpected and disturbing (yielding a smaller N400), compared to participants with low levels of psychopathic …

The Roles Of Race And Empathy On Contagious Yawning, Daroon M. Jalil

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Social Psychologists often consider race to be a marker of in-group or out-group status. When looking at race, implicit bias can take forms that are more subtle than outwards racism. Two research questions were asked in this study to better understand the psychology behind racial issues. The first question was if the number of contagious yawns (CY) a person experiences depends on the race of the stimuli being viewed. Contagiously yawning more to in-group members is a phenomena seen in chimpanzees, but has not been studied in humans in a racial context. Black and white males and females were recruited …

I Love Your Face: Attraction And Facial Expressions Of Emotion, Kendall Swinney

Murray State Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of two individual differences on ratings of attraction toward male facial expressions of emotion. Specifically, the influence of participants’ empathy and romantic attachment style on their attraction ratings of a target that displayed one of four emotions (i.e., sad, angry, happy, or neutral expression) was analyzed. This study found no relationship between empathy and participants’ attraction ratings; however, participant romantic attachment style did predict her attraction toward male emotional expressions. Specifically, individuals categorized as having an avoidant attachment style were less attracted to the happy expression than were those categorized …

Psychopathy And The Effect Of Imitation On Empathetic Pain, Emily N. Lasko

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Psychopathy is a disorder largely characterized by a marked deficit in empathy, however, the specificity and extent of the deficit is currently unclear. While it has been well-established in the literature that individuals higher in psychopathy tend to have intact Theory of Mind abilities and exhibit a deficient ability for affective empathy (Blair, 2005), the contribution of motor empathy to these abilities, particularly in regard to empathy for pain, has yet to be experimentally examined. Additionally, the possibility of imitation increasing motor empathic abilities has not been tested in this capacity. The goal of the current study was to further …

Differences In Attitudes Towards Heterosexual And Lgbt Homeless Youth In College Students, Jonathan P. S. Clinkenbeard

All Master's Theses

Youth homelessness, particularly among those who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT), continues to be an underreported problem in society today. This research was designed to investigate hypothesized differences in college students’ empathy towards heterosexual and LGBT youth, and what factors influence these differences. A sample of 81 female and 36 male participants read one of 12 vignettes describing a homeless youth’s situation and then, using the Interpersonal Reactivity Index, rated their level of empathy on a scale of 1 (low) to 7 (high). Vignettes differed by the youth’s gender, sexual orientation, and reason for …

Personality, Character Strengths, Empathy, Familiarity And The Stigmatization Of Mental Illness, Jessica Shanna James

Master's Theses

The stigma associated with mental illness is pervasive and detrimental. The aim of the current study was to assess individual characteristics that may be positively and negatively associated with the stigmatization of mental illness. Two-hundred fifty-nine undergraduate students from the University of Southern Mississippi completed measures of the Big Five personality traits (i.e., Agreeableness, Extraversion, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, and Openness to Experience), Dark Triad personality traits (i.e., Machiavellianism, Narcissism, and Psychopathy), selected character strengths (i.e., Open-mindedness, Perspective, Bravery, Integrity, Kindness, Social Intelligence, Fairness, Forgiveness and Mercy, and Hope), Empathy, and Familiarity with mental illness. Participants also completed measures of stigmatizing attitudes …

Duet For Life: Is Alexithymia A Key Note In Couples’ Empathy, Emotional Connection, Relationship Dissatisfaction, And Therapy Outcomes?, Pamela D. Mcneill

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Alexithymia is an emotion-related construct involving difficulties identifying, describing, and processing emotion, which hinder the capacity to provide empathy, and the development of emotionally connected intimate relationships. To date, there has been minimal investigation of the impact of alexithymia on community couples’ relationships, no associated examination of clinical couples, and no consideration of therapists’ knowledge of alexithymia as a source of influence in couple therapy outcomes.

Studies 1 and 2 investigated alexithymia in 170 community couples and 17 therapy couples, respectively, in association with their empathy provided, empathy received, emotional connection components (i.e., turn toward, turn away, turn against, positive …

The Effects Of Tripartite Self-Construal On Prosocial Behavior, Nicole Ruser

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

The current study examined the effects of both primed and unprimed tripartite self-construal on real helping behavior offered in a laboratory setting. Additional variables commonly associated with prosocial behavior, namely empathy (Eisenberg & Miller, 1987) and agreeableness (Graziano, Hasbashi, Sheese & Tobin, 2007; Caprara, Alessandri & Eisenberg, 2912), were also assessed. Undergraduate students (N = 119) completed self-report measures of empathy, agreeableness, and chronic self-construal, then completed a self-construal prime before the experimenter requested help with a simple task. It was predicted that the independence prime would increase helping among participants, as seen in the work of Finlay and …

Motivation In Athletes With And Without Autism Spectrum Disorder: Sq, Eq And Aq Relationships To Preferred Feedback, Julia C. Harreschou

Scripps Senior Theses

All athletes are driven by motivation, sources or reasons to push their bodies to their limits and continue to do so regularly. There have been several studies concerning motivation in typical athletes, and many regarding social motivation in people with High Functioning Autism (HFA), however most have been limited to children, and there have been no investigations into HFA athletes’ motivation. The current study looks into the role of social dimensions in athletics, and tests how one’s gender and placement on the Empathy Questionnaire (EQ), Systemizing Questionnaire (SQ), and on the Autism Questionnaire (AQ) affect intrinsic motivation in athletics. It …

Virtual Into Verisimilitude: Videogames' Ability To Induce Empathy, Blake T. Bennett

CMC Senior Theses

The current study seeks to link traditional forms of empathy induction with new research that suggests videogames can be used as an experiential method of induction. One hundred-nine college students, sixty-four females and forty-six males, were used in a 2x2x2 design, the independent variables being prosocial/neutral videogame, empathic/neutral instructions, and gender. Dependent variables were both questionnaire responses to a fictional story and an opportunity to be realistically altruistic. Participants played either a prosocial or neutral videogame, received either empathic or neutral reading instructions, and then read a vignette depicting a difficult situation faced by the writer. They then rated their …

Empathy And Cognitive Flexibility As Correlates Of Forgiveness, Rebecca Bennett Katovsich

Dissertations

Problem. For the past three decades, there has been a growing body of literature related to the topic of forgiveness. The idea that empathy, consisting of both emotional and cognitive aspects, plays an integral role in the process of forgiveness is widely supported in the literature, although there is limited empirical evidence for this claim. Beyond interest in examining the relationship between forgiveness and empathy, this research also aimed to explore the role of cognitive flexibility in the forgivenessprocess, considering both the intrapersonal and interpersonal dimensions of cognitive flexibility.

Method. The Enright Forgiveness Inventory, Interpersonal Reactivity Index, and the NEO …

Scientific Empathy, American Buddhism, And The Ethnography Of Religion, Daniel S. Capper

Faculty Publications

The expansion of the use of ethnography in the study of religion has led to substantial methodological confusion. The reflexive ethnographic efforts which exist commonly appeal to the need for ethnographer empathy for field subjects, although the nature and ethical ramifications of this empathy remain poorly explored. This essay offers a model of ethnographic empathy in terms of the methodological observations of Weber, Homans, and Kohut. Using a model of empathy in terms of a reflexive “evenly hovering attention” for data collection, possible gains in the field from this model are explored. These gains include overcoming obstacles to data collection …