Ease of Computer programming and empathy: an exploratory study

IntroductionEmpathy is considered one of the most relevant characteristics in the interaction between the doctor and the patient, highlighting the need to enhance it from the professional training stage. However, some studies have established that high levels of empathy could generate emotional exhaustion (Boujut, Sultan, Woemer & Zenasni, 2012). However, if a certain type of empathy can lead to burnout, it must also be considered that an optimal empathic posture can, on the contrary, relieve stress and exhaustion.ObjectivesEstablish the relationship between the level of emotional exhaustion and empathy in medical students.MethodsA cross-sectional study of correlational scope was conducted in 182 (n = 90) medical students. The cognitive and affective empathy test (López, et al., 2008) and the adaptation of the MBI instrument for the Colombian population (Barbato, Córdoba, González, Martínez & Tamayo, 2011) were used to assess emotional exhaustionResultsStatistically significant correlations of positive magnitude were evidenced between the variables emotional exhaustion and cognitive empathy (Table 1)ConclusionsIt was possible to conclude that the higher levels of cognitive empathy (adoption of perspective) in medical students, also resulted in greater emotional exhaustion, revealing an inappropriate consequence of empathy, where professionals can excessively adopt the patient’s feelings, generating wear. It is essential to promote optimal levels of empathy, which are beneficial for both the patient and the doctor.

ABSTRACTDespite advances in the conceptualisation of facial mimicry, its role in the processing of social information is a matter of debate. In the present study, we investigated the relationship between mimicry and cognitive and emotional empathy. To assess mimicry, facial electromyography was recorded for 70 participants while they completed the Multifaceted Empathy Test, which presents complex context-embedded emotional expressions. As predicted, inter-individual differences in emotional and cognitive empathy were associated with the level of facial mimicry. For positive emotions, the intensity of the mimicry response scaled with the level of state emotional empathy. Mimicry was stronger for the emotional empathy task compared to the cognitive empathy task. The specific empathy condition could be successfully detected from facial muscle activity at the level of single individuals using machine learning techniques. These results support the view that mimicry occurs depending on the social context as a tool to affiliate and it is involved in cognitive as well as emotional empathy.

ObjectivesThe current research has three primary hypotheses: (i) There is a positive relationship between the use of Facebook word messages and cognitive empathy in university students. (ii) There is a positive relationship between participating in the Facebook video and affective empathy in university students. (iii) Virtual affective and cognitive empathy cannot replicate real-world affective and cognitive empathy regarding a feeling of being emotionally supported in university students on Facebook but can replicate the feeling of being informationally supported in university students on Facebook.DesignThree different scales on a questionnaire have been used to investigate the usage of Facebook, empathy level and the degree of social support. A modified version of the Facebook usage scale (14 items) has been used to measure the usage of Facebook word messages and video. The Basic Empathy Scale has been used to measure both the cognitive (9 items) and affective empathy (11 items) levels of the respondents. A modified version of the basic empathy scale has been used to examine virtual empathy. The Medical Outcomes Study (MOS) social support scale has been used to study the degree of social support which is accessible to the participants when they need it. Four emotional and four informational support items (eight items in total) have been selected by the researchers from within the 18 support items.MethodsThe 204 participants are volunteer international and UK university students, randomly recruited from Facebook groups and from among the personal friends of the researcher. The participants were invited to complete questionnaires through a link to a third-part survey website, Qualtrics. A correlation and regression analysis from SPSS has been used to investigate the data.ResultsThere is a weak positive correlation between Facebook word messages and cognitive empathy. The correlation between Facebook word messages and cognitive empathy was significant. There is a weak negative correlation between Facebook video and affective empathy. The correlation between Facebook video and cognitive empathy was not significant. Virtual affective and cognitive empathy on Facebook cannot replicate real world affective and cognitive empathy with regard to the feeling of receiving emotional support and informational support.ConclusionsUniversity students who have a higher frequency of interacting with word messages on Facebook seem to be more skilful in understanding and identifying the emotions of others. Exposure to video on Facebook may not enhance university students’ affective empathy. Moreover, emotional and informational support online may only act as supplements rather than replacements for emotional and informational support in the real-world, although individuals can obtain a large amount of informational social support conveniently just by one click or post on social networking sites nowadays.

Oxytocin receptor and vasopressin receptor 1a genes are respectively associated with emotional and cognitive empathy

Child maltreatment risk mediates the association between maternal and child empathy

Distinct neural correlates of emotional and cognitive empathy in older adults

Objectives The purpose of the present study was to investigate the relationship between empathy and emotional contagion, and effect of facial expression mimicry treatment on enhancement of emotional contagion and/or empathy.
 Methods In order to supplement the limitations of measurement method, both self-reported questionnaire and experimental measurement were used. Emotional Contagion Scale(ECS) and Interpersonal Reactivity Index(IRI) were used in survey research, and Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding(BIDR) were used to control social desirability bias. In the experiment, participants watched interview video clips and responded how they empathized with the interviewee and how their mood had changed. The experimental group additionally proceed with a treatment that mimics the facial expression of the interviewee, and examined whether facial expression mimicry treatment could enhance emotional contagion and empathy in college students.
 Results Self-reported survey results indicated that sensitivity of emotional contagion has a significant positive influence on levels of empathy, even though control the social desirable responding. Also, emotional contagion accounted for 27.7% of variance in empathy. However, in the experiment, there was not a consistent significant correlation between emotional contagion and emotional empathy in the correlation analysis. Also, there were no differences on the level of emotional contagion and empathy between the groups.
 Conclusions The implications of the present study are to try to clarify the relationship between emotional contagion and empathy via both self-reported questionnaires and experiments.

Cross-Cultural Comparison of Empathy between Australian Caucasians and Mainland Chinese

The current research aimed to identify the level of emotional and cognitive empathy of the critical friend supervisor under the capacity building program in primary and secondary education.
 The research community included the supervisors of the General Directorate of Education in Thi-Qar for the specialized and educational supervision departments, where the total number reached (385) male and female supervisors distributed among (135) specialist supervisors and (250) educational supervisors, while the study sample amounted to (200) male and female supervisors who were chosen randomly
 The researcher used the descriptive approach and built a scale of emotional and cognitive empathy based on the complementary formula of the opinions and ideas of the theorists who dealt with the current research variable. The most important results:
 The level of emotional and cognitive empathy among the sample was high
 The study showed that there were no statistically significant differences in the level of emotional and cognitive empathy according to the variable of specialization. In the light of the results of the research, a number of recommendations and proposals were put

<p id=p00005>Prosocial behaviour, that is, behaviour intended to benefit others, has been linked to a variety of desirable traits, including positive relationships, better academic performance and lower levels of antisocial behaviours. As such, the origins and the mechanisms underlying the remarkable individual differences in prosocial behaviour are the focus of an increasing number of studies, with numerous research consistently documenting the important role of positive parenting and empathy. Notably, differentiating between cognitive and emotional components of empathy may help further clarify the processes by which parenting eventuates in prosocial behaviour. Although all children may be impacted by parenting, some children benefit more than others from good-quality rearing. Recent research has suggested that the oxytocin receptor (<italic>OXTR</italic>) gene rs53576 polymorphism could determine the degree to which a child is influenced by environment. The biological function of rs53576 polymorphism has yet to be delineated, and the literature is mixed with regard to heterozygote (AG) grouping; thus, the implications for AG grouping are not well understood. Therefore, the dummy coding, additive coding, dominant coding and recessive coding models were all investigated in this study to test the nature of gene effect. This study aimed to extend previous studies on the association between parenting and prosocial behaviour by examining the mediating role of cognitive and emotional empathy and the moderating role of the <italic>OXTR</italic> gene. <p id=p00010>The participants were 1082 mother-offspring dyads (adolescents’ mean age: 12.32 ± 0.48 years, 50.3% females) recruited from the community. At Time 1, mothers reported their positive parenting via the Chinese version of the Child-Rearing Practices Report (CRPR) and peer-rated adolescents’ prosocial behaviours. At Time 2, adolescent-reported perspective-taking and empathic concern, peer-rated prosocial behaviours and saliva samples were collected. All measures showed good reliability. Genotyping at <italic>OXTR</italic> gene was performed with MassARRAY RT software version 3.0.0.4 and analysed using the MassARRAY Typer software version 3.4 (Sequenom). <p id=p00015>Results showed that adolescents who received higher levels of maternal positive parenting exhibited more prosocial behaviours. However, the direct effect of positive parenting on prosocial behaviour became nonsignificant after controlling for baseline prosocial behaviour. Cognitive empathy, but not emotional empathy, mediated the association between positive parenting and prosocial behaviour. Specifically, positive parenting was positively associated with cognitive empathy, which in turn was positively associated with adolescent prosocial behaviour. Further, this mediation was moderated by the <italic>OXTR</italic> gene rs53576 polymorphism. For adolescents with AA and GG genotypes, positive parenting was related to higher levels of cognitive empathy, which increased prosocial behaviour. However, this mediation effect was not observed among adolescents with AG genotype. In addition, the results revealed evidence for an overdominance model for <italic>OXTR</italic> rs53576. Moreover, the G × E term predicted cognitive empathy but not prosocial behaviour. This finding suggests that cognitive empathy may be an endophenotype closer along the causal chain to the genotype and that the strength of the G × E effects was greater for empathy than for distal behavioural outcomes. <p id=p00020>These findings add to our understanding of how empathy and genetic factors contribute to adolescents’ prosocial behaviour within the family context. In addition, these results suggest that cognitive and emotional aspects of empathy are likely to be involved—in somewhat different psychosocial mechanisms—in the development of prosocial behaviour. Notably, the overdominance effect of <italic>OXTR</italic> should be interpreted with caution until replicated. However, when a three-category polymorphic genotype is used, as is commonly applied when modelling a dominant or recessive effect, both false positive and false negative results can occur, and the nature of the interaction can be misrepresented.

To examine the relationship between empathy and cognition in frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD). Theoretical models suggest empathy has multiple cognitive and affective subcomponents, and recent studies suggest that performance on specific cognitive tests may predict empathy. Qualitative behavioral studies of patients with FTLD suggest empathy loss may occur directly as a result of damage to frontal and temporal structures. First-degree relatives used the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI), a measure of cognitive and emotional empathy, to rate 18 patients with frontotemporal dementia (FTD), 19 patients with semantic dementia (SD), 16 patients with Alzheimer disease (AD), and 10 age-matched healthy control subjects (NC). Subjects also underwent cognitive testing. Both FTD and SD groups showed significantly lower levels of empathy than either ADs or NCs. SDs showed disruption of both emotional and cognitive empathy, whereas FTDs showed only disruption of cognitive empathy. Regressions controlling for general cognitive impairment showed 32% of the variance in Perspective Taking score was predicted by Category Fluency (P < 0.001), and 25% of the variance in Fantasy score was accounted for by Phonemic Fluency (P < 0.001). Although cognitive empathy is at least partly reliant on frontal structures, the emotional components of empathy are likely mediated by structures in the temporal lobes.

P.1.a.027 Second-to-fourth digit ratio is associated with cognitive empathy in men depending on common polymorphism in the oxytocin receptor gene

Introduction: Empathy is an essential trait for pharmacists and is recognized as a core competency that can be developed in the classroom. There is a growing body of data regarding levels of empathy in pharmacy students; however, these studies have not measured differences in behavioral, cognitive, and emotional empathy. The goal of this study was to parse the underlying components of empathy and correlate them to psychosocial attributes, with the overall goal of identifying curriculum modifications to enhance levels of empathy in pharmacy students.Methods: IRB approval was obtained to measure empathy levels in pharmacy students attending Midwestern University. An online, anonymous survey administered through a secure website (REDCap) was used. This survey utilized the Jefferson Scale of Empathy (Medical Student version) and included questions regarding demographics and personality traits. Empathy questions were sub-divided into behavioral, cognitive, and emotional categories. Data are presented as mean ± SEM with significance set at P ≤ 0.05.Results: Three hundred and four pharmacy students at Midwestern University participated in a fall survey with an overall response rate of 37%. The average empathy score was 110.4 ± 0.8 on a scale of 20–140; which is comparable to empathy scores found by Fjortoft et al. (2011) and Van Winkle et al. (2012b). Validating prior research, females scored significantly higher than males in empathy as well as behavioral, cognitive, and emotional subcomponents. For the entire population, emotional empathy was significantly higher than cognitive and behavioral empathy (P < 0.05). Furthermore, negative correlations to empathy were observed for self-serving behavior (R D 0.490, P < 0.001), medical authoritarianism (R D 0.428, P < 0.001), and experience of coercion (R D 0.344, P < 0.001).Conclusion: Overall, empathy levels in pharmacy students are similar to prior studies with females scoring higher than males. Emotional empathy may play a greater role than cognitive and behavioral empathy in this group of students. Targeted programs that promote volunteerism and activities that foster responsiveness to patient needs may attenuate self-serving behavior and medical authoritarianism and, therefore, improve empathy levels in pharmacy students.

Objectives: This study sought to determine the mediating effect of altruism behavior in the relationship between cognitive and emotional empathy of adolescents affecting psychological well-being. In order to improve adolescents’ psychological well-being, which is a time when they experience rapid changes emotionally and physically, useful information on factors that affect psychological well-being can be provided.Methods: The subjects of the study were 282 teenagers aged 16 to 18 living across the country (136 men and 146 women) through online survey companies. Adolescents responded to questions on empathy, altruism, and psychological well-being. The collected data used Pearson's right-rate correlation analysis and structural equation models using SPSS 22.0 and AMOS 23.0 programs. After that, the statistical significance of the mediating effect was confirmed using the direct and indirect effect verification and bootstrapping method between variables.Results: The main findings are as follows. First, analysis of the correlation between research variables revealed a static correlation between emotional empathy and altruism behavior, altruism behavior and cognitive empathy, and psychological well-being and altruism. Next, as a result of examining the structural path between research variables, cognitive empathy and emotional empathy showed a significant correlation with altruistic behavior, and altruistic behavior showed a significant correlation with psychological wellbeing. Finally, cognitive empathy and emotional empathy influenced psychological well-being through altruistic behavior.Conclusion: Adolescents’ cognitive and emotional empathy affect psychological well-being through altruistic behavior. These results indicate that both cognitive and emotional empathy are not only helpful to others, but also play an important role in one’s own psychological adaptation and well-being. Adolescents not only express sympathy and empathy, but also pay attention to others’ feelings, which can become a factor that can actually lead to actions for others; furthermore, such actions can improve the happiness of individual adolescents. These findings revealed efforts to understand and sympathize with others is meaningful to enhance the happiness of ordinary adolescents in public education sites where competition is overheated, and happiness is reduced.

Empathic disequilibrium in schizophrenia: An individual participant data meta-analysis