Abstract
Empathy represents an essential prerequisite for developing effective interpersonal behavior and maintaining interpersonal relationships. Education is a result of teacher-student interaction, and, therefore, it is worth noting that teaching empathy is critical for the development of students and the professional growth of teachers. Recently, researchers began to explore the influential factors of empathy (e.g., empathic mindsets) based on motivation. Beyond their empathic attitudes, teachers also have a mindset toward the development of students. A survey study was adopted to explore the relationship between the theories of the growth of students and teacher empathy. Four hundred and eighty-four Chinese teachers completed the student development scale, the teacher empathic motivation scale, and the teacher empathy scale. The mediation model results showed that the theories of the development of students could significantly predict teacher empathy and teacher empathic motivation. The teacher empathic motivation mediated the positive relationship between the theories of the development of students and teacher empathy. This study proposes a new concept and method for teacher empathy intervention in future.
Highlights
Empathy, an interpersonal phenomenon, refers to sharing in and understanding the thoughts, and feelings of other people, and caring for their welfare (Zaki, 2014; Preston and Waal, 2017; Yang et al, 2018; Weisz and Cikara, 2021)
The results suggest that people who had a malleable mindset expended greater empathic motivation in challenging contexts than those who believed in a fixed theory
As alluded to earlier, Weisz et al (2020) found the same results. These findings suggested that empathic belief, a motivation-based intervention, is an essential factor that shapes empathy
Summary
An interpersonal phenomenon, refers to sharing in and understanding the thoughts, and feelings of other people, and caring for their welfare (Zaki, 2014; Preston and Waal, 2017; Yang et al, 2018; Weisz and Cikara, 2021). As is generally known, teaching is a social interaction that involves a pupil and a teacher (Holper et al, 2013), which is inseparable from empathy (Swan and Riley, 2015). Teacher empathy, which involves cognitive and affective elements (Tettegah and Anderson, 2007; Swan and Riley, 2015; Goroshit and Hen, 2016), involves comprehensively understanding. There is an enhanced awareness of the importance of teacher empathy in teacher education (Swan and Riley, 2015)
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