Personal Distress Research Articles

Emotional Ability and Its Connection with Academic Performance: An Exploratory Study on HBCU Students Post-COVID

This study examines empathy in Black/African American undergraduate students at a Historically Black College (HBCU) after the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior research suggests empathy benefits communication, emotional well-being, and academic performance. However, less is known about student empathy, particularly among Black students at HBCUs. We surveyed 63 students to assess empathy using the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI). Results showed variations in empathy dimensions, with empathic concern and personal distress negatively correlating with academic performance. These findings require further investigation with a larger sample size. The study contributes to understanding empathy’s role in academic success for Black/African American students at HBCUs.

The Efficacy of Artwork as a Self-Care Technique to Address Distress in an International Student Studying in Australia

This paper reports on an art-based autoethnography study aimed at helping the author, an international student, reflect on her personal distress during tertiary study in Australia. Over an 8-week period, the author engaged in meditation and art-making activities to articulate and reflect upon her experiences and emotions. Distress levels were recorded using the Visual Analogue Scale before and after each session of art making and reflection. The findings indicate a reduction in the author’s distress levels following engagement in art making and reflection. Furthermore, the process revealed the importance of maintaining a positive mindset and cultivating self-love, which contributed to the author’s reduced distress levels. In conclusion, this study reveals that engaging in art making effectively alleviated distress for the author during her time as an international student in Australia.

Heterogeneous empathic reactions and their associations with adherence and prosocial behaviors during a pandemic

AbstractThe present research utilized the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic as a case study to explore the motives driving individuals to adhere to recommended health standards. One month into the first lockdown and eight months before the availability of vaccinations, a large sample of 1,263 individuals completed measures of empathic concern and personal distress in response to a person who contracted the virus. In addition, we measured their COVID-related behaviors, relating to benefitting another person (i.e., donation), the self (i.e., physical hygiene), or both self and other (i.e., physical distancing). Consistent with the Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis (Batson et al., 2015), we found that individuals who experience higher empathic concern, maintain greater physical distance and physical hygiene and act more generously. We further found that individuals who experienced high personal distress were less likely to act generously, albeit more likely to maintain personal hygiene and physical distance. These findings suggest that compliance with health recommendations can be encouraged by eliciting empathic concern or personal distress. Yet, compliance per se is not prosocial behavior. Any intervention aiming to increase prosocial motivation should focus on enhancing empathic concern while minimizing personal distress.

Residential Mobility Increases the Intention of Self-disclosure on Personal Contact Information and Emotional Distress

Residential Mobility Increases the Intention of Self-disclosure on Personal Contact Information and Emotional Distress

Childhood Maltreatment and Empathy in Community and Justice Samples: The Moderating Role of Positive Childhood Experiences

ABSTRACT Child maltreatment (CM) has been related to adverse outcomes in adulthood, such as deficits in empathy. However, positive childhood experiences (PCEs) are related to adaptive characteristics in adulthood, mitigating the adverse effects of CM. This study aimed to explore the relationship between CM, PCEs, and empathy and analyze the moderating role of PCEs in the relationship between CM and empathy in a sample of 2310 male and female adults from the community (n = 1886) and justice settings (n = 424). Participants responded to a sociodemographic questionnaire, the Benevolent Childhood Experiences, the Child Trauma Questionnaire, and the Interpersonal Reactivity Index. CM was negatively associated with empathy and PCEs, and PCEs were positively correlated with empathy. Justice-involved individuals scored higher on CM and lower on PCEs and empathy than community individuals. An interaction effect between CM and PCEs was found only for personal distress (empathy subscale) among justice-involved individuals. The results highlight the complexity of human development and the differential impact of PCEs on the relationship between CM and empathy.

Empathy among autistic and non-autistic adolescents: The importance of informant effects.

Empathy is the ability to recognize the emotions of others (cognitive empathy) and to share in those emotions while maintaining a self-other distinction (emotional empathy). Previous research often, but not always, showed that autistic adults and children have lower levels of overall and cognitive empathy than non-autistic individuals. Yet how empathy manifests during adolescence, a developmental period marked by physiological, social, and cognitive change, is largely unclear. As well, we aimed to compare self versus parents' perceptions regarding adolescents' empathy. To do so, parents (N = 157) of 10-16-year-olds (N = 59 autistic) and their children (N = 133) completed empathy questionnaires. Adolescents also completed a measure of mental state recognition (Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test; RMET) and parents reported on their child's autistic traits. The tasks were completed twice ~six months apart. We found that autistic adolescents reported having lower empathic concern and higher personal distress than their non-autistic peers, whereas parents of autistic adolescents perceived them as having overall lower levels of empathy. Performance on the mental state recognition task of autistic and non-autistic adolescents' was comparable. The gap between self and parent reports regarding adolescents' empathy was explainable by parent-reported autistic traits, mainly communication difficulties. Empathy remains stable across the study's two time points. Thus, the findings do not support previous views of autistic people as having less empathy and these are possibly explainable by informant effects.

Psychosocial factors affect the occurrence of nonsuicidal self-injury in adolescents with major depressive disorder through chain mediation.

In the adolescent group, about half of adolescents with major depressive disorder (MDD) have NSSI. Psychosocial factors are associated with the development of NSSI. Clarifying the relationship between psychosocial factors and NSSI in adolescents with MDD can help us achieve early prevent. Demographic data, Hamilton Depression Scale-24 (HAMA24), childhood trauma questionnaire, emotional intelligence scale and interpersonal reactivity index were collected from 187 adolescents with MDD. Use ANOVA, Chi-square test, Binary Logistic Regression, Pearson correlation analysis, Mediation effect analysis and the Structural Equation Model for data analysis. The results of ANOVA showed that there was significant difference between the two groups in HAMD24 total score, impulsiveness, emotional intelligence, and empathy (p < 0.05). In the regression analysis, women, depression degree, motor impulsiveness (MI), personal distress (PD) and appraisal of other's emotions empathy were the risk factors for MDD adolescents to produce NSSI behavior. Among the indicators that were significantly related to MDD and NSSI, MI and PD mediate the relationship between MDD and NSSI. The structural equation model showed that MDD, PD and MI had a direct impact on NSSI, but PD and MI had multiple intermediary effected in the relationship between MDD and NSSI. Emotional intelligence, emotional neglect and cognitive impulsiveness indirectly affected the occurrence of NSSI behavior. Impulsiveness, personal distress, emotional neglect, and emotional intelligence are important risk factors that affect NSSI behavior in adolescents with MDD, and they affect the occurrence of NSSI in adolescents with MDD through chain mediation.

Emotional awareness for self and others and empathic abilities in clinical depression during acute illness and recovery

BackgroundThe present longitudinal investigation had two major goals. First, we intended to clarify whether depressed patients are characterized by impairments of emotional awareness for the self and the other during acute illness and whether these impairments diminish in the course of an inpatient psychiatric treatment program. Previous research based on the performance measure Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale (LEAS) provided inconsistent findings concerning emotional self-awareness in clinical depression. Second, we investigated whether cognitive and affective empathic abilities change from acute illness to recovery in depressed patients.MethodsFifty-eight depressed patients were tested on admission and after 6–8 weeks of inpatient psychiatric treatment. A sample of fifty-three healthy individuals were also examined twice at an interval of 6–8 weeks. The LEAS and the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) were administered to assess emotional awareness and empathic abilities. Written texts were digitalized and then analyzed using the electronic scoring program geLEAS, the German electronic Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale.ResultsDepressed patients reported more depressive symptoms than healthy controls and less severe depressive symptomatology at time 2 compared to time 1. Independent of time, depressed individuals tended to show lower geLEAS self scores and had lower geLEAS other scores than healthy individuals. Depressed patients showed higher personal distress scores than healthy individuals at both measurement times. No group differences were observed for the cognitive empathy scales of the IRI (perspective taking and fantasy) and empathic concern, but empathic concern decreased significantly in depressed patients from time 1 to time 2. Empathic abilities as assessed by the IRI were not significantly correlated with emotional awareness for others, neither in the whole sample, nor in the patient and control subsample.ConclusionsDepressed patients seem to be characterized by impairments in emotional awareness of others during acute illness and recovery, but they also tend to show deficits in emotional self-awareness compared to healthy individuals. Self-reported cognitive empathic abilities seem to be at normal levels in depressed patients, but their heightened self-focused affective empathy may represent a vulnerability factor for depressive disorders.

Relationship of burnout with empathy dimensions in healthcare workers in Poland during the COVID-19 pandemic

BackgroundBurnout and empathy are distinct but related constructs essential to effective healthcare delivery. Although their relation-ship is widely acknowledged, existing research shows inconclusive findings regarding the direction and the nature of this association. The predominant evidence supports a negative correlation, but studies usually did not take into account that the empathy construct is multidimensional. Little is known about the interplay of empathy and burnout dimensions in healthcare workers (HCWs), especially during the COVID-19 pandemic times. The present study was intended to fill the above-mentioned gaps.Participants and procedureA total of 412 HCWs (nurses – 47.3%, physicians – 28.4%, psychologists – 13.6%, and other health care professionals – 10.7%), aged 21 to 69 years (M = 36.63, SD = 11.76) took part in a web-based cross-sectional study from June to November 2020. The participants filled out a survey with measures assessing two dimensions of burnout (exhaustion and disengage-ment), three dimensions of empathy (empathic concern – EC, personal distress – PD and perspective taking – PT), depres-sion and anxiety symptoms.ResultsWe found a negative association between the disengagement dimension of burnout with EC and PT and a positive associa-tion with PD, whereas exhaustion was positively related to EC and PD. Hierarchical regression analysis, however, revealed that EC, PT, and PD are predictors of disengagement, whereas exhaustion is predicted exclusively by PD. We also found no evidence that working in a place dedicated to COVID-19 moderated the relationships between dimensions of empathy and burnout.ConclusionsPrevious studies suggested a negative relationship between empathy and burnout. We found, however, evidence for both positive and negative correlations between different aspects of the empathy and burnout dimensions, with positive associa-tions of personal distress with burnout being stronger than negative associations of PT and EC with disengagement, sug-gesting that the relationship between empathy and burnout is more complex.

ЭМПАТИЯ И ЗАЩИТНЫЕ СТРАТЕГИИ В ОБЩЕНИИ ВРАЧЕЙ-ОРДИНАТОРОВ С РАЗНЫМ УРОВНЕМ ПЕРФЕКЦИОНИЗМА

The paper presents the results of a study of associations between empathy and defensivecoping communication in medical residents with different level of perfectionism. Psychiatry and neurology residents (n = 100) aged 22–29 filled out the following validated instruments: “Three-Factor Perfectionism Inventory” (Garanyan N. G., et al.); “The Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI)” (M. Davis); “Diagnosis of the dominant strategy of psychological defense in communication” (V. V. Boyko). The sample was divided into three groups with high (n = 37), medium (n = 33) and low (n = 30) levels of perfectionism. The obtained data indicate a positive correlation between empathy factor “Perspective taking” and strategy of defensive communication “Peacefulness” in all the three groups of residents with different levels of perfectionism. In residents with medium level of perfectionism “Peacefulness” also correlated with “Empathic concern”, and “Avoidance” correlated with “Personal distress”. In residents with high level of perfectionism “Aggression” negatively correlated with “Perspective taking” and “Empathic concern”. The collected data contribute to a more complete understanding of associations between empathy and defensive communication in psychiatry and neurology residents and can be applied to specify psychological targets of residents training.

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THE STORYTELLING METHOD USING FOLKTALES ON EARLY CHILDHOOD EMPATHY BEHAVIOR AT VILLA BETA KINDERGARTEN PADANG CITY

Storytelling provides opportunities for children to develop empathy for the world around them. This study was conducted with the aim of seeing the effectiveness of the storytelling approach on early childhood empathy behavior at Villa Beta Kindergarten, Padang City. Respondents in this study were 7 students of Villa Beta Kindergarten with 5 female respondents and 2 male respondents. The research design used in this study is an experimental design of the One-Group Pretest-Posttest Design type. Data collection was carried out using an empathy scale modified from Davis (1980), the empathy scale consists of four main aspects, namely perspective taking, fantasy, empathic concern, and personal distress. The resulting significance is p = 0.028 &lt;0.05 so that the results obtained from this study are that there are significant differences in children's empathy behavior after treatment in the form of storytelling methods.

Teen dating violence: predictive role of sexism and the mediating role of empathy and assertiveness based on gender.

Despite efforts to prevent dating violence among adolescents, it remains a major problem with multiple negative consequences. Sexist beliefs, empathy, and assertiveness influence teen dating violence (TDV) with potential gender differences. (1) Determine gender disparities in TDV perpetration and victimization, including relational, verbal-emotional, and physical aspects, as well as roles; (2) Analyze gender variations in sexism, empathy, assertiveness, and their relationship with TDV; (3) Establish a predictive model of sexism in TDV with empathy and assertiveness as mediators for both genders. A sample of 862 secondary school students (50.2% females, 49.8% males; mean age: 14.1 years) from diverse regions in Spain participated. TDV was measured using the Conflict in Adolescent Dating Relationships Inventory (CADRI) in a cross-sectional study. Sexism, empathy, and assertiveness were assessed using the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory (ASI), Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI), and Assertiveness Inventory for Students Questionnaire (AISQ), respectively. Females exhibited higher TDV perpetration, specifically verbal-emotional TDV. Males showed more relational TDV and hostile sexism, while no benevolent sexism differences were observed. Mediation models demonstrated sexism, assertiveness, and empathy as individual predictors of TDV, with varying mediation effects. Personal distress partially mediates the link between sexism and TDV perpetration or victimization in males, while practical personal ability mediates between sexism and TDV perpetration in females. Sexism predicts both perpetration and victimization in TDV, linked to empathy and assertiveness. Notably, specific dimensions of empathy and assertiveness mediate the connection between sexism and TDV, displaying gender-specific patterns. Preventive measures should consider personal distress in male perpetrators/victims and practical personal ability in female perpetrators.

Indeterminacy in Emotion Perception

Most psychological and philosophical theories assume that we know what we feel. This general view is often accompanied by a range of more specific claims, such as the idea that we experience one emotion at a time and that it is possible to distinguish between emotions based on their cognition, judgment, behavior, or physiology. One common approach is to distinguish emotions based on their motivations. From this perspective, some argue that we can distinguish between emotions based on their ultimate goals. Empathic distress, for instance, has the potential to motivate empathic concerns; personal distress, on the other hand, is self-oriented and motivates egoistic concerns. In this paper, I argue against this and similarly teleological views of emotions and affect. Through a close study of the emotional breakdown of an American drone operator, I make the case that emotion perception entails much more ambiguity than dominant theories assume. In our emotional lives, disorientation and confusion are often the norm.

When TV neighbours become good friends: Understanding Neighbours fans' feelings of grief and loss at the end of the series.

Fans may experience significant upset and distress when a television series ends. However, grief and loss reactions to the end of a fictional series have seldom been investigated. It is likely that the degree to which such reactions are felt is influenced by viewing motives (e.g., pleasure, meaning making), connection to the series and its fan community, relationships formed with characters, including parasocial bonds and experiences of empathy, and tendency to engage with others' perspectives and emotions, including fictional characters. The purpose of this study was to examine predictors of fans' grief and loss reactions to the end of the television series Neighbours, which aired from 1985 to 2022. Fans (n = 1289) completed an online survey shortly after the screening of the final episode. The survey measured grief emotions and cognitions, acceptance that the series had ended, distress at the loss of a parasocial relationship with a favourite character, feelings of closure, and expressions of gratitude for the series. Predictors of these grief and loss reactions examined in the survey were viewing motives, fan identity, strength of a parasocial relationship formed with a favourite character, empathy towards that character, and tendency to take others' perspectives, experience empathic concern and personal distress, and tendency towards engagement with fictional characters. Greater grief and loss reactions were experienced by fans whose motives for watching involved being entertained and exposed to different lifestyles, who felt a stronger fan connection to the series, and who formed stronger parasocial empathic relationships with their favourite character. Factors such as gender, age, and empathic tendencies predicted various types of grief reactions. Understanding fan experiences when a long-running series ends advances theory and research on viewer parasocial relationships and engagement with media, as well as providing evidence that the loss of a series or favourite character can be viewed as a type of grief experience.

Effectiveness of Mobile-Based Progressive and Fixed Physical Activity on Depression, Stress, Anxiety, and Quality of Life Outcomes Among Adults in South Korea: Randomized Controlled Trial.

Depression acts as a significant obstacle to the overall well-being of individuals. Given the significant consequences, timely recognition and proactive steps to manage symptoms of depression become essential. Such actions not only reduce personal distress but also play a crucial role in reducing its far-reaching impact on society as a whole. In response to this concern, the objective of this study was to explore the use of mobile-based interventions as a possible remedy. More specifically, this study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of 2 types of physical activity (PA), progressive and fixed, within a mobile-based app on depression, perceived stress, anxiety, physical health, and psychological health, aiming to contribute to the optimization of mental health benefits. Participants (N=60; mean age 25.29, SD 6.10 years) were recruited using a combination of web-based and offline methods, and the study lasted for 8 weeks. The baseline and posttest questionnaires were administered to all participants. The participants were randomly assigned to 1 of the 3 groups: progressive group (n=20; performing mobile-based progressive PA), fixed group (n=20; performing mobile-based fixed intensity PA), and control group C (n=20). Data analysis involved comparing scores between the experimental and control groups using a one-way ANOVA, paired sample t tests (2-tailed), and repeated measures ANOVA with a 3 (group)×2 (time) design. The findings revealed significant improvements in mental health indicators among participants engaged in both fixed and progressive PA groups compared with the control group. However, the fixed PA group demonstrated more significant reductions in symptoms. Specifically, the progressive PA group showed significant reductions in depression (F1,36=6.941; P=.01; ηp2=0.16) and perceived stress (F1,36=5.47; P=.03; ηp2=0.13), while the fixed PA group exhibited significant reductions in depression (F1,37=5.36; P=.03; ηp2=0.12), perceived stress (F1,37=7.81; P=.008; ηp2=0.17), and general anxiety disorder (F1,37=5.45; P=.03; ηp2=0.13) compared with the control group. This study underscores the potential of mobile-based PA in improving mental health outcomes. The findings offer significant insights for mental health professionals and researchers aiming to optimize mental well-being through innovative mobile therapies. Clinical Research Information Service KCT0009100; https://tinyurl.com/mr33fmur.

Exploring levels of empathy and assertiveness in final year physiotherapy students during clinical placements

Empathy and assertiveness are two essential soft skills for any healthcare professional's competence and ethical development. It has been shown that empathy can be influenced throughout the training of a future healthcare professional, particularly during the clinical placement period. This research aims to assess fourth-year physiotherapy students' empathic and assertive development before and after clinical placement. A longitudinal observational study was conducted with fourth-year physiotherapy students during the academic year 2022/2023. A preliminary assessment of empathy and assertiveness levels was carried out before the start of the clinical placement and at the end of the placement using the Individual Reactivity Index to assess empathy and the Rathus Test to assess assertiveness. The results show a statistically significant difference (p ≤ 0.05) in both the empathy subscales of perspective-taking and empathic-concern between the pre- and postassessment, as well as an inverse correlation between the empathy subscale of personal distress and assertiveness. It is concluded that students show adequate results in empathy and assertiveness. However, there is some influence of clinical practice on the development of empathy, and future intervention studies need to be considered. Furthermore, students with higher levels of assertiveness have lower levels of personal distress, suggesting that assertiveness is closely related to empathy.

Empathy is associated with interpersonal emotion regulation goals in everyday life.

Responding to the emotions of the people around us is a phenomenon traversing human lives; however, research has only recently started exploring the predictors of interpersonal emotion regulation (IER). In two ecological momentary assessment studies conducted in 2021 and 2022, we tested whether facets of empathy (i.e., mentalizing, experience sharing, empathic concern, and personal distress) are associated with other-focused IER goals and their attainment in everyday life (Ns = 125 and 204). Study 1 examined associations between mentalizing, experience sharing, and global hedonic and counter-hedonic IER goals (i.e., making others feel better or worse) in a relatively young and predominantly female student sample in Germany. Study 2 expanded these findings to empathic concern, personal distress, and specific types of hedonic and counter-hedonic IER goals (i.e., increasing, decreasing, and/or maintaining others' positive and/or negative emotions) in a more diverse U.S. community sample. Participants primarily endorsed hedonic IER goals, which were associated with higher mentalizing and experience sharing in both studies and higher empathic concern and lower personal distress in Study 2. Counter-hedonic IER goals were positively associated with experience sharing and personal distress in Study 2. Conversely, empathic concern and mentalizing were negatively related to counter-hedonic IER goals. We also found differential associations for state and trait empathy with IER goals. All empathy facets except personal distress were positively associated with goal attainment in Study 2. These findings address a major gap in our knowledge about everyday IER and offer a novel perspective on empathy in social emotion regulation processes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Therapist Anxious Distress and Avoidance of Implementing Time-Out.

Therapist anxious distress when delivering child mental health treatment has been understudied as a factor that contributes to the underuse of some evidence-based interventions (EBIs), such as time-out for children with disruptive behaviors. This study investigated therapist anxious avoidance of time-out using a three-part, vignette-based survey design. Therapists (n = 198) read a vignette of an in-session time-out and reported on their personal anxious distress and likelihood of discontinuing the implementation of time-out. Therapists also provided open-ended descriptions of challenges to delivering time-out. Therapists reported moderate anxious distress at time points 1 and 2 and lower anxious distress at time 3 when the time-out had resolved. Most therapists endorsed some avoidance of time-out. Binomial logistic regression analysesindicated that increased anxious distress corresponded with an increased probability of avoiding time-out delivery in the future. Qualitative reports expanded on challenges to implementing time-out. Findings suggest the importance of addressing therapist anxious distress when implementing children's mental health treatments.

Searching for who benefits most and least: An analysis of moderators of the TRUE Dads fatherhood intervention.

Evaluations of interventions to promote fathers' involvement in family life typically focus on whether or not the intervention has a positive impact. Some evaluations also attempt to describe mediators that explain how the intervention is linked to specific outcomes. An evaluation of TRUE Dads, a Randomized Clinical Trial of a couples-based fatherhood intervention for low-income families, reported results that addressed these two issues. Reporting new analyses, the present study addresses a question asked in only a very few fatherhood intervention studies: Are there moderator variables that define characteristics of participants who benefit most or least from the intervention? A total of 46 potential moderators of 2 significant intervention outcomes - reductions in personal distress and in negative evaluations of the parents' relationship with each other - were selected from a 5-domain risk/protective model of family functioning (Cowan & Cowan, 2018. Journal of Family Theory & Review, 92, 111) and from a set of demographic variables associated with these outcomes. An additional 24 potential moderators were tested on 4 outcomes that did not have direct intervention effects. Only 6 of the 70 moderator tests were statistically significant. The intervention provided greater reductions in parents' personal distress when fathers had more economic resources, co-parents had higher levels of education, and the parents were living in the same household on entering the study. There were greater reductions in negative aspects of their couple or co-parenting relationship when the parents at enrollment described more difficulties in the parent-child relationship, fathers were more involved in the children's daily care and were living in the household with their child. No other moderators were found. The results support the conclusion that TRUE Dads was equally effective for a relatively wide range of participants. This search for potential moderators of TRUE Dads outcomes is presented as an example of a needed direction in the evaluation of fatherhood interventions.

Examining the Effects of a Brief, Fully Self-Guided Mindfulness Ecological Momentary Intervention on Empathy and Theory-of-Mind for Generalized Anxiety Disorder: Randomized Controlled Trial.

The utility of brief mindfulness ecological momentary interventions (EMIs) to improve empathy and theory-of-mind has been underinvestigated, particularly in generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). In this randomized controlled trial, we aimed to examine the efficacy of a 14-day, fully self-guided, mindfulness EMI on the empathy and theory-of-mind domains for GAD. Adults (aged ≥18 y) diagnosed with GAD were randomized to a mindfulness EMI (68/110, 61.8%) or self-monitoring app (42/110, 38.2%) arm. They completed the Interpersonal Reactivity Index self-report empathy measure and theory-of-mind test (Bell-Lysaker Emotion Recognition Task) at prerandomization, postintervention, and 1-month follow-up (1MFU) time points. Hierarchical linear modeling was conducted with the intent-to-treat principle to determine prerandomization to postintervention (pre-post intervention) and prerandomization to 1MFU (pre-1MFU) changes, comparing the mindfulness EMI to self-monitoring. Observed effects were generally stronger from pre-1MFU than from pre-post intervention time points. From pre-post intervention time points, the mindfulness EMI was more efficacious than the self-monitoring app on fantasy (the ability to imagine being in others' shoes; between-intervention effect size: Cohen d=0.26, P=.007; within-intervention effect size: Cohen d=0.22, P=.02 for the mindfulness EMI and Cohen d=-0.16, P=.10 for the self-monitoring app). From pre-1MFU time points, the mindfulness EMI, but not the self-monitoring app, improved theory-of-mind (a window into others' thoughts and intentions through abstract, propositional knowledge about their mental states, encompassing the ability to decipher social cues) and the fantasy, personal distress (stress when witnessing others' negative experiences), and perspective-taking (understanding others' perspective) empathy domains. The effect sizes were small to moderate (Cohen d=0.15-0.36; P<.001 to P=.01) for significant between-intervention effects from pre-1MFU time points. Furthermore, the within-intervention effect sizes for these significant outcomes were stronger for the mindfulness EMI (Cohen d=0.30-0.43; P<.001 to P=.03) than the self-monitoring app (Cohen d=-0.12 to 0.21; P=.001 to P>.99) from pre-1MFU time points. No between-intervention and within-intervention effects on empathic concern (feeling affection, compassion, and care when observing others in distress, primarily attending to their emotional well-being) were observed from pre-post intervention and pre-1MFU time points. The brief mindfulness EMI improved specific domains of empathy (eg, fantasy, personal distress, and perspective-taking) and theory-of-mind with small to moderate effect sizes in persons with GAD. Higher-intensity, self-guided or coach-facilitated, multicomponent mindfulness EMIs targeting the optimization of social relationships are likely necessary to improve the empathic concern domain in this population. ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04846777; https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT04846777.