Positive Empathy Research Articles

Mark his motives: A motivational attribution perspective on observer responses to peer helping behaviors.

Mutual help among members is critical to the accomplishment of complex tasks in an organization. Helping behaviors are infectious, and employees learn to imitate their coworkers' helping behaviors through observation. However, whether coworker helping triggers imitation learning depends on observers' motivational attributions for coworker helping behaviors to some extent. Based on attribution theory and approach-avoidance framework, this research explored the approach and avoidance-oriented emotional and behavioral consequences of observers' prosocial and impression management motivational attributions of coworker helping behavior. An experimental study with 178 participants and a field study with 259 employees was conducted. The results revealed that observers attribute coworkers' helpfulness to prosocial motivation, which elicited observers' approach-oriented emotions (i.e., positive empathy) and behaviors (i.e., helping behavior) and reduced coworker exclusion, while impression-management motivation elicited observers' avoidance-oriented emotions (i.e., disgust) and behaviors (i.e., coworker exclusion) and reduced helping behavior. The results suggest that prosocial motivational attributions and impression management motivational attributions are key factors in determining whether observers have approach- or avoidance-oriented emotions and behaviors toward coworker helping. Accordingly, individual employees and managers should focus on employees' motivation to help others in order to promote mutual support and harmony in the workplace.

P210: The impact of interventions on undergraduate healthcare student empathy towards older adults and people with dementia; a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Background:Empathy is a core characteristic expected from all healthcare professionals. Higher empathy is associated with reduced burnout, greater job satisfaction, and better patient outcomes. However, there are inequalities in care provided to older adults and people with dementia. Several reports have highlighted that, too often, care lacking in empathy is provided to older populations. The healthcare workforce needs to have the skills and attitudes to provide high-quality care that incorporates empathy. Therefore, appropriate education needs to be provided at undergraduate level to enhance empathy. To understand how empathy can be enhanced towards older adults and people with dementia, a systematic review and meta-analysis were completed.Objective:The objectives of this systematic review and meta-analysis were: To identify what educational interventions were used to enhance empathy in healthcare students towards older adults and people with dementia,To identify what instruments were used to measure empathy change,To determine the efficacy of interventions on empathy.Methods:A systematic literature search was completed in March 2021 using five electronic databases, grey literature, and snowball approaches. Studies were assessed by two independent reviewers using a pre-determined set of criteria. A narrative synthesis was completed, data was grouped and tabulated, and a random-effects meta-analysis was completed on eligible studies.Results:Of 1,937 studies, 25 studies of moderate quality evaluated interventions that targeted empathy towards aging (n=20) and dementia (n=5). Three types of interventions were used: simulation, intergenerational contact, and mixed approaches, and most (84%) reported positive empathy change post-intervention. Empathy was measured most frequently using generic, self-administered instruments. Meta-analysis of studies (n=9) showed a small, but significant effect on empathy change; however, heterogeneity was high.Conclusion:The evidence suggests that interventions can enhance empathy in undergraduate healthcare students towards older adults. However, few studies reviewed empathy towards dementia and the impact of interventions, therefore further research is needed.

The Association between Teacher-student Relationship and Social-emotional Competence among Adolescents: The Chain Mediating Roles of Positive Empathy and Self-efficacy

To investigate the influence mechanism of teacher-student relationship and the social emotional competence of teenagers in ethnic areas of western China, 802 ethnic minority students were conducted by the teacher-student relationship scale, positive empathy scale, self-efficacy scale and social-emotional competence scale. The results show that the teacher-student relationship has a significant positive effect on the social and emotional competence of middle school students; positive empathy and self-efficacy play a separate role between the teacher-student relationship and social-emotional competence; the chain mediation of positive empathy and self-efficacy also plays a significant role between the teacher-student relationship and social-emotional competence. These finding indicates that the teacher-student relationship and individual internal positive resources can promote the social emotional competence of ethnic minority adolescents, and has guiding significance for the positive development of adolescents.

Humour, empathic concern and perspective‐taking in children. Cartooning about social inequality

AbstractThis research is motivated by two inter‐related arguments. Humour and cartooning in children are useful means to (1) address sensitive socio‐political issues and (2) foster empathic concern and perspective‐taking. Humorous cartoons and multimodal narratives were created by 10–13‐year olds in school workshops about social inequality and social empathy. Students made cartoons related to concrete situations of economic, gender, racial and ethnic inequality. Children showed empathic concern towards the victims depicted, evidenced by representing positive empathy between characters or by denouncing a lack of empathy. This research suggests that composing humorous multimodal narratives can favour immersive experiences, perspective‐taking, empathy and pro‐sociality.

The relationship between self-other distinction and empathy in social cognition

Social interaction requires us to process constantly changing social information, including the behaviors, opinions, beliefs, and emotions of others. Distinguishing the psychological and emotional states that occur simultaneously between others and ourselves is essential to adapt to the complex social environment. Positive empathy can provide an emotional bridge to promote pro-social behaviors, while negative empathy may become a breeding ground for social crime. And the Self-Other Distinction helps to avoid self-centeredness and promote the development of compassionate and humanistic care in society.

Managing compassion: The affective dynamics of rural representation in the Chinese reality TV show X-Change

Unlike Western reality shows that are often criticized as devaluing and delegitimizing lower-class people, the Chinese reality show X-Change claims to recruit social attention, compassion, and support for rural people, especially children who have been left behind. This article examines this claim by conducting a multimodal interpretative analysis of the show, focusing on the employment of narrative, discursive and audiovisual strategies that register compassion in the representations of rural identities, bodies, and rural-urban encounters. I argue that the show offers a nuanced emotional repertoire of compassion, which simultaneously empowers and disempowers rural people by integrating a humanitarian tender-hearted sympathy with a socialist positive empathy, and a neoliberal philanthropist pity. In so doing, I reveal the ways in which reality television is embroiled in the intricate interplay between state ideology, sociocultural psychology, and neoliberal logic in post-socialist China.

Do Bad People Deserve Empathy? Selective Empathy Based on Targets' Moral Characteristics.

The relation between empathy and morality is a widely discussed topic. However, previous discussions mainly focused on whether and how empathy influences moral cognition and moral behaviors, with limited attention to the reverse influence of morality on empathy. This review summarized how morality influences empathy by drawing together a number of hitherto scattered studies illustrating the influence of targets' moral characteristics on empathy. To explain why empathy is morally selective, we discuss its ultimate cause, to increase survival rates, and five proximate causes based on similarity, affective bonds, the appraisal of deservingness, dehumanization, and potential group membership. To explain how empathy becomes morally selective, we consider three different pathways (automatic, regulative, and mixed) based on previous findings. Finally, we discuss future directions, including the reverse influence of selective empathy on moral cognition, the moral selectivity of positive empathy, and the role of selective empathy in selective helping and third-party punishment.

A novel approach to measure brain-to-brain spatial and temporal alignment during positive empathy

Empathy is defined as the ability to vicariously experience others’ suffering (vicarious pain) or feeling their joy (vicarious reward). While most neuroimaging studies have focused on vicarious pain and describe similar neural responses during the observed and the personal negative affective involvement, only initial evidence has been reported for the neural responses to others’ rewards and positive empathy. Here, we propose a novel approach, based on the simultaneous recording of multi-subject EEG signals and exploiting the wavelet coherence decomposition to measure the temporal alignment between ERPs in a dyad of interacting subjects. We used the Third-Party Punishment (TPP) paradigm to elicit the personal and vicarious experiences. During a positive experience, we observed the simultaneous presence in both agents of the Late Positive Potential (LPP), an ERP component related to emotion processing, as well as the existence of an inter-subject ERPs synchronization in the related time window. Moreover, the amplitude of the LPP synchronization was modulated by the presence of a human-agent. Finally, the localized brain circuits subtending the ERP-synchronization correspond to key-regions of personal and vicarious reward. Our findings suggest that the temporal and spatial ERPs alignment might be a novel and direct proxy measure of empathy.

Tell Me Something Good: Enabling Conditions for Positive Individual Outcomes

In the stressful times of the pandemic, civil unrest, and other worldly concerns, it’s easy to slip into a negative mindset. Yet, in the recent two decades, positive organizational scholars have resiliently asked positive research questions to identify how we flourish in the workplace. Focusing on the positive side during such bleak societal times has become even more important, as we wrestle with dark feelings and mentalities. As such, this symposium will highlight the good with an emphasis on positive outcomes. Positive organizational scholarship (POS) is the study of positivity of organizational states following four approaches: adopting a positive lens, taking an affirmative bias, explaining extraordinary positive outcomes, and examining the best of the human condition (Cameron & Spreitzer, 2012). Key topical areas of POS include positive individual traits, states, emotions, strengths, and virtues, all of which have specific dependent variables of measurement (Caza, 2015). For example, broaden and build theory examines how physical, intellectual, social, and psychological resources are built (Fredrickson, 2001), and self-determination theory examines workplace wellness, success, and achievement (Deci, Olafsen, & Ryan, 2017). The purpose of this symposium is to contribute to our understanding of positive individual outcomes by examining dependent variables in three key topical areas across four cultures and countries (Australia, Israel, United Kingdom, United States). The symposium’s papers examine outcomes of well-being, prosocial identity, helping behaviors, work meaningfulness, career success (positive individual traits and states), emotions and empathy (positive emotions), and perceived fairness and justice (strengths and virtues). By examining such positive outcomes across multiple cultures and different levels of analysis, this symposium creates an opportunity for cross-pollination of ideas and research on questions focused on individual thriving at work. This cross-pollination of ideas and research addresses the grand challenges being faced around the globe (George, Howard-Grenville, Joshi, & Tihanyi, 2016), thereby, contributing towards the conference’s theme of ‘Creating a Better World Together’. Positive Empathy at Work: Conceptualization, Measurement, and Organizational Outcomes Presenter: Deshani Buddhika Ganegoda; Melbourne Business School Presenter: Prashant Bordia; Australian National U. Personal and Interpersonal Drivers of Social Support Provision Presenter: Matthew Deeg; Abilene Christian U. Workplace Characteristics that Foster Experiences of Meaningfulness among Israeli Teachers Presenter: Hayuta Yinon; Oranim College of Education Leadership, Race and Positive Professional Identity: Exploring the Black Experience Presenter: Yvonne Lardner; U. of Cambridge The Inter-Communicability of Well-Being at Work Presenter: Hongxia Peng; Rouen U.

Transparent masks reduce the negative impact of opaque masks on understanding emotional states but not on sharing them

While face masks provide necessary protection against disease spread, they occlude the lower face parts (chin, mouth, nose) and consequently impair the ability to accurately perceive facial emotions. Here we examined how wearing face masks impacted making inferences about emotional states of others (i.e., affective theory of mind; Experiment 1) and sharing of emotions with others (i.e., affective empathy; Experiment 2). We also investigated whether wearing transparent masks ameliorated the occlusion impact of opaque masks. Participants viewed emotional faces presented within matching positive (happy), negative (sad), or neutral contexts. The faces wore opaque masks, transparent masks, or no masks. In Experiment 1, participants rated the protagonists’ emotional valence and intensity. In Experiment 2, they indicated their empathy for the protagonist and the valence of their emotion. Wearing opaque masks impacted both affective theory of mind and affective empathy ratings. Compared to no masks, wearing opaque masks resulted in assumptions that the protagonist was feeling less intense and more neutral emotions. Wearing opaque masks also reduced positive empathy for the protagonist and resulted in more neutral shared valence ratings. Wearing transparent masks restored the affective theory of mind ratings but did not restore empathy ratings. Thus, wearing face masks impairs nonverbal social communication, with transparent masks able to restore some of the negative effects brought about by opaque masks. Implications for the theoretical understanding of socioemotional processing as well as for educational and professional settings are discussed.

PEEPS: A Relational Framework for Incorporating Resilience Into Community-Based Programming for Youth

Youth in communities across the world are exposed to adversity and trauma at high levels. In this article, we describe a research-informed, resilience-promoting framework that can be incorporated into a variety of touch points for youth (e.g., school, family, community, extra-curricular activities). The PEEPS Framework is relational in nature and includes the following five interconnected components: (a) positive adult relationships, (b) esteem, (c) empathy, (d) peer relationships, and (e) strengths-based approach. We outline the research that supports each component, describe how we are currently implementing the PEEPS framework in the form of a volunteer training, and offer research-based suggestions for implementation and tools that other professionals can utilize.

Aftercare, Not an Afterthought: Providing Access to Records to Adults Formerly in Care

This article presents a firsthand account of positive affective experiences of Aftercare practitioners working with out-of-home-care (OOHC) records and adults formerly in the historical care of Barnardos Australia. The latter is an organization offering OOHC services for children since 1921, as an overseas trading arm of Dr. Barnardo's Homes in England, and since 1995 as an independent Australian Company Limited by Guarantee. It describes an individual example of providing access to records in a context typically considered not particularly joyful. The authors explore various information-seeking and -sharing behaviors and emotional patterns observed in Aftercare practice. They reveal the discrepancies between their observations and the current discourse around negative affect and secondary trauma, relying on previous scholarly considerations to theorize an explanation of what they feel. Concepts such as lower things, the pleasure of information seeking, and happy information sharing as well as higher things, positive empathy, and the emotional response in a context of caregiving are touched on, sketching a less traumatized picture of the profession. The possibility of vicarious catharsis and an activist positivity of community-based information work is explored in what may become a first tentative step toward acknowledging a caring—hence joyful—perspective of OOHC records practice.

Association Between Children's Empathy and Depression: The Moderating Role of Social Preference.

Although empathy is typically an adaptive characteristic of children, extreme empathy alone or in combination with a negative environment may contribute to a risk of depression. The present study comprehensively investigated the associations between the three constructs of empathy and depression in children, as well as the potential moderating effect of peer relationships (i.e., social preference) on this association. A total of 1223 children (mean age = 10.50 ± .93years) completed questionnaires on empathy and depression, and social preference was nominated by their peers. Cognitive empathy and positive empathy exerted a positive quadratic effect on depression, while negative empathy had a positive linear association with depression. For children with a low social preference, all three empathy constructs were positively quadratically correlated with depression, extremely high and low empathy were associated with increased depression, and moderate empathy was associated with the lowest level of depression. For children with a high social preference, higher positive empathy was associated with lower depression.

The effects of message order on emotions and donation intention in charity advertising: the mediating roles of negative and positive empathy

ABSTRACT This study examines the impact of message order on recipients’ responses to charity advertisements using the expectancy-contrast and negative-state relief models. The results show that a negative-positive message order evokes positive emotion, while a positive-negative order generates negative emotions. Both positive and negative emotions induced by charity advertisements affect helping intention through positive and negative empathy. This study enhances the current understanding of the roles of emotion and empathy in charity intention formation. Its results have substantial implications for increasing donations to fundraising campaigns based on charity advertisements.

Empathy, friend or foe? Untangling the relationship between empathy and burnout in helping professions

ABSTRACT The relationship between empathy and burnout in helping professions has been debated extensively, with some arguing the tendency to vicariously experience the emotions of another is a risk factor for burnout and others arguing that this disposition protects against burnout. We sought to aid this debate by assessing the relationship between two empathy facets, positive and negative, and burnout across three samples of helping professionals: practicing clinicians (N = 59), medical students (N = 76), and teaching assistants (N = 77). Results across all three samples consistently revealed that one’s tendency to share in the positive emotions of another (i.e., positive empathy) was related to lower levels of burnout, even after controlling for several potential confounding factors. Beyond discussing the utility of the emerging study of positive empathy, we offer potential avenues for reducing burnout in helping professions by emphasizing the importance of sharing in the positive emotions of others.

The cognitive, affective and somatic empathy scales for adults

The Cognitive, Affective and Somatic Empathy Scales (CASES) assess three forms of empathy, each with subscales for positive and negative empathy. The present study extends this child instrument to adults and examines its factor structure and construct validity. A secondary aim is to investigate the under-researched area of positive empathy. Community samples totaling 2604 adults completed the CASES for adults, together with scales assessing construct validity. Confirmatory factor analysis supported the three-factor cognitive-affective-somatic model and a two-factor positive-negative empathy model. Findings were replicated in a second independent sample. Internal reliabilities ranged from 0.80 to 0.92. Individuals with higher psychopathy and stimulation-seeking scores were less impaired in their empathic reactions to positive relative to negative valence events, suggesting that they are relatively capable of responding emotionally to rewarding events. Somatic empathy was most strongly associated with pleasure in affective touch and with female > male gender differences in empathy. While proactive aggression was associated with reduced cognitive and affective empathy, reactive aggression was associated with increased empathy. Findings provide initial support for the utility of CASES for assessing different forms of empathy and suggest that the balance between positive and negative empathy could provide new insights into psychological traits.

Dance Training Affects the Neural Mechanism of Positive Empathy: A fMRI Study

Dance Training Affects the Neural Mechanism of Positive Empathy: A fMRI Study

Using Positive Empathy Interventions to Reduce Stigma Toward People Who Inject Drugs.

People who inject drugs are often the target of stigma that puts this already at-risk group at greater risk of harm. Past research has shown that holding stigmatizing views of people who inject drugs increases risky behaviors and is a barrier to their engagement in important medical and public health interventions. One explanation is that the negativity surrounding the group causes increased levels of anticipated emotional exhaustion, discouraging positive engagement. However, there has been minimal research focused on addressing this negativity to reduce levels of held stigma against people who inject drugs. We hypothesized that giving people an imagined positive contact exercise about people who inject would lead to a reduction in stigma, since exposure to positive empathy may create new mental associations between stigmatized groups and more positive emotions and experiences. Secondarily, we hypothesized that positive empathy strategies would be more effective than traditional informational or learning based techniques, and that the latter would be more effective than a control condition. Our sample consisted of 375 participants recruited online. Participants were assigned to one of three study conditions: a positive empathy condition, an informational learning condition, or a control condition, and completed a posttest social distance measure. Results demonstrated that subjects exposed to the positive empathy stigma reduction condition experienced a significant reduction in held stigma while participants exposed to traditional informational learning techniques showed no significant reduction in held stigma. Positive empathy-based stigma interventions should be further researched as a promising avenue to reduce the effects of drug-related stigma.

Amplitude of Low-Frequency Fluctuations and Resting-State Functional Connectivity in Trait Positive Empathy: A Resting-State fMRI Study.

Positive empathy is the ability to share and understand the positive emotions of others. In recent years, although positive empathy has received more and more attention, trait positive empathy (TPE)-related spontaneous brain activity during the resting state has not been extensively explored. We used the amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations (ALFFs) and resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) of the resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging signal to explore TPE-associated brain regions. We found that higher TPE was associated with higher ALFFs in the right insula and lower ALFFs in the right subgenual cingulate (SGC), right dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC), and right precuneus. RSFC analyses showed that higher functional connectivity between the right insula and left parahippocampal gyrus, left inferior parietal lobule and left middle temporal gyrus were related to higher TPE. Moreover, the connection between the right dmPFC and the left medial orbitofrontal cortex, left middle occipital gyrus and left posterior cingulate cortex were positively related to TPE. Meanwhile, the strength of functional connectivity between the right SGC and left supplementary motor area was positively associated with TPE. These findings may indicate that TPE is linked to emotional (especially the experience of more positive emotions and better negative emotion regulation) and self-referential processing.

Positive Empathy Development in Toddlers: Comparison with Negative Empathy Development and Examination of Situational Variables

Positive Empathy Development in Toddlers: Comparison with Negative Empathy Development and Examination of Situational Variables