Studies of empathic behavior in children.
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Affect↗
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Empathic Accuracy and Behavioral Empathy After a Moderate Dose of Beer.
OBJECTIVES: Empathic accuracy (EA) represents a person's ability to correctly infer the emotions of another person. One past study in men found lower EA for positive emotions after a moderate dose of hard liquor compared to after placebo, particularly among non-hazardous drinkers. The present study aimed to replicate this finding, using a moderate dose of beer and a mixed design. Moreover, we added a novel measure of behavioral empathy. METHODS: Participants (62% men) completed the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test, Empathy Quotient, and Revised Drinking Motives Questionnaire. Before and after drinking either beer (6.6% alcohol, n = 28) or its 0.0% equivalent (placebo, n = 38), they watched videoclips of targets talking about emotional autobiographical events and rated how targets felt while talking. Behavioral empathy was assessed by presenting participants with painful scenarios and asking whether they would help the people in pain. RESULTS: The previous finding of lower EA for positive emotions after alcohol was not replicated. Nonetheless, after alcohol non-hazardous drinkers were less willing to help people in pain. Trait affective empathy (i.e., a person's long-term disposition to experience emotional responses congruent to another's feelings) and the drinking to cope motive did not significantly moderate the findings. CONCLUSIONS: Although alcohol may alter empathy, its effects are not consistent and may depend on the dose and type of alcohol consumed. The moderating roles of trait empathy and trait aggressivity deserves further study.
Humans↗
Relationship of perceived empathy to nurses' communication.
Relationship between empathy as perceived by a helpee and the communication of a helper in a therapeutic encounter was investigated in an exploratory, descriptive analysis of verbal and vocal communicative behaviors of nurses. A stimulation was designed whereby a nurse interacted with an actress role playing the part of a patient in a physician's office. Overall verbal and vocal behaviors of high empathizers did not differ from verbal and vocal behaviors of low empathizers. A broad theoretical model of the perception of empathy is suggested, one incorporating all three channels of communication (verbal nonverbal, and vocal) and accounting for the congruency among these channels.
Empathy↗
[The effect of motivation on preschool children's sharing judgment and behavior].
The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of motivation on preschool children's sharing judgment and behavior. In Experiment 1, 45 4-year-olds and 41 5-year-olds were asked whether they wanted to share seals in a fictional situation, and were observed whether they shared their seals in an actual situation. The main results indicated that the number of children who shared seals in the latter situation was smaller than those who judged to share seals in the former one. Especially there was a great difference regarding this point in 4-year-olds children. "Empathic orientation" motivated preschool children's sharing behavior, while "self-focused orientation" did not. In Experiment 2, 52 4-year-olds and 60 5-year-olds were divided into two empathic levels (middle, high) and two motivational cost levels (low, high) to examine the effects of "empathic orientation" and "self-focused orientation." The main results indicated that high motivational cost restrained children from sharing in an actual situation.
Child Behavior↗
Poetry as affective communication.
The poetic experience is approached as an act of affective communication. Through analysis of a part of The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot, factors that contribute to the empathic communication between poet and reader are examined. It is suggested that the capacity for flexible language behavior of the participants in the poetic experience makes possible this empathic communication. The relationship between language and expression of affect is emphasized. Implications for affect theory are presented.
Affect↗
Long-term psychological consequences of childhood frontal lobe lesion in patient DT.
Patient DT was examined 26 years after she acquired focal frontal lobe damage at 7 years of age. This report focused on several aspects of psychological outcome, including the empirical study of social development into early adulthood. Standardized measures of empathy, psychosocial development, and personality were analyzed, along with a moral judgment interview and patterns of adult social behavior. Results indicated that DT has a very limited capacity for empathic understanding, inadequate identity development, difficulties in vocational adjustment, and a concrete level of moral reasoning. Her social behavior and profile of test scores suggest that social development and adaptation have been arrested at early adolescent levels. We conclude that early frontal lobe damage has profound effects on social development, and that the frontal lobes provide a crucial neural substrate for social maturation.
Adaptation, Psychological↗
Which short-term therapy? Matching patient and method.
In recent years, numerous forms of short-term psychotherapy have been developed, without clear guidelines for choosing among them. There are three major approaches in terms of both their techniques and their criteria for patient selection. The "interpretive" method stresses the use of insight produced by a therapist's interpretations, the "existential," the maturational effect of a brief empathic encounter with the therapist, and the "corrective," the behavioral changes resulting from patient management by the therapist. The question facing a short-term therapist is how to choose a particular method for a particular patient. A framework is proposed based on developmental phases of adult life to help therapists match patient and method.
Adult↗
Perinatal loss. A critique of current hospital practices.
Dramatic improvements in the hospital management of perinatal loss have taken place in the past 20 years. However, there has been no critical examination of current approaches. Four possible hazards of current hospital practice are described: 1) Institutionalization of bereavement: Instead of offering parents an empathic awareness of the unique dimensions of their perinatal loss, caregivers often interact according to detailed behavioral protocols. 2) Idealization of contact with the dead baby: This approach may equate actual physical contact with the dead child with the more complicated and variable process of mourning. 3) Homogenization of grief: Counselors tend to denigrate different grief responses by focusing on a preconceived grief reaction. Thus, they may mistakenly label many such reactions pathologic if they deviate from the rigidly prescribed "norm." 4) Lecturing the bereaved: Telling parents the "right" thing to do may deprive them of a crucial aspect of the process that empowers parents after they experience the helplessness associated with perinatal loss--that of making their own decisions. These problems are illustrated by a clinical vignette, and alternative approaches are explored.
Bereavement↗
Child rearing and children's prosocial initiations toward victims of distress.
Maternal rearing behavior was examined in relation to children's reparation for transgressions and altruism as bystanders to distress in others. The children were 1 1/2-2 1/2 years old. Mothers were trained in techniques of observing. They recorded their child's reactions and their own behaviors in everyday encounters with expressions of distress in others (sorrow, discomfort, pain). Distress was also simulated by mothers and investigators. Mothers' empathic caregiving was rated during home visits. Mothers' affectively delivered explanations regarding the distresses their children had caused to others were associated with children's reparations for transgressions. Such explanations were also associated with children's altruism when they were bystanders to another's distress. Empathic caregiving by mothers was positively associated with children's reparation and altruism. Findings are discussed in relation to theories of altruism, conscience, and child rearing.
Altruism↗
[The effects of role playing on prosocial behavior in preschool children].
The purpose was to examine the effects of two types of role-playing experience on prosocial behavior in preschool children. Subjects were 72 6-year-olds. In the Empathy role-playing (E), each pair of children enacted alternately a victim and an eyewitness using a glove puppet, in which the emphasis was only on empathizing with the victim. In the Empathy and Helping role-playing (EH), they enacted alternately a victim and a helper, in which the emphasis was on empathizing and helping a victim. In the Control role-playing (C), they played roles alternately of a customer and a salesman in a grocery store. All children were assessed as for helping and sharing behaviors for a real victim before and after the role playing session. In the comparison between pre- and post-tests for helping behavior. All groups (C, E, EH) increased helping tendency, but only in EH group the proportion of subjects, whose attitude changed from helper to non-helper. As for sharing behavior, all three groups increased the number of sharing significantly in the post-test.
Child↗
Deviant adolescent subcultures: assessment strategies and clinical interventions.
Alienation is a contributing factor in adolescents' participation in Satanism, the neo-Nazi skinhead movement, and violent street gangs. Many of their needs are met by gang and/or cult affiliation, including a sense of belonging, self-worth, companionship, and excitement. Emphasizing prevention may minimize deviant subculture involvement, but some adolescents require clinical intervention, ranging from a few outpatient sessions to lengthy inpatient hospitalization. Therapists must be knowledgeable about adolescents' involvement, empathic to their circumstances, and sophisticated in the approach to treatment.
Adaptation, Psychological↗
[Preschool children's prosocial judgments and their reasoning in the empathic situations].
The purpose of this study was to examine preschool children's prosocial judgments and their reasoning for prosocial episodes. One hundred children were individually asked to do prosocial judgments and their reasoning for three prosocial episodes: helping, sharing, and comforting. In the episode there was a crying or a normal facial expression of a person in distress under the condition of high and low empathic situations. The results indicated that the crying face and high empathic situation increased the rate of prosocial judgment more than the normal face and low empathic situation, respectively, and older children (5-year-olds) did prosocial judgment than younger ones (4-year-olds). Furthermore, the crying face induced the empathic reasoning, especially in the high empathic situation. These results supported that preschool children were able to use the empathic reasoning reflected in the negative facial expression and the cause of distress of the victim.
Child Behavior↗
Fantasy and self-esteem of renal dialysis patients and their spouses.
The fantasy life and self-esteem of 22 male and 13 female renal dialysis patients and their spouses were examined using a Self-Esteem Evaluation Scale, Empathic Fantasy Scale, and eight portions of the Imaginal Process Inventory reflecting eight types of fantasy use. For the patient group as a whole, a high degree of fantasy behavior was associated with low self-esteem, but the sex of the patient made a difference. Frequency of fantasy was shown to be indicative of poor adjustment for female dialysis patients, but not for male dialysis patients. Results also indicated that patients, without regard to sex, were more prone toward guilt fantasies in which they were punished for some wrongdoing such as feelings of anger toward people involved in their treatment or envy of others who do not suffer their same disability.
Adaptation, Psychological↗
Psychoanalytic reflections on language distortion and empathic listening.
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Adult↗
Therapeutic empathy and recovery from depression in cognitive-behavioral therapy: a structural equation model.
This study demonstrated that therapeutic empathy has a moderate-to-large causal effect on recovery from depression in a group of 185 patients treated with cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT). The authors simultaneously estimated the reciprocal effect of depression severity on therapeutic empathy and found that this effect was quite small. In addition, homework compliance had a separate effect on clinical recovery, over and above the effect of therapeutic empathy. The patients of novice therapists improved significantly less than did the patients of more experienced therapists, when controlling for therapeutic empathy and homework compliance. Ss who terminated therapy prematurely were less likely to complete the self-help assignments between sessions, rated their therapists as significantly less empathic, and improved significantly less. Ss with borderline personality disorder improved significantly less, but they rated their therapists as just as empathic and caring as other patients. The significance of these findings for psychotherapy research, treatment, and clinical training is discussed.
Adolescent↗
Explorations in the uses of language in psychotherapy: complex empathic statements.
I have suggested (1978) that the language occurring to us in personal and psychotherapeutic speech reflects our distance from one another, and that the empathic position in particular evokes emotional reverberations and spontaneous verbal accompaniments which serve to identify that position. I have also suggested some prototypic forms of this spontaneous empathic speech. A clinical anecdote and two observations will illustrate these points and prepare for the discussion of more complex empathic forms.
Attitude of Health Personnel↗
On empathic perception and the problems of reporting psychoanalytic processes.
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Auditory Perception↗
The family physician as a "therapeutic instrument".
The doctor-patient relationship is the matrix of the family physician's diagnostic-therapeutic activity. To enhance the curative potential inherent in this relationship, the physician has to be able to make contact with the person in the patient. To achieve this, the physician must develop his potential for empathic observation, empathic listening, and introspective self-awareness. The use of these skills in a non-judgmental, non-condemning, and non-manipulative climate creates an optimum therapeutic setting. Rather than focusing upon the body of knowledge available in the behavioral sciences, or upon the pursuit of learning "psychiatry" or "psychotherapy," the family physician should first develop his own personal skills. He should then apply them to his own patients, in his own setting, in order to discover the therapeutic approaches appropriate to this patients and their problems. The psychiatrist, psychologist, or any other behavioral scientist can be most helpful to the family physician if he is prepared to aid him in his own discoveries rather than attempt to teach him the accumulated knowledge from his own field.
Education, Medical, Graduate↗