Search

Background: Empathy can be challenging when caring for individuals with alcohol use disorders (AUDs)., Purpose: This study examined the effectiveness of simulation for enhancing the empathy of nursing students toward patients with AUD., Methods: A mixed-methods study used a pretest-posttest intervention measurement of empathy with the Comprehensive State Empathy Scale (CSES) and focus groups. Quantitative data were analyzed with t tests, whereas thematic analysis evaluated the qualitative data., Results: No significant differences were found between pre- and post-CSES scores. The subscales of empathic concern and shared affect were significant: empathic concern, t55 = - 2.16, P = .04, and shared affect, t55 = -2.16, P = .02. Empathic imagination reached significance for students with personal experience with someone with an AUD, t54 = -2.39, P = .02., Conclusions: Additional research is warranted regarding the effect of simulation on empathic concern, shared affect, and empathic imagination toward individuals with AUD.

Previous research on the one-among-others effect has shown that inducing empathic concern towards a victim presented alongside with a small number of other victims enhances (a) the perception of this set of victims as separate and different individuals (instead of as a group), and (b) the preference to help them individually (rather than collectively). We propose that inducing a local (vs. global) perceptual scope increases (vs. lessens) these two outcomes. In this work, participants first reported their perception of an ad that showed a victim depicted as one-among-others and, afterwards, were unexpectedly asked to indicate their preference for giving the victims either "individualized", "collective", or "equal" assistance. In Experiment 1 (N = 48), we manipulated the participants' local (vs. global) perceptual scope and allowed empathy concern to occur naturally. In Experiment 2 (N = 213), we manipulated both the perceptual scope and empathy concern. Overall, results showed that the combined presence of local scope and empathic concern increased the awareness of others (η p 2 = .203 and .047, 95% CI = [0.05, 0.35] and [0.03, 0.13], ps < .03) and the preference for individualized assistance (zs = 2.08 and 2.74, ps < .02). Lastly, we discuss the theoretical and practical implications of perceiving a set of victims as individuals (rather than as a group) in need.

When facing a person in need, professional nurses will tend to adopt an objective perspective compared to nursing students who, instead, will tend to adopt an imagine-other perspective. Consequently, professional nurses will show lower vicarious emotional reaction such as empathy and distress. Using samples from Spain (Studies 1 and 2) and United states (Study 3), we compared perspective taking strategies and the emotional responses of nurses and nursing students when perceiving a sick child (Study 1) and a sick adult (Studies 2 and 3). Taken together, the results supported our hypotheses. We discuss the applied value of considering the relationship between perspective-taking and its emotional consequences for the nursing profession., (Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

It is widely believed that impairment in an ability to experience affective empathy for others is a central feature of psychopathy. The authors tested this assumption by covertly manipulating and measuring state experiences of emotional contagion and empathic concern in college undergraduates and male forensic inpatients. Surprisingly, they found little evidence of a negative association between psychopathy and affective empathy in either sample. In those instances in which associations were found, they tended to indicate that higher psychopathy was associated with increased affective empathy. Follow-up analyses also revealed that psychopathy was positively associated with pervasive experiences of sadness, anger, and fear, and negatively associated with pervasive experiences of happiness among nonforensic individuals. This research raises questions about existing conceptualizations of interpersonal affect in psychopathy and offers suggestions for advancing future understanding of the role-played by emotional processes in psychopathy.

Dementia prevalence is increasing exponentially and has a profound effect on individuals diagnosed as well as their family caregivers. Dementia care should be patient focused, not task or medically oriented. Patient-centered dementia care requires more staff time, is complex, and, as a result, financially threatens the healthcare system. Therefore, professionals must be prepared to meet the needs of this growing population. The aims of this mixed methods study were to examine the effect of a 16-h interprofessional program on healthcare students' dementia knowledge, attitudes toward people with dementia, confidence for dementia care and empathy, and to understand the relationships among the listed variables. Nursing, occupational therapy assistant, pharmacy, and psychology students participated in a 16-h team-based learning Dementia Care Bootcamp. Students reported significant improvements in dementia attitudes and knowledge, confidence for dementia care and empathy immediately after Bootcamp and 3 months later. Significant relationships among listed variables were noted. Qualitative data complemented the quantitative findings. In addition, the concept of dementia care competency emerged. Students recognized the benefits of learning about, with and from others from diverse professions. Interprofessional education has great potential to improve students' ability to care for people with dementia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research has shown that feeling empathy sometimes leads to compassion fatigue and sometimes to compassion satisfaction. In three studies, participants recalled an instance when they felt empathy in order to assess the role time perspective plays in how empathizers perceive the consequences of empathy. Study 1 revealed that college students perceive empathy as having more negative consequences in the short term, but more positive consequences in the long term. Study 2 showed that service industry professionals perceive the consequences of feeling empathy for customers who felt bad as less negative, and the consequences of feeling empathy for people who felt good as less positive, in the long as opposed to the short term. Because Studies 1 and 2 confounded time perspective with event specificity a third study was conducted in which event specificity was held constant across time perspectives. The same pattern of results emerged. The results of these studies indicate that perceptions of the effects of feeling empathy, whether positive or negative, become less extreme over time. These findings shed light on the relation between empathy and compassion fatigue and satisfaction by suggesting that situations that initially are experienced as stressful can over time make the empathizer stronger. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much research has investigated the cognitive-perceptual factors that promote empathic concern. However, little research has investigated such factors for a related emotion: empathic embarrassment. We suggest that 2 factors promote empathic embarrassment for a target in a compromising situation: liking the target, and imagining oneself in the target's situation. Results revealed that liking a socially compromised target increases both empathic concern and empathic embarrassment (Experiment 1). Furthermore, imagining the person's thoughts and feelings increases empathic concern and a desire for future exposure to the person, whereas imagining oneself in the person's situation primarily increases empathic embarrassment (Experiment 2). Implications of these results for future empathy research and applications for those who suffer from chronic embarrassability are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why does empathy promote prosocial behavior? Previous research suggests that empathically aroused individuals help those in need, even when physical escape from the need situation is easy, and this evidence has been used to support the claim that empathy evokes an altruistic motive. However, existing research has not addressed the possibility that empathically aroused participants help because ease of physical escape fails to provide adequate psychological escape from awareness of the victim's suffering and the aversive empathic arousal such awareness produces. The two experiments reported here examined this issue by directly manipulating empathic arousal and the perceived ease of psychological escape among potential helpers. In both experiments, higher rates of helping were observed among empathically aroused participants, even under conditions of easy psychological escape. The findings of both experiments suggest that empathy evokes an altruistic motive to reduce the victim's suffering rather than an egoistic aversive-arousal reduction motive. In addition, the results of Experiment 1 suggest that concern for psychological escape from the suffering of others may constitute an important independent prosocial motive in need of future study. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]