A significant body of research documents the experiences of war correspondents and the impact covering conflict has on them. Far fewer studies focus on the impact that covering everyday trauma has on journalists. This Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) explores, at an idiographic level, the life worlds of six journalists from sub-Saharan Africa, and how each of them makes sense of the everyday trauma they experience in their work. The findings show that in each journalist's case, witnessing others' pain and trauma had a life changing impact; that empathy helped them cope with what they saw and experienced; and that they shared a tolerance for risk-taking. Journalists are the eyes and ears of the public. The study suggests that if journalists have the necessary emotional tools to cope with the stress they encounter in their work, everyone benefits: the journalists, their media organizations, the people whose stories they tell, and society. It is therefore important to take journalists' emotional coping strategies into account, so as not to cement the notion that feeling numb in the face of emotional trauma is simply business as usual.

Empathy development programmes (EDP) are currently implemented in several New Zealand primary schools. Research has indicated a variety of potentially beneficial outcomes to these programmes yet a gap in literature is evident in New Zealand regarding the social acceptability of school-based EDP’s. As social acceptability of any programme influences its efficacy and sustainability, this gap in literature indicates an apparent oversight for the successful implementation of these programmes. To address this gap in literature, 68 students training for a teaching career rated the acceptability of a scenario which outlined a hypothetical EDP implemented in a hypothetical class. Results of this study indicated that students found the notion of implementing an EDP in primary schools highly acceptable. Using the same hypothetical EDP, 33 parents of primary school-aged children rated the acceptability of two different scenarios outlining implementation in two age-specified hypothetical classes. Results of this study indicated that parents found the notion of implementing an EDP in both age-specified classes highly acceptable, although implementation in the younger class was found to be more acceptable than in the older class. As suggested by the results of both studies, the degree of acceptability was related to participant perceptions of the programme’s goals, procedures and potential outcomes, therefore implying that these meet the social needs of the public.

This study concerned assessments of attitudes towards demented patients among students and nursing staff as well as attitudes towards active euthanasia, wish to transfer to other jobs, ability of empathy and experience of burnout among nursing staff. The study aimed also to relate experience of burnout to attitudes towards demented patients, ability of empathy and experience of work with demented patients. The study was performed by use of questionnaires, scales measuring attitudes towards demented patients, experience of burnout and ability of empathy. Tape-recorded interviews were also included aiming to explore the staffs experience at work. The results showed that a majority of the students and staff held positive attitudes towards demented patients. A small proportion intended to work solely with demented patients. Staff working in psychogeriatric care and somatic long-term care held more positive attitudes than staff working in acute medical care. Proportions of staff with positive attitudes varied depending on age, duration of employment, education and place of work. A larger proportion of staff in geriatric care than in acute care reported a wish to transfer to another job. LPN’s in nursing homes to the largest proportion stated this wish to transfer. A majority of both students and staff expressed negative attitudes towards active euthanasia to severely demented patients in the finale stage of life. However, most favourable attitudes towards active euthanasia were found among students with shorter health care education and among nurse's aides and LPN’s. The staffs empathy was judged as moderately high and there were no differences found in relation to sex, staff category or place of work. Experience of burnout /tedium varied with the place of work and category of staff. Largest proportions at risk to develop burnout were found among those working in somatic long-term care and psychogeriatric care. RN’s showed lower burnout scores than nurse's aides and LPN’s. Experience of burnout was correlated to attitudes towards demented patients, indicating that the lower burnout score the staff have the more positive are the attitudes. Burnout was also related to the staffs ability of empathy i.e. the lower degree of burnout the higher is the empathie ability. Regression analysis showed that "Experience of feed-back at work” and "Time spent at present place of work" were the most important factors for the staffs experience of burnout. / <p>Diss. (sammanfattning) Umeå : Umeå universitet, 1990, härtill 7 uppsatser.</p> / digitalisering@umu

Empati är ett brett begrepp som är svårdefinierat, det är även svårt att veta vad som påverkar empatin. Diskussioner om hur våldsamma tv- och datorspel påverkar empatin negativt ökar. Denna studie undersöker sambandet mellan tv- och datorspel och empati där empati definieras som ett karaktärsdrag och en reaktion. Totalt deltog 485, varav 411 var kvinnor, 62 män och 12 som inte ville uppge kön/icke-binära. Davis IRI-skala användes för att mäta empati och enkäten skickades ut som webbenkät och i pappersform. Resultatet visade att kvinnorna skattade högre i empati. Det fanns även en skillnad mellan vilken spelgenre som spelas, där pussel spelades mest. Yngre män spelade våldsammare spel än äldre män medan äldre kvinnor spelade våldsammare spel än yngre kvinnor. De som spelar våldsammare spel skattade lägre i personlig oro. Detta kan tänkas bero på spelarens kvicktänkthet och att de blir stresståligare.

Bakalauro darbe analizuojamas dirbančių kineziterapeutų empatiškumas, nustatomas lygis. Tyrime dalyvavo 101 respondentas: 8 Tauragės reabilitacijos centro, 13 Šiaulių reabilitacijos centro, 14 Šiaulių respublikinės ligoninės, 17 Lietuvos sveikatos mokslų universiteto ligoninės Kauno klinikos, 8 Kelmės ligoninės, 8 Mažeikių ligoninės, 10 Palangos reabilitacijos ligoninės, 4 KMU Psichofiziologijos ir reabilitacijos instituto, 10 UAB Sveikatos centro „Energetikas“, 9 VšĮ Klaipėdos ligoninės (buvusi VšĮ Klaipėdos jūrininkų ligoninė) kineziterapeutai. Empatiškumas buvo tirtas pagal A. Mechrabyen, N. Epštein metodiką. Tyrimu buvo siekiama išsiaiškinti dirbančių kineziterapeutų empatiškumo lygmenį. Buvo tiriama empatijos lygmens priklausomybe nuo lyties, amžiaus, darbo stažo ir šeimyninės padėties. Empatiškumo tyrimo rezultatai buvo lyginami su būsimųjų kineziterapeutų empatijos lygmenimis studijų metu, amžiaus ir lyties atžvilgiu. Analizuojant tyrimo duomenis buvo siekiama nustatyti, ar kinta dirbančių kineziterapeutų empatiškumo lygmuo nuo darbo stažo. Tyrimo rezultatai parodė, jog didėjant amžiui bei darbo stažui empatiškumo lygis dirbančių kineziterapeutų mažėja. Darbuotojai įpranta saugoti save, tampa mažiau įsiklausantys į paciento problemas, stengiasi išvengti galimų konfliktinių bei dviprasmiškų situacijų. Dirbančių kineziterapeutų empatiškumo lygmuo turi tendenciją mažėti didėjant darbo stažui. Daugėja žemo empatijos lygmens specialistų, o aukštas empatiškumo lygmuo turi... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / The final thesis analyses the empathy in working physical therapists and the level of empathy is measured. The research involved 101 respondents : 8 in Tauragės rehabilitation center, 13 in rehabilitation center of Šiauliai, 14 in Republican Hospital of Šiauliai, 17 in Lithuanian University of Health Sciences Kaunas Clinics Hospital, 8 in Kelmė hospital, 8 in Mazeikiai hospital, 10 in Rehabilitation Hospital of Palanga, 4 in Department of Psychophysiology and Rehabilitation, 10 UAB Health center " Energy", 9 in Klaipeda hospital former seamen's Hospital physical therapists. The empathy has been studied according to the methodology of A. Mechrabian and N. Epstein. The research aimed to find out the level of empathy in employed physical therapists. It was investigated empathy level dependence on sex, age, working experience and family status. The empathy test results were compared with future physical therapists empathy levels during the studies with regard to age and sex. The aim of the analysis of the data was used to determine, if empathy level changes in physical therapists working experience. The results showed that with increasing age and years of working experience empathy level of physical therapists rapidly decline. Compassion, emotional understanding and empathy skills declining because of life experience working with complicated patients. Therefore, more and more people get used to protect themeselves, they become less and less listening to others more trying to work... [to full text]

Research (Miller, Worthington, & McDaniel, 2008) has shown that women have higher levels of dispositional forgiveness than men. Studies (Exline & Zell, 2009; Toussaint & Webb, 2005) have also discovered that empathy predicts dispositional forgiveness differently in men compared to women. It is unclear why these sex differences exist. Therefore, four models were constructed, analyzed, and compared using structural equation modeling in order to determine whether gender role orientation moderates the relationship between empathy and dispositional forgiveness. Self-report data were collected from 502 undergraduate university students at a mid-sized, Midwestern, public university in the United States. The models examined did not fit the data well; possibly caused by the interaction between empathy and femininity within each model. However, significant findings emerged. Results showed that angry rumination negatively predicted dispositional forgiveness. Concerning gender role orientations, results showed that femininity positively predicted dispositional forgiveness, while masculinity did not significantly predict dispositional forgiveness. Contrary to expectations, empathy negatively predicted dispositional forgiveness. However, additional analyses clarified that empathy actually positively predicted dispositional forgiveness; a finding that was likely distorted by multicollinearity in the main models examined. Results revealed that femininity significantly moderated the empathy-dispositional forgiveness relationship. In this study, masculinity did not significantly moderate the relationship between empathy and dispositional forgiveness. This work concludes with a discussion of results in the context of McCullough’s theory of forgiveness (McCullough et al., 1998) and Gilligan’s (1994) theory of moral reasoning. Additionally, issues affecting the measurement of constructs and implications for research and practice are discussed. / Access to thesis permanently restricted to Ball State community only. / Department of Counseling Psychology and Guidance Services

Digital storytelling as a pedagogical practice has been extensively explored as a means of increasing engagement, developing 21st century skills such as creativity, critical thinking, collaboration and communication, and refining digital literacies in students. However, there is a lack of data on how the use of multimodal digital tools can be used to explore pervasive social issues such as bullying in adolescents. In this study, a group of grade seven students provided their views and self-assessed their levels of empathy and understanding for victims of bullying, bullies and bystanders prior to and after the completion of a digital storytelling project. Using Likert scale data, along with an in-depth content analysis of the stories and presentations the students produced, the study explored whether participation in this digital storytelling project led to a noticeable and measurable impact on their understanding of and empathy for victims of bullying, bullies and bystanders.

Evolutionary accounts of empathy often focus on the ways in which empathy-motivated helping can give rise to indirect fitness benefits. These accounts posit that empathy is adaptive insofar as it motivates strategic helping behavior, but they neglect a key feature of the empathic process – it can prepare one to act effectively within a shared environment. In particular, adopting the affective and motivational states of others provides a rapid and automatic way to avoid danger and threat, which play a disproportionately large role in shaping behavior. Based on the idea that empathic processes facilitate adaptive reactions to threat, I conducted four experiments to test the hypothesis that empathic reactions reflect withdrawal motivation. In the first experiment I used electroencephalography (EEG) to measure baseline right-frontal cortical asymmetry, a reliable neural correlate of withdrawal motivation. I then assessed empathic reactions to images of children ostensibly taken from a charity campaign. Participants who showed greater right-frontal cortical asymmetry also showed stronger empathic reactions to the images. In the second study I used self-report measures fear and anger to assess dispositional withdrawal- and approach-motivation, respectively. This time, participants indicated their empathic reactions to targets experiencing happiness and targets experiencing sadness. Empathy for both types of targets was positively related to fear and negatively related to physical aggression, again supporting a link between empathy and withdrawal motivation. In the third study I measured state withdrawal motivation by using facial electromyography (EMG) to assess disgust expressions towards charity images. These expressions were positively correlated with empathic reactions, demonstrating that state withdrawal motivation is also positively related to empathy. In the final study I manipulated approach and withdrawal emotions by having participants make emotional facial expressions. Focusing on fear and anger, I found that participants were more empathic when making fearful faces than when making angry faces, although these results must be interpreted with caution, as the manipulation may not have had the intended effects on emotional state. Taken together, these four studies provide converging evidence of an association between withdrawal motivation and empathy, supporting the idea that empathy plays a role in the adaptive response to threat.

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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2008. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 77-82).