Medical residency is characterized by sleep deprivation, stress, and heavy workload. The impact of these pressures on physician-patient communication has not been fully explored. The aim of the current study was to investigate how contextual demands, stress, and burnout impact empathy and provision of patient-centered communication among internal medicine residents in two hospitals. The long-call shift was studied, as it is known to be particularly taxing and is a primary feature of medical residency. Assessments were obtained both prior to and at the conclusion of residents' shifts. Cognitive complexity was examined as a potential mediator of the relationship between stress and burnout, and burnout and empathy. Results revealed that there was a significant decline in physician empathy from the beginning to the end of the long-call shift and that this decline in empathy predicted less patient-centered communication from physicians. Stress, burnout, and decline in empathy were all positively associated, indicating that resident physicians who were more stressed and burned out were at increased risk for declines in empathy over the course of their shift. Cognitive complexity was not found to be a significant mediator of any associations between study variables, though it was associated with several key variables in unexpected ways. These findings highlight the importance of identifying and addressing barriers to patient-centered communication, as a number of these barriers may be routinely present in the demanding environment of medical residency.

This paper is about Edith Steins phenomenological investigation on empathy, based on the dissertation she wrote for Edmund Husserl: Zum Problem der Einfühlung. The philosophical method she used was an early phenomenological realism, practiced by phenomenologists in prewar-time, and she was an active member of the Göttingen philosophical society founded in 1907. Her analysis of the phenomenon empathy also includes a theory of emotions which recently has been brought up in the empathy-debate as crucial to an understanding of our empathic experience and our basic intersubjective experience. By looking in to how we perceive the others emotions Stein includes a survey, in the analysis of empathy, over different layers of our personality: from the outer bodily dimension to the inner core in the psychophysical individual. She provides for a phenomenological insight into the structures and layers of the other person, which then creates an understanding of how the emotional aspect of the empathic act discloses the others personality and values. / Den här uppsatsen handlar om Edith Steins fenomenologiska analys av empati-begreppet, med grund i doktorsavhandlingen hon skrev för Husserl: Zum Problem der Einfühlung. Hon ägnade sig åt en realistisk fenomenologi i likhet med samtida fenomenologer och var med i Göttingen filosofiska sällskap (grundat 1907). I Steins (tidiga) filosofi får vi dessutom en fenomenologisk inblick i de underliggande strukturerna i psyket, samt en teori om känslor som visar på hur kroppen och psyket i en sammanhängande enhet ger uttryck för våra upplevelser. Uppsatsen lyfter, tillsammans med ny forskning, fram den tyska innebörden av ordet empati (Einfühlung), där Stein på ett realistiskt vis beskriver det kännande jaget som fenomen - det empiriska jaget. Ordet översatt till svenska blir inkännande och det är denna innebörd som här specifikt betraktats i samband med den empatiska akten. Det handlar först och främst om den andres upplevelser och känslor som då utgör fokus i empati - där Steins undersökning av den empatiska upplevelsen och de olika känsloskikten i personen även bidrar till en förståelse för hur känslorna avslöjar personlighet och värden, i en grundläggande intersubjektiv upplevelse.

Witnessing others in need can be felt similarly to experiencing it oneself (empathy) and motivates assistance of those in need (prosocial action). It is well-documented that empathy can occur automatically, but when those in need are not members of a social ingroup, empathy and prosocial action are undermined. One major ingroup—outgroup division in American and in other countries is based on race. Although most condemn racial discrimination, empathy and prosocial action are often lower, however unintentionally, in interracial contexts. In light of this empathy gap, it is important to identify psychological factors that could bolster empathy and prosocial action toward racial outgroup members in need. This dissertation asked whether mindfulness training – cultivating present-centered, receptive attention to one’s ongoing experiences –increases social sensitivity toward racial outgroup members, and is based on pilot research indicating that a brief mindfulness induction increased empathy and prosocial action in such contexts. Healthy, self-identifying White women were randomized to either a brief (4-day) mindfulness training or a structurally-equivalent sham mindfulness training. Pre-post electroencephalographic measures of empathy toward video stimuli of outgroup members expressing sadness was assessed via prefrontal alpha frequency oscillations (i.e., frontal alpha asymmetry). Pre-post scenario-based spontaneous prosocial action toward Black individuals in need, and pre-post 14-day ecological momentary assessment (EMA) of empathy and prosocial action toward Black individuals (and other races) were conducted. Mindfulness training was expected to increase EEG- and EMA-based empathy toward Black individuals in need, as well as increase prosocial action toward such individuals in scenario and daily life (EMA) contexts. Opposite of what was hypothesized, MT reduced post-intervention empathic simulation, relative to ST, as measured by frontal alpha asymmetry. Consistent with hypotheses, however, MT increased empathic concern for outgroup members expressing sadness during video stimuli observation, and increased post-intervention scenario-based prosocial action. However, the hypothesis that MT would predict increases in pre- to post-intervention daily EMA-based prosocial action was not supported. Providing somewhat convergent evidence, trait mindfulness predicted more frequent pre-intervention scenario-based and daily prosocial action toward outgroup members; trait mindfulness was not related to pre-intervention video-based EEG and self-reported empathy outcomes. Together these results suggest that mindfulness can enhance some indicators or empathy and prosocial behavior in interracial contexts. Mechanisms and implications of the findings are discussed.

Compassion requires both attention and motivation to engage with another person’s experience. Two studies examined whether curiosity—the interest and motivation to explore new or complex information—promotes empathic concern and suppresses personal distress. These studies also examined whether attachment insecurity moderates curiosity’s effect on empathy. Study 1 identified correlations among curiosity, attachment security, empathic concern, and personal distress traits. In Study 2, participants were primed with high or low curiosity before watching a video of a peer experiencing hardship, then reported state curiosity, empathic concern, personal distress, and prosocial motivation. Trait and state curiosity predicted greater empathic concern and prosocial motivation. In Study 1, greater attachment anxiety was shown to weaken trait curiosity’s relationship with empathic concern. In Study 2, greater attachment anxiety also weakened the relationship between state curiosity and personal distress. These results suggest curiosity may be a way to promote compassion and willingness to help.

This study examined models of self and other as they relate to attachment, forgiveness, emotional and cognitive reactions to a breakup, relationship variables, and positive and negative feelings toward the self and former partner after a romantic relationship is ended. This study also tested how these variables change over time. Data were collected over a period of five weeks from 130 undergraduates who had experienced a breakup within the two weeks prior to beginning the study. Data were analyzed with a series of univariate and multivariate analyses of variance. Results found that there were differences in how participants reacted to the relationship breakup based on attachment style. There were some changes over time in the variables for all the attachment styles, and there was only one interaction between time and attachment style. Results are discussed in terms of previous research findings. Limitations of the current study are discussed and suggestions for future research are presented.

Empathy has been shown to be a very powerful social and work ability. This study surveyed 754 employees of a privately held eastern United States company, and incorporated annual performance evaluations to empirically link interactive empathy to leader performance of 102 leaders. Data was collected from the leader’s followers, peers, and supervisors and from self-report personality evaluations. The results of this study show that leaders that are willing to engage their followers with empathic displays are seen as better leaders from their supervisors and have more engaged employees. Other contributions of this study include validation of the interactive empathy scale in a corporate environment and empirical support to show how interactive empathy adds incremental explanatory power of leader’s performance above and beyond that explained by personality. Directions for future research and practical implications of these results are also offered.

I am a nomad. I have not had a place to call home in almost two decades. I wander around the world searching for a place to belong, only to discover the forgotten lives and silenced voices. I have come to realize that to find a "home," I need to first create a world in which to belong to. My recent works are investigations of possibilities for another world, a world of compassion, through a critique of our current society. I create as I rediscover the forgotten histories and lives. My work captures my process of remembering and celebrating while simultaneously imagining our capacity to function as philanthropists.

In the past, a user’s interaction with objects was usually limited to a core function. Whereas today, there is a trend toward objects that can offer multi-layered experiences with the potential to not only serve a core function, but to communicate information and emotion. These interactions offer a give-and-take relationship between the user and the object, with the potential for characteristics, individualistic features, and even personalities to appear. Interactions with such objects provide the potential for empathic relationships to form between human and object. Empathy becomes the bond that gives a user the opportunity to view the world from the object’s perspective. It can create a sense of connection beyond the objects functional expectations, and provides the potential for a more meaningful exchange. In my research, I speculate that empathy can be used as a powerful tool of communication. I offer possibilities on how this tool might be used to learn a skill, to recall a memory or to show an accomplishment. Applied empathy in my research is illustrated through a series of experiments and proposals that demonstrate mechanisms to document today’s changing phenomena in Qatar through the creation of objects.

This study examined the role of attention and trait empathy within the production of neural facial mimicry responses that have been previously found to be associated with the experience of empathy. More specifically, do people who have high trait empathy levels require less attention to emotional information in order to still exhibit these physiological responses than people who have lower trait empathy levels? It has previously been demonstrated that responses in the zygomaticus and corrugator muscles have been associated with the experience of empathy. College aged participants were shown series of happy, angry, and neutral faces with the amount of attention allocated to the emotional information of the faces manipulated. It was predicted that the level of attention directed at the emotional faces would affect the level of these physiological empathetic responses. Attention directed at the emotional content of the photos was shown to elicit higher activations of these physiological responses than when participants’ attention was directed at another characteristic of the stimuli, gender, but trait empathy was not shown to significantly moderate the relationship between these physiological responses and the level of attention directed at the emotional information.

Medical educators, clinical trainers, and professional organizations that have responded to the need to humanize medicine have not explored prospects for affective development in distance education. In this dissertation, the author explored narrative as an affective learning technique. Medical fiction, lay exposition, autobiography and other written forms of patient narratives, as well as multimedia presentations, movies, music, song, and visual arts were explored and analyzed for use in teaching medical professionalism to online health science students. A collection of narratives and learning activities for teaching medical professionalism in an online class were presented. Finally, a comparison study evaluated the use of narrative medicine to foster professional development in an online class. The use of narrative to introduce professionalism and help online students internalize the humanistic values of empathy and compassion was grounded in affective theories of moral development. Quantitative evaluation of medical professionalism was performed using the Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy (JSPE), a psychometrically sound instrument designed to measure empathy in the context of patient care. Comparisons of mean changes in empathy suggest that the treatment group experienced significant changes in total empathy, reflected by increased scores in all elements of the JSPE. These results were validated by a qualitative review of student discussion posts, course evaluations, and instructor feedback. The goal was to explore affective development and the educational value that narrative brings to teaching medical professionalism in the online class. The study helped to clarify the role of narrative in transformative learning. The implication is that online students can benefit from exposure to narrative. The relationship between narrative and medical professionalism may have applications for educational theory, medical and allied health practice, public policy, and future research.