This study explored the link between use of humour and empathy among elementary school age children. Based on research demonstrating high levels of empathy in individuals who behave pro-socially and lower levels of empathy in individuals who behave antisocially, it was hypothesized that empathy (cognitive and affective) would be positively associated with positive uses of Humour, and negatively associated with negative uses of Humour. To this end, the Humour Styles Questionnaire (HSQ), developed for use with adults, was adapted for use with children and administered to 191 children (ages 8-13 from two elementary schools) along with a self-report measure of Cognitive and Affective Empathy. Factor analytic results verified a four factor solution for the HSQ, tapping use of Affiliative, Self -Enhancing, Self-Defeating and Aggressive Humour. Correlational analyses showed that the links between empathy and humour varied across types of humour and across boys and girls. Boys reporting higher levels of Cognitive Empathy were more likely to use humour in positive ways (Affiliative and Self-Enhancing Humour) and less likely to use humour to taunt others (Aggressive Humour) or to self-deprecate (Self-Defeating Humour). Boys who reported greater Affective Empathy were also less likely to use humour aggressively. For girls, greater Affective Empathy was associated with less use of Aggressive Humour and more use of Affiliative and Self-Enhancing Humour. Affiliative and Self-Enhancing Humour were also more likely among girls reporting greater Cognitive Empathy. Results of hierarchical regression analyses revealed that Cognitive Empathy contributed significantly to the variance in Self- Defeating, Affiliative and Self-Enhancing use of Humour, above and beyond sex effects. Affective Empathy was found to have a unique contribution, above and beyond sex effects, to the variance in Aggressive and Self-Defeating Humour.

Empati har definierats som ett sätt att förstå andras känslor. Forskning visar faktorer som ökar denna förmåga, dock finns kunskapsluckor. Syftet var att undersöka om människor empatiserar olika med individer med ett känt kriminellt förflutet jämfört med de utan. Deltagare var 218 högskolestudenter från Mellansverige. Undersökningen bestod av berättelser där huvudkaraktären antingen var tidigare kriminell som begått vålds- eller skattebrott, eller icke-kriminell och befann sig i en svår eller lindrig situation. Deltagarna fick fylla i Batsons empatiskala, samt då huvudkaraktären var kriminell, svara på om de själva varit brottsoffer. Resultatet visade en huvudeffekt av brott, då våldsbrottslingen i en lindrig situation väckte minst empati. Mest empati fick skattebrottslingen kombinerat med svår situation. Resultaten kan visa en del av problematiken då tidigare kriminella integreras ska i samhället och möter motstånd. Kanske kan förövaren inte ses som ett offer för de individer som själva utsatts för brott.

Stroke is one of the most prevalent chronic illnesses in Canada. Family caregivers can make a significant contribution toward patients’ recovery. Caregivers’ emotions can impact their motivation to engage in empathy-related helping behaviours. The purpose of this study was to examine relationships among functional deficits of post-stroke individuals, family caregivers’ emotions, and caregivers’ ability to empathize with post-stroke individuals. As guided by Davis’s organizational model on empathy, a correlational descriptive methodology was employed. Participants were requested to complete four questionnaires. Study found that caregiver fatigue was the only factor associated with caregiver empathy-related behaviour. Analyses also found that communication deficits had a linkage with caregivers’ negative emotions. Study results will contribute to the current state of the literature on post-stroke care at home by understanding of the impact of caregivers’ psychological experiences on their empathy-related responses toward post-stroke individuals. Recommendations for clinical practice and future research were made based on this study’s results.

Graduate

In designing and evaluating human-robot interactions and interfaces, researchers often use simulated robots because of the high cost of physical robots and time required to program them. However, it is important to consider how interaction with a simulated robot differs from a real robot; that is, do simulated robots provide authentic interaction? We contribute to a growing body of work that explores this question and maps out simulated-versus-real differences, by explicitly investigating empathy: how people empathize with a physical or simulated robot when something bad happens to it. Empathy is particularly relevant to social human-robot interaction (HRI) and is integral to, e.g., companion and care robots. To explore our question, we develop a convincing HRI scenario that induces people’s empathy toward a robot, and explore psychology work for an empathy-measuring instrument. To formally evaluate our scenario and the empathy-measuring instrument in HRI scenario, we conduct a comparative user study: in one condition, participants have the scenario which induces empathy, and for the other condition, we remove any empathy inducing activities of the robot. With the validated scenario and empathy measuring instrument, we conduct another user study to explore the difference between a real and a simulated robot in terms of people’s empathic response. Our results suggest that people empathize more with a physical robot than a simulated one, a finding that has important implications on the generalizability and applicability of simulated HRI work. As part of our exploration, we additionally present an original and reproducible HRI experimental design to induce empathy toward robots, and experimentally validated an empathy-measuring instrument from psychology for use with HRI.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the possible use of the Rorschach Inkblot Test to indicate empathic ability. The measure of empathy which was used was the Hogan Empathy Scale (1969).The Hogan Scale was administered to 181 students and two groups were chosen on the basis of the results: a high empathy group of 14 students, and a low empathy group of 15 students. These 29 subjects were then given a group Rorschach Inkblot Test. A Hotelling T2 for contrasting groups was done on the two sets of scores, and no significant difference was found to exist between the Rorschach scores of the contrasting groups. Several reasons for this failure to find a difference were proposed.

Relational/Cultural theory (aka Stone Center Theory; Jordan, Kaplan, Miller, Stiver, & Surrey, 1991) has suggested that mutuality is a bidirectional interpersonal process in which both parties hold empathic consideration for the other, value and encourage the differentness of the other, and have the ability and willingness to impact and be impacted by the other. Separately, attitudes of sexism, racism, and heterosexism have been defined as involving interpersonal attitudes and interaction that are distinctly defined by a lack of empathic consideration, the devaluing of difference and an unwillingness to be impacted. This seemingly inverse relationship leads to speculation about how the absence of mutuality may be an underlying requirement to the maintenance of sexism, racism, and heterosexism.Canonical correlation was used to identify the simple and compound relationships between two predictor variables (mutuality) and six criterion variables (social attitudes). The mutuality variables were assessed using the Mutual Psychological Development Questionnaire (Genero, Miller, & Surrey, 1992), and the attitude variables were assessed using the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory (Glick & Fiske, 1996), the Pro-Black/Anti-Black scale (Katz & Hass, 1988), and the Attitudes Towards Lesbians and Gay Men scale (Herek, 1988). Participants were 310 White, heterosexual, women and men undergraduate students at a large midwestern university.A pattern of perceived mutuality in relationships was identified and was found to be related to a mixed pattern of prejudicial attitudes. The expression of perceived mutuality in two types of relationships formed a unipolar pattern. A bipolar pattern of attitudes was characterized by (a) less prejudice towards Blacks, (b) less sympathy towards the condition of Blacks, (c) less prejudice towards gay men, (d) greater sexism towards women, and (e) greater prejudice towards lesbians.Gender roles and values-based Ambivalent Racism Theory (Katz & Hass, 1988) were used to explain the results. The study upheld previous research findings that women express less prejudicial attitudes than do men, and that those who express negative attitudes toward one out-group tend to express negative attitudes towards multiple targets.The results indicate that there is sufficient evidence to retain the concept of a mutual relational orientation as a necessary but insufficient underlying dynamic across multiple forms of oppression.College of Architecture / Department of Counseling Psychology and Guidance Services

There is no abstract available for this dissertation.

Stroke is one of the most prevalent chronic illnesses in Canada. Family caregivers can make a significant contribution toward patients’ recovery. Caregivers’ emotions can impact their motivation to engage in empathy-related helping behaviours. The purpose of this study was to examine relationships among functional deficits of post-stroke individuals, family caregivers’ emotions, and caregivers’ ability to empathize with post-stroke individuals. As guided by Davis’s organizational model on empathy, a correlational descriptive methodology was employed. Participants were requested to complete four questionnaires. Study found that caregiver fatigue was the only factor associated with caregiver empathy-related behaviour. Analyses also found that communication deficits had a linkage with caregivers’ negative emotions. Study results will contribute to the current state of the literature on post-stroke care at home by understanding of the impact of caregivers’ psychological experiences on their empathy-related responses toward post-stroke individuals. Recommendations for clinical practice and future research were made based on this study’s results.

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