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Can Spiritual Experiences Promote Empathy in the Context of Past Adverse Childhood Experiences?

Previous research suggests that adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) can greatly impact a child’s physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing later in life. ACE exposure has been associated with lower levels of empathy in the literature. Spirituality is often associated with a number of positive outcomes, including those associated with empathy, like prosocial behaviors. The present study examines spirituality as a buffer against reduced empathy in those with exposure to adverse events in childhood. Participants for this study were recruited through the SONA research platform at East Tennessee State University as part of a larger research project, the REACH (Religions, Emotions, and Current Health) study. Results of this study did not support the working hypotheses that we would find a negative correlation between ACEs and empathy, as well as a moderation relationship via spirituality between ACEs and empathy. However, we did find that empathy was positively associated with spirituality, and ACEs were negatively associated with spirituality. Future research should dig deeper into the relationship between ACEs and empathy, as well as search for other possible protective factors for the effects of ACEs.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:ETSU/oai:dc.etsu.edu:honors-1737
Date01 May 2020
CreatorsIckes, Alison
PublisherDigital Commons @ East Tennessee State University
Source SetsEast Tennessee State University
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
SourceUndergraduate Honors Theses
RightsCopyright by the authors., http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

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