Eric M. Hansen

I've also experienced loss and fear : Effects of prior similar experience on empathy

Although it is frequently argued that empathy is increased by similar experiences, this idea has rarely been tested. This study investigated the relationship between empathy and prior similar experience. Participants read four different stories and rated the degree of empathy they felt. They also reported the extent to which they had prior similar experience of the events in the stories. We found that these self-reports of prior similar experience increased empathy for the persons in the stories. Similar experience may be an important situational antecedent for feeling empathy for another person. Pointing out similarities among experiences may be a fruitful means of training empathy.

You are weeping for that which has been your delight : To experience and recover from grief

To explore how people experience grief and what factors are perceived as facilitating successful grief work, a survey was distributed to people who had completed a grief recovery course. The results showed that emotions, cognitions, physical expressions, and behaviors all characterize grief, but that emotions are the most central component. The course brought relief and was regarded most favorably by those having at least 1 year between the grief trigger event and participation in the course. Writing a letter in which course participants express their feelings to the loss object was perceived as the most successful aspect of the course. The letter might help with grief recovery by bringing aspects that have not been dealt with into conscious awareness.

Reducing Sex Differences in Children’s Empathy for Animals Through a Training Intervention

ABSTRACT Humane education programs designed to increase children’s empathy for animals are becoming more common. A quasi-experiment tested the effectiveness of one such program by comparing 80 children who had completed the program with a control group of 57 children who had not. The children read a story involving an injured dog and rated the degree of empathic concern they felt for him. The results showed that girls tended to express more empathy for a dog than did boys, but this difference was not significant for children who underwent an animal empathy training program. This suggests that humane education programs can reduce sex differences by increasing boys’ empathy.

Does Feeling Empathy Lead to Compassion Fatigue or Compassion Satisfaction? The Role of Time Perspective

Abstract 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.