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Emotional Empathy in Adults

By

Aliya Zahoor

Roll No.976

Department of Psychology,

LEADERSHIP COLLEGES NETWORK

MULTAN

Session 2009 - 2011


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Emotional Empathy in Adults

By

Aliya Zahoor

A research Report Submitted to department of Psychology in the

partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Master of

Science

In

Psychology

Department of Psychology,

LEADERSHIP COLLEGES NETWORK

MULTAN

Session 2009 - 2011


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Emotional Empathy In Adults

By

Aliya Zahoor

APPROVED BY

________________

Supervisor

________________

Internal

________________

External Examiner


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CERTIFICATE

It is the certified that M.Sc. research report entitled as Emotional

Empathy in Adults presented by Miss. Aliya has been approved

for submission to Leadership College Network.

Nuzhat Rafique

Supervisor


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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

By the grace of Almighty Allah I have been able to completer this

research report. I pay my special gratitude to Miss Nuzhat Rafique

for providing guidance and support to complete this research report.

I also like to thanks my parents who not only encourage me but also

provided finances to undertake this research report.


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DEDICATION

I dedicated effort to my teacher, my parents and family for their

abundant support and cooperation in completion of this.


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ABSTRACT

Present study is aimed to investigate facets of emotional empathy in

male and female adults (age20-40) for both samples. In this study it

was hypothesized that female show more empathic suffering, more

responsive crying and more feeling for others, as compare to the

males. Whereas male show more positive sharing, more emotional

attention and more emotional contagion, as compare to females. For

this purpose a questionnaire by "DAVID R. CARUSO" was used.

Sample for this study consisted of 60 people, among them were 30

males and 30 females. The result of T-Test indicates that there is a

significant between males and females experience of emotional

empathy.

So our hypothesis is accepted.


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TABLE OF CONTENT

Chapter-1 Introduction

Chapter-2 Literature Review

Chapter-3 Methodology

Research Design

Operational Definition

Sample

Instrument

Procedure

Chapter-4 Results

Chapter-5 Discussion

Limitations

Suggestion

References

Questionnaire


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CHAPTER NO.1

INTRODUCTION


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Chapter No. 1

INTRODUCTION

Statement of the Problem

This statement has been tested through this research is that females show more

emotional suffering, more responsive crying, and more feeling for other as

compare to males. Whereas males show more positive sharing, more emotional

attention, and more emotional contagion as compare to the females.

Definition of Emotional Empathy:-

Including a feeling for others, sympathetic reactions to their feeling and

imaginative involvement in how the other person might be feeling.

The empathy is define m various ways and seems to be several traditions to its

study on the one hand, empathy can be defined cognitively in relation to

perspective taking or understanding or understanding others.

"Empathy is the intellectual or imagination apprehension of other's condition or

state of mind without actually experiencing that persons feelings" in other sense

empathy has been define as "emotional arousal or the sympathy in response to the

feeling or experience of others."

Empathy is define as the "heightened responsiveness to another emotional

experience" so we can say that "empathy is the capacity for experiencing as one's

own the feeling of another". Finally there is an integrative approach to the study of

empathy. More recently empathy has been conceived of as a multi dimensional

construct." Indulging cognitive and emotional component in his view of empathy

and he believes that empathy can be best considered as asset of constructs related

in that they all concern responsively to others."


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Emotional Component of Empathy :-

In the present study of researcher focus was on the emotional component of

empathy.In this study researcher have considered 6 emotional components of empathy,

these

are listed below.

Emotional Suffering:-

One person emotional feeling about the other person who is in suffer for example,

it a

little child is treated meanly what other person will feel about child's condition.

Positive Sharing:-

One's tendency to be moved by other's positive emotional experience characteristic

of

sharing other's joy.

Responsive Crying:-

Characteristics of a person how sooner or later he cry or not in different critical

situation. For example watching a sad movie a person cry or not.

Emotional Attention :-

These are the observable acts of the individual to lead to emotional and social

attention of interaction with others.

Feel for others:-

How much some one has the characteristic of feel for others.Emotional Contagion:-

Appreciation of the feeling of the unfamiliar and distant other. For example a

crowd is

get excited while a person stand there will be get excited too? Or not?


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BACKGROUND

By the late I980's psychologist's evolutionary biologists, psychiatrists, computer

scientists and other had identified a number of human capacities involved in

identifying and understand emotion. These human capacities involved inidentifying and understand emotion. These human capacities involving emotional

information processing had been examine in score of research article. Mayer's

1997 suggested that emotions should study into four main parts and areas. Areas

of Emotions:-

Perceiving Emotions

Facilitating Thought

Understanding Emotions

Managing Emotions ^ Perceiving Emotions:-

The initial most basic area has to do with the non verbal reception and expression

such as happiness sadness anger and fear were universally recognizable in the

human beings. Emotions researchers, evolutionary biologists, specialists in non

verbal behavior and other have made tremendous in roads into understanding who

human being recognize and express emotions. The capacity to accurately perceive

emotion in the face or voice of other provides a crucial standing point for more

advanced understanding of emotion. Facilitating Thought:-

The second area appeared every bit as basic as the first. This way the capacity of

the emotions enter into and guide the cognitive system and promote thinking. In

other words some thing we respond to emotionally is some thing that grabs or

attention. Having a good system of emotion input there fore should helped directthinking


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toward mattes that are truly important. As a second example for certain kinds of

creativity to emerge, for example both mood swing and positive mood have been

implicated in the capacity to carry out creative thought. Understanding

Emotions:-

Emotions convey information happiness usually indicated are desire to join withother people anger indicates a desire to attack or harm others. Fear indicates a

desire to escape and so forth. Each emotion conveys its own pattern of possible

message and actions associated with those messages. A message of anger for

example "The individual feels treated unfairly." The anger in turn might be

associated with specific sets of possible actions. Peace making attacking retribution

and revenge seeking or with drawl to seek calmness. Fully understanding emotions

in other words in involving the comprehension of the mean of emotions with the

capacity reason about those meanings. Managing Emotions:-

Finally emotions of fun can be managed. AS person needs to understand convey

information. To the extent that is under voluntary control, a person may want to

remain open emotional signal, so long as they are not too painful and block out

those that are overwhelming. In between, with in the persons emotional comfort

zone, it becomes possible to regulate and mange one's own and other emotion, so

as to promote one's own and other personal and social goal. The mean and methods

for emotional self regulation has become a topic of increasing research in this

decade. Objective of study:-

The main objective of our study to investigation multiple facts of emotional

empathy in male and female adults.


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Chapter No.2

Literature Review

Tn the years of 1970's different researches studied different components of

emotional empathy. Important researchers are listed below. Mehrabian Research

(1996) Davis Research (1993) Epstein Research (1972) Hogan Research (1969)Mehrabian updated his previous research and create a new balanced emotional

empathies scale which contain 15 positively worded and 15 negatively worded

items and related to a 4 (very strong disagreement to +4 (very strong agreement).

Through this Mehrabian investigation Aggression and risk of violence optimism

pessimism in people.

Research on empathy divided conceptually at least in two major groups measuring

emotional responsiveness. Hogan work also included traits such as social

ascendancy even tempered disposition and humanistic socialistically attitudes. The

emotional realm of empathy seems same what different frame the cognitive and its

emotional domain with which are centrally concerned in this research. These are

advantage that emotion based measured of empathy have in relation to other

measured. These included the appropriateness of self report methodology to

understand the person's subjective response and the directness of the emotional

approach. Davis made a research to examine emotional empathy in adolescents and

adults. He took a sample of 793 (503 were adults and 290 were adolescents)


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His scale was based on 30 items. An attempt was made to include positive as well

as negative emotional situation. A 5 points response scale was used, where one was

"strongly disagree" and 5 was "strongly agreed." This research Davis found

significant sees difference. Empathy was also found to increase same what in

adolescence but not significant impact of age on empathy was noted for the adultsubject

Epstein made researches to investigate the tendency of emotional empathy in

people, for this purpose the developed "emotional empathetic tendency scales"

(EETS) to measure emotional empathy. It is consisted of 33 items which are

related on 9 points (-4 to +4) scale.

Hogan took a vey different approach for developing and empathy measure. Hogan

research is based upon a definition of empathy which he drives from a model of

moral development and defines as "the intellectual or imaginative apprehension of

another's condition or state of mind without actually experiencing that person

feeling".

Hypothesis :-

Female show more empathic suffering, more responsive crying and more feeling

for others as compare to males. While males show more positive sharing, more

emotional attention, more emotional contagion as compare to females.


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Chapter No.3

METHODOLOGY

Present study was conducted to examine multiple facets of emotional empathy in

male and female adults. Research Design:-

The present research follows the EX-POST FACTO research design. Operational

Definition of Variables:-Emotional empathy in adults is defined as a total score of the individual on the

emotional empathy assessment instrument. Emotional empathy is refers to a

cognitive awareness and understanding of emotion and feelings of another person.

Sampling Strategy:-

Researcher had used non probability convenient sampling. Sample:-

Two different samples were utilized for this study, with the total of 60 subjects

participathing in this research. Male Sampler-Subject were 30 adults with in range

of 20-40 years of age subjects were asked to report their age, sex, qualification,

name and profession from which they are belong. Subject were recruited from

several sources. Following people are included in this sample such as students,

doctors, bankers, lawyers and teachers. Female Sample:-

Female subject were 30 adults within range of 20-40 years of age. Female subjects

were asked to report their name, age, sex, qualification and profession. Student,

teachers, doctors, working women, house wife is also included in this sample.


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Research Instrument:-

For this research an already constructed questionnaire by David R Caruso was use.

These were 30 suitable statements "such as questions denote person who responds

emotionally to others, who cries when they are sad, laugh when they are happy and

feels for animals, children and so forth". There were 6 negative worded questions

in the questionnaire in the order to reduce response bias, a five point response scalewas used, where one was "strongly disagree" and fived was "strongly agree"

statements belongs to "Empathy Serving" Five belongs to "positive sharing" three

belongs crying, 4 belong to emotional. Attention and feeling for others and three

belongs to "Emotional Contagion" Scoring:-There were five categories of

responses against each item of the questionnaire.

1) Strongly Disagree

2) Disagree

3) Cannot make decision

4) Agree

5) Strongly Agree Procedure:-

People completed the 30 statements based questionnaire. They fill out

questionnaire in small group or individually. Each person received answer booklet

which contains all necessary instructions questions and responses. The instrument

stated "Mark the responses which indicate how much u agree or disagree with each

statement."


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CHAPTER-4

RESULTS

This chapter presents the results of the study in accordance with research

hypothesis. T-Test was compute in order to check the hypothesis.

Sr. No. Types of

Scale

Group N X S.D T-Values

1 Empathic

Suffering

Males 30 41.20 5.45 1.18

Females 30 42.63 9.27

2 Positive

sharing

Males 30 18.70 4.14 0.22

Females 30 18.50 3.33

3 Crying Males 30 8.30 2.73 0,80

Females 30 10.13 3.48

4 Emotional

Attention

Males 30 8.91 3.94 1.22

Females 30 7.13 3.78

5 Feelings for Others

Males 30 12.90 3.44 -0.58

Female 30 13.43 2.76

6 Emotional

Contagion

Males 30 18.13 2.56 0.47


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Females 30 8.60 1.90

The calculated value falls in the acceptance region therefore the null hypothesis is

accepted.

CHAPTER-5

DISCUSSION

The actual aim of this study was to examine multiple facets of emotional empathy

in male and female adult. It was hypothesized that females show more empathicsuffering more responsive cry and more feeling for others as compare to males.

While males show more positive sharing more emotional attention and more

emotional contagion as compare to females. For this purpose a questionnaire by

David R Caruso was used questionnaire had 30 statement. In which 6 were R

question. We reversed there score sample of study was consisted of 60 people (30

males, 30 females). Result oft-test (1.18, 0.22, 0.8, 1.22, -0.58, 0.47) show that our

hypothesis is accepted. We use convenient sample. In the present study we

measured six different component of empathy even through research was based

upon emotional view of empathy rather than on a multi dimensional view ofempathy. By the result it is proved that women shows more empathic suffering

more responsive crying and more feelings for others as compare to males. Whereas

male show more positive sharing more emotional attention and more emotional

contagion as compare to females.


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11

LIMITATION

1) The sample size is short for this issue.2) This research study is only for educate people we cannot collect data from

illiterate people.

3) Specific age group is included so we cannot apply it on all age group.

4) Data is collected from specific areas of Multan.

5) The sample size was small in size and was insufficient to represent the whole

population.

SUGGESTIONS

1) It is noted to collect data from other areas.

2) These sample size must be increase.


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REFERENCES

w_ww^unh.gdu/_emQtiQanl-iteUigence/rl8k

Www.unh._e_du/emotiQnal-it_e tl i gencer glossary -htm 1

wvyw .aparesearch ;co_m

www.americanresearch.com

httn://www.edu/emnathv-adults-dossarv.hlml

www.develoDmentofemDathv.co.uk

Davis (1983) journal of personality and social psychology.

Mehrabian (1998) emotional empathy associated individual difference current

psychology; research and review.


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QUESTIONNAIRE

For example if u think for the statement No.l i.e. I cry easily when watching a sad

movie "strongly agree" than score it as "5" and if u "cannot make decision" than

score it as "3". Plz score all the given statement in the same manner.

Bio-Data

Name

Sex

Qualification

Age

Profession


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Sr.# Question Score

1 I cry easily when I watch as sad movie.

2 Certain pieces of time music can really move me.

3 Seeing a hurt animal by the side of the road is very upsetting.

4 I don't give other feeling much thought.

5 It makes me happy when I see people being nice to each other.

6 The suffering of other deeply disturb me.

7 I get very upset when I see a young child who is being treated

meanly.

8 I always try to tune into the feeling of those around me.

9 When I am with other people who are laughing I join them.

10 Too much is made of the suffering of pets of animals.

11 If some one is upset I get upset too.


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12 It makes me mad to see some one treaded unjustly.

13 1 rarely take notice when people treat each other warmly.

14 1 feel happy when I see people to laugh and enjoy themselves.

15 It is easy for me to get carries away by others people emotions.

16 My feeling are my own and do not reflect how other feelings.

17 If a crowd get excite about some one so I do.

18 I feel good when I help other.

19 I feel good when I help other.

20 I do not cry easily.

HH I feel others people pain.

22 See other people smile make me smile.

23 Being around happy people makes me smile

24 TV or news stories about injured or sick children greatly upset me.

25 I cry at sad of the book I read.

26 Being around people who are depressed bring my mood down.

27 I find it annoying when people cry in public.

28 It hurt me see another in pain.

29 I get a warm feeling for some one it I see them helping another

person.


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30 I feel other joy.

aliya zahoor

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