Empathic capacity among university students during the pandemic: an exploratory study
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.59885/cienciaypsique.2023.v2n2.04Keywords:
universitarios, empatía cognitiva, empatía afectiva, pandemiaAbstract
It is of great importance to analyze the concept of empathy since it is considered a substantial construct to understand various aspects of human behavior. Our main objective is to investigate the empathic capacity and compare the levels of affective and cognitive empathy in 63 young people, whose average age is 17.8 years, of both genders, who entered the university and were in the adolescent stage, during the pandemic of COVID-19. The empathy test developed by Jolliffe and Farrington (2006) was used. This study is part of a cross-sectional descriptive design with a previously selected sample in its natural environment. The SPSS statistical software was used, using basic descriptive statistics, as well as the analysis of the normal distribution according to the KolmogorovSmirnov test and the non-parametric Mann-Whitney U test, for the comparisons. The results revealed that the participants obtained an average or normal level in relation to total empathy, remaining in the 50th percentile. Conclusively, significant differences were observed between the levels of affective empathy (40) and cognitive empathy (60). A notable disparity was evidenced in the levels of affective empathy, where men (60) obtained considerably higher scores than women (35), which revealed that a high capacity for empathy prevails among male university students and they tend to perceive and experience good quality as well as human receptivity.
References
Casimiro, J. F., Benites, J. C., Sánchez, F. M., Flores, V. R., & Palma, F. (2020). Percepción de la conducta por aislamiento social obligatorio en jóvenes universitarios por COVID-19. Revista Conrado, 16(77), 74-80. https://conrado.ucf.edu.cu/index.php/conrado/ar ticle/view/1569
Conde, E. (2015). Empatía y conducta antisocial en adolescentes. Convergencia de dos medidas de empatía y su relación con la conducta antisocial [Tesis doctoral, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha].
Cossío, A. (2023). Condiciones socioemocionales en la etapa infantil: horizontes conceptuales. Editorial de la Universidad Ricardo Palma.
Cuff, B. M., Brown, S. J., Taylor, L. K., & Howat, D. (2016). Empathy: A review of the concept. Emotion Review, 8(2), 144-153. https://doi.org/10.1177/1754073914558466
Davis, M. H. (1983). Measuring individual differences in empathy: Evidence for a multidimensional approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 44(1), 113-126. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.44.1.113
Decety, J., & Cowell, J. M. (2014). The complex relation between morality and empathy. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 18(7), 337-339. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2014.04.008
Decety, J., & Jackson, P. L. (2004). The functional architecture of human empathy. Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience Reviews, 3(2), 71- 100. https://doi.org/10.1177/1534582304267187
Decety, J., & Lamm, C. (2009). Empathy versus Personal Distress: Recent evidence from social neuroscience. En J. Decety & W. Ickes (Eds.), The social neuroscience of empathy (pp. 199-214). The MIT Press. https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/9780262012973.003.0016
Eisenberg, N. (2000). Emotion, regulation, and moral development. Annual Review of Psychology, 51(1), 665-697. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.51.1.665
Eisenberg, N., Carlo, G., Murphy, B., & Van Court, P. (1995). Prosocial development in late adolescence: A longitudinal study. Child Development, 66(4), 1179-1197. https://doi.org/10.2307/1131806
Eisenberg, N., & Eggum, N. D. (2009). Empathic responding: Sympathy and personal distress. En J. Decety & W. Ickes (Eds.), The social neuroscience of empathy (pp. 71-83). The MIT Press. https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/9780262012973.003.0007
Fernández-Pinto, I., López-Pérez, B., & Márquez, M. (2008). Empatía: Medidas, teorías y aplicaciones en revisión. Anales de Psicología, 24(2), 284-298. https://revistas.um.es/analesps/article/view/42831
Fernández, A. V., & Zahavi, D. (2020). Basic empathy: Developing the concept of empathy from the ground up. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 110, 103695. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2020.103695
Garaigordobil, M., & García, P. (2006). Empatía en niños de 10 a 12 años. Psicothema, 18(2), 180-186. https://www.psicothema.com/pdf/3195.pdf
Jolliffe, D., & Farrington, D. P. (2006). Development and validation of the Basic Empathy Scale. Journal of Adolescence, 29(4), 589-611. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2005.08.010
Kelm, Z., Womer, J., Walter, J. K., & Feudtner, C. (2014). Interventions to cultivate physician empathy: A systematic review. BMC Medical Education, 14(219). https://doi.org/10.1186/1472-6920-14-219
Hoffman, M. L. (1977). Sex differences in empathy and related behaviors. Psychological Bulletin, 84(4), 712-722. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.84.4.712
Hu, Y., Ye, B., & Im, H. (2021). Hope and post-stress growth during COVID-19 pandemic: The mediating role of perceived stress and the moderating role of empathy. Personality and Individual Differences, 178, 110831. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2021.110831
León, X. P. (2022). La empatía en la educación virtual: una propuesta de aprendizaje significativo. Mentor. Revista de Investigación Educativa y Deportiva, 1(1), 55-65. https://doi.org/10.56200/mried.v1i1.2167
Lovón, M. A., & Cisneros, S. A. (2020). Repercusiones de las clases virtuales en los estudiantes universitarios en el contexto de la cuarentena por COVID-19: el caso de la PUCP. Propósitos y Representaciones, 8(SPE3), e588. https://doi.org/10.20511/pyr2020.v8nspe3.588
Martínez, E. (2022). Empatía y acoso escolar en estudiantes de secundaria de una institución educativa del Callao, 2022 [Tesis de maestría, Universidad César Vallejo]. https://repositorio.ucv.edu.pe/handle/20.500.12692/106308
Navarro, S., Maluenda, J., & Varas, M. (2016). Diferencias en empatía según sexo y área disciplinar en estudiantes universitarios chilenos de la provincia de Concepción, Chile. Educación, 25(49), 63-82. https://doi.org/10.18800/educacion.201602.004
Rodríguez, L., & Moreno, J. (2016). Posturas éticas y empatía, predictores de prosocialidad y de penalización de faltas y delitos. Acción Psicológica, 13(2), 43-56. https://doi.org/10.5944/ap.13.2.17809
Sánchez-Queija, I., Oliva, A., & Parra, Á. (2006). Empatía y conducta prosocial durante la adolescencia. Revista de Psicología Social, 21(3), 259-271. https://doi.org/10.1174/021347406778538230
Sánchez, H., & Reyes, C. (2015). Metodología y diseños en la investigación científica. Business Support Aneth.
Usán, P., Salavera, C., Quílez, A., Lozano, R., & Latorre, C. (2023). Empathy, self-esteem and satisfaction with life in adolescent. Children and Youth Services Review, 144, 106755. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2022.106755
VanCleave, D. S. (2016). Contributions of neuroscience to a new empathy epistemology: Implications for developmental training. Advances in Social Work, 17(2), 369-389. https://doi.org/10.18060/21087
World Health Organization. (2020). Mental health and psychosocial considerations during the COVID-19 outbreak. https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/WHO-2019-nCoV-MentalHealth-2020.1
Zorza, J. P., Marino, J., De Lemus, S., & Acosta, A. (2013). Academic performance and social competence of adolescents: Predictions based on effortful control and empathy. Spanish Journal of Psychology, 16, E87. https://doi.org/10.1017/sjp.2013.87
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2023 Ciencia y Psique
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
