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Empathy Essays

Hook examples for empathy essays, anecdotal hook.

"As I witnessed a stranger's act of kindness towards a struggling neighbor, I couldn't help but reflect on the profound impact of empathy—the ability to connect with others on a deeply human level."

Rhetorical Question Hook

"What does it mean to truly understand and share in the feelings of another person? The concept of empathy prompts us to explore the complexities of human connection."

Startling Statistic Hook

"Studies show that empathy plays a crucial role in building strong relationships, fostering teamwork, and reducing conflicts. How does empathy contribute to personal and societal well-being?"

"'Empathy is seeing with the eyes of another, listening with the ears of another, and feeling with the heart of another.' This profound quote encapsulates the essence of empathy and its significance in human interactions."

Historical Hook

"From ancient philosophies to modern psychology, empathy has been a recurring theme in human thought. Exploring the historical roots of empathy provides deeper insights into its importance."

Narrative Hook

"Join me on a journey through personal stories of empathy, where individuals bridge cultural, social, and emotional divides. This narrative captures the essence of empathy in action."

Psychological Impact Hook

"How does empathy impact mental health, emotional well-being, and interpersonal relationships? Analyzing the psychological aspects of empathy adds depth to our understanding."

Social Empathy Hook

"In a world marked by diversity and societal challenges, empathy plays a crucial role in promoting understanding and social cohesion. Delving into the role of empathy in society offers important insights."

Empathy in Literature and Arts Hook

"How has empathy been depicted in literature, art, and media throughout history? Exploring its representation in the creative arts reveals its enduring significance in culture."

Teaching Empathy Hook

"What are effective ways to teach empathy to individuals of all ages? Examining strategies for nurturing empathy offers valuable insights for education and personal growth."

Humility and Values

The choice of compassion: cultivating empathy, made-to-order essay as fast as you need it.

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Poem Analysis: "Any Human to Another"

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The Importance of Promoting Empathy in Children

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The Role of Empathy in Justice System

Importance of empathy for blind people, the most effective method to tune in with empathy in the classroom, thr way acts of kindness can change our lives, the power of compassion and its main aspects, compassion and empathy in teaching, acts of kindness: importance of being kind, the concept of empathy in "do androids dream of electric sheep", the vital values that comprise the definition of hero, critical analysis of kwame anthony appiah’s theory of conversation, development of protagonist in philip k. novel "do androids dream of electric sheep", talking about compassion in 100 words, barbara lazear aschers on compassion, my purpose in life is to help others: helping behavior, adolescence stage experience: perspective taking and empathy, random act of kindness, helping others in need: importance of prioritizing yourself, toni cade bambara the lesson summary, making a positive impact on others: the power of influence, patch adams reflection paper.

Empathy is the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from within their frame of reference, that is, the capacity to place oneself in another's position.

Types of empathy include cognitive empathy, emotional (or affective) empathy, somatic empathy, and spiritual empathy.

Empathy-based socialization differs from inhibition of egoistic impulses through shaping, modeling, and internalized guilt. Empathetic feelings might enable individuals to develop more satisfactory interpersonal relations, especially in the long-term. Empathy-induced altruism can improve attitudes toward stigmatized groups, and to improve racial attitudes, and actions toward people with AIDS, the homeless, and convicts. It also increases cooperation in competitive situations.

Empathetic people are quick to help others. Painkillers reduce one’s capacity for empathy. Anxiety levels influence empathy. Meditation and reading may heighten empathy.

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Empathy: What Is It and How Does It Work Essay

Introduction, the meaning of empathy, what it takes for one to express empathy, empathy in the society, empathy in the study book, how important is empathy, works cited.

Empathy is a virtue that is associated with human beings. It can be said to be one of the virtues that separate caring and uncaring people. This article examines the meaning of empathy in general. It shows what it means to have empathy as a human being. Empathy is also examined from the context of the book Do androids dream of electric sheep. The context of the story in this book reveals, in a special way, how empathy can be and cannot be expressed. The effects of expressing and not expressing empathy are also looked at. Over expression is specifically pointed out as being unhealthy.

Empathy has been defined as the ability to identify with a situation that another person is going through. It has also been defined as the ability to experience another person’s feelings (Empathy 1). When a person identifies with another person’s situation and tries to alleviate or mitigate the stressing factor in the situation, then one can say that he or she is expressing empathy. Acts of empathy may therefore include such actions as giving food to the needy in the society or providing shelter to those who are homeless. Generally, empathy has much to do with acts of kindness directed to people faced with situations which are hostile. It is kindness directed to people who need it based on how the donor or the person giving has perceived the situation at hand (Vincent 10).

The feeling of empathy comes up when there is a clear difference between the person being empathetic and the one who is the subject of empathy. Generally, two persons in the same unfortunate situation may not manifest empathy feelings towards each other. This is because of undergoing the same situation and neither of them may be in a position to help the other. But if two people are experiencing different unfortunate circumstances at the same time, they may be able console each other thus they may show empathy to each other. For instance, a bereaved person may show empathy to another person who has lost his or her house to fire.

Empathy can be examined as a feeling that pushes a person to do something good for another person particularly when the other person is in a bad situation. Basically, for one to express empathy therefore one needs to have feelings. One has to feel and be touched by what others are going through. Because empathy is just but a feeling, it does not really cost much, at least financially, to feel empathetic. However, acts of empathy may cost some resources depending on individual acts in question (Thagard 15).

What it takes to express empathy is therefore the ability to have the feeling first such that there is identification with the situation at hand and then being in a position to offer the help required in whole or in part. Empathy has to do with feelings and in cases where a person’s feelings have been hardened; empathy may not be manifested easily. A good illustration is those that propagate violence especially the leaders (Thagard 15).

Empathy can only be expressed between two person or more. For empathy to be expressed, one party (one person or persons) has to be in a disadvantaged or hostile position in order for the other to offer some assistance. It is worth noting that acts of empathy or helping others who are a hostile situation or in a position that need assistance should be on a voluntary basis. If one is coerced to help another person then such an action may not pass as an act of empathy. Empathy therefore has significantly to do with the willingness to help out of one’s own volition or free will.

There are many ways in which empathy can be expressed in the society. More often than not, people in the society are not endowed equally and therefore there are some who are less privileged. One way on expressing empathy therefore is by lending a hand to those who are less privileged. One way in which this can be done perfectly is through visiting children homes. Most of the children in these homes are orphans. By spending time with them, playing and talking with them, they get the feeling of being cared for. This is important as it enables them to develop self confidence. Apart from spending time with them one can gift them with items such as clothes.

One may also express empathy to the sick especially those admitted in hospitals. Patients admitted in hospital are more likely to undergo psychological distress especially because of being away from family members. Expressing empathy in this case can be done through a word of encouragement. Words of encouragement as gestures of empathy will also work well in a family setting especially when one of the members has been faced with an unfortunate situation, for instance, falling sick.

The study book Do androids dream of electric sheep depicts in a clear manner the meaning of empathy and how it is applied. The book starts by setting the conditions right for the empathy to be exercised. The whole world is destroyed and only a handful of living things survive. Human beings as well as animals are left vulnerable and in a state where they need each other. Empathy in this book is shown as a biological trait which no android, even the most intelligent, can imitate. This is because emotions cannot be programmed into a computer (Dick 1).

I am of the view that it is the human beings who are the subject of empathy in this book. This may sound reversal but taking into consideration the joy and satisfaction that humans get from keeping animals, it turns out to be true. To keep an animal is prestigious and those who cannot afford animals are forced to find pleasure in keeping electric animals. This act of keeping electric animals as seen in the book can only point out to the fact that humans have some desire within themselves to offer care that if not satisfied disturbs them. Animals come in to satisfy that need by accepting to be cared for by the humans.

Technically, as the animals are being shown empathy by being cared for they are also playing a major role of showing empathy to humans by allowing themselves to be cared for. Indeed in the book, empathy is viewed as a two way traffic action whereby one party is willing to show empathy to another party and the other party is willing to accept the actions of empathy advanced by the first party.

Empathy is a vital virtue to human beings. It can be said to be among the virtues that help to make the society better. As was noted in the book, empathy differentiates us from machines. It gives us the kindness that makes human beings different from animals. Empathy also helps to unite people as they identify with one another in various struggles that they undergo (Waal 1).

Although it has been generally agreed that empathy is important, there is a caution that it should be expressed carefully in some cases. Caregivers need to express empathy when attending to patients. However, it has been noted that expression of empathy too much may make the patients vulnerable to be hurt (Hojat 12). Too much expression of empathy in such a scenario may also make the patients feel that their situations are dire. Such a feeling will obviously do more harm than any good (Eisenberg 1).

Empathy has been viewed as the ability to identify with a situation that another person is undergoing. Empathy significantly has to do with feelings. Empathy is shown when a person is in an unfortunate situation that may need consoling. In most cases, empathy propels a person to do something about the situation in question. The feeling of empathy will therefore push one into action, however in some cases there are no actions which might be done. Therefore, empathy does not change because one has not responded to the prompt to act.

It has also been discussed that it only takes feeling to have empathy. Since one does not need to act in order to show empathy, it can be argued that almost every person can express empathy. Those who may not display empathy are those who have hardened their emotions. Showing empathy has a positive effect on those who receive it.

Empathy consoles them and psychologically strengthens them to keep on fighting. This is especially the case for patients. However, it has also been cautioned against too much expression of empathy as it may create the impression that a person is in such a desperate situation that he or she might not recover. This will psychologically affect the person in a very negative manner.

Dick, Philip. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep . New York: Orion, 2010. Print.

Eisenberg, Nancy. Empathy and Its Development . New York: CUP Archive, 1990. Print.

Empathy. Empathy vs. Sympathy . DIFFEN, 2013.

Hojat, Mohammad. Empathy in Patient Care: Antecedents, Development, Measurement, and Outcomes . New York: Springer, 2007. Print.

Thagard, Paul. The Brain and the Meaning of Life . New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2010. Print.

Vincent, Steve. Being Empathic: A Companion for Counselors and Therapists . New York: Radcliffe Publishing, 2005. Print.

Waal, Franz. The Age of Empathy: Nature’s Lessons for a Kinder Society . New Jersey: Crown Publishing Group, 2010. Print.

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1. IvyPanda . "Empathy: What Is It and How Does It Work." May 3, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/philosophy-of-empathy/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Empathy: What Is It and How Does It Work." May 3, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/philosophy-of-empathy/.

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Is Empathy the Key to Effective Teaching? A Systematic Review of Its Association with Teacher-Student Interactions and Student Outcomes

• Review Article
• Open access
• Published: 10 March 2022
• Volume 34 , pages 1177–1216, ( 2022 )

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• Karen Aldrup   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-1567-5724 1 ,
• Bastian Carstensen   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-5259-9578 1 &
• Uta Klusmann   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-8656-344X 1  

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Teachers’ social-emotional competence has received increasing attention in educational psychology for about a decade and has been suggested to be an important prerequisite for the quality of teacher-student interactions and student outcomes. In this review, we will summarize the current state of knowledge about the association between one central component of teachers’ social-emotional competence—their empathy—with these indicators of teaching effectiveness. After all, empathy appears to be a particularly promising determinant for explaining high-quality teacher-student interactions, especially emotional support for students and, in turn, positive student development from a theoretical perspective. A systematic literature research yielded 41 records relevant for our article. Results indicated that teachers reporting more empathy with victims of bullying in hypothetical scenarios indicated a greater likelihood to intervene. However, there was neither consistent evidence for a relationship between teachers’ empathy and the degree to which they supported students emotionally in general, nor with classroom management, instructional support, or student outcomes. Notably, most studies asked teachers for a self-evaluation of their empathy, whereas assessments based on objective criteria were underrepresented. We discuss how these methodological decisions limit the conclusions we can draw from prior studies and outline perspective for future research in teachers’ empathy.

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Introduction

Students experience a range of emotions—such as enjoyment, anxiety, and boredom—while they attain new knowledge, take exams, or strive to connect with their classmates (Ahmed et al., 2010 ; Hascher, 2008 ; Martin & Huebner, 2007 ; Pekrun et al., 2002 ). Teachers are confronted with these emotions in the classroom and beyond, and their ability to read their students’ emotional signals and attend to them sensitively is vital to form positive teacher-student relationships (Pianta, 1999 ). Therefore, teachers’ social-emotional characteristics have been suggested as essential for the quality of teacher-student interactions and, in turn, students’ psychosocial outcomes (Brackett & Katulak, 2007 ; Jennings & Greenberg, 2009 ; Rimm-Kaufman & Hamre, 2010 ). Empathy is one component of teachers’ social-emotional characteristics that appears particularly relevant for the quality of teacher-student interactions from a theoretical perspective. First, empathy is considered as the origin of human’s prosocial behavior (Preston & de Waal, 2002 ). Second, in contrast to social-emotional characteristics such as emotional self-awareness or emotion regulation, empathy explicitly refers to other people rather than to the self, more specifically, to the ability to perceive and understand students’ emotions and needs (Zins et al., 2004 ).

Because of these theoretical arguments and a recent increase in empirical studies on this topic, the goal of this article is to review prior research investigating the relationship of teachers’ empathy with the quality of teacher-student interactions and, in turn, with student outcomes (see heuristic working model in Figure 1 ). We use effective teaching here as an umbrella term to refer to both interaction quality and student outcomes. Summarizing the current level of knowledge on this topic appears particularly useful for the following reasons. First, various meanings have been attached to the term empathy, and the diversity of concepts that have been used to refer to concepts closely related to empathy (e.g., emotional intelligence, perspective taking, and emotion recognition; also see Batson, 2009 ; Olderbak & Wilhelm, 2020 ) make it difficult to oversee prior research at first glance. Second, the research field has rapidly grown throughout the last decade. Thus, to understand foci of prior research and widely neglected questions is important; for example, the review will uncover possible specific underrepresented student outcomes (e.g., cognitive vs. psychosocial). Third, researchers have applied different methodological approaches. For example, self-report scales and objective tests are available and it is debatable whether both are equally valid considering the risk of self-serving bias in questionnaires (Brackett et al., 2006 ). Against this background, it is important to summarize not only the results from prior studies but also the assessment methods they applied to inform future studies in terms of which methodological approaches are best suited to obtain valid results.

Heuristic working model on the role of teachers’ empathy in the quality of teacher-student interactions and student outcomes; paths where we expect the closest associations are in bold (also see Brackett & Katulak, 2007 ; Jennings & Greenberg, 2009 )

A General Theoretical Perspective on Empathy

Historically, two distinct lines of research have evolved around empathy (for an overview see, e.g., Baron-Cohen & Wheelwright, 2004 ; Davis, 1983 ). First, from the affective perspective , empathy describes the emotional reactions to another person’s affective experiences. According to Eisenberg and Miller ( 1987 ), this means that one experiences the same emotion as the other person. Hatfield et al. ( 1993 ) described the phenomenon of “catching” other people’s emotions as emotional contagion. Affective empathy can elicit both positive and negative emotions, and because emotions are multi-componential, the subjective feelings, thoughts, expressions, and physiological and behavioral reactions can differ depending on the type of emotion (Olderbak et al., 2014 ; Scherer, 1984 ). Empathy from the affective perspective can also mean to feel something that is appropriate but not identical with the other person’s emotion, for instance, responding with concern and sympathy to another person’s sadness (e.g., Batson et al., 2002 ).

Second, from the cognitive perspective, empathy reflects a person’s ability to understand how other people feel by taking their perspective and reading their nonverbal signals (e.g., Wispé, 1986 ). Baron-Cohen and Wheelwright ( 2004 ) pointed out that theory of mind largely converges with the cognitive definition of empathy. Furthermore, models of emotional intelligence, such as the four-branch-model (Mayer & Salovey, 1997 ), include qualities resembling empathy as defined in the cognitive perspective: the ability to perceive emotions in other people’s faces accurately and to understand emotions, that is, knowing when specific emotions are likely to arise.

In accordance with Baron-Cohen and Wheelwright ( 2004 ), we define empathy as including both affective and cognitive components (for similar approaches, also see Davis, 1983 ; Decety & Jackson, 2004 ; Preston & de Waal, 2002 ). This allows for a more comprehensive understanding of empathy and its consequences because the affective component of empathy explains why we care for other people in need and are motivated to react sensitively, whereas the cognitive component explains what enables people to know and name the feelings of others (Batson, 2009 ). Preston and de Waal ( 2002 ) also support the idea that cognitive and affective empathy are entangled and complement each other in explaining prosocial behavior. They suggest that the development of cognitive empathy promotes the “effectiveness of empathy by helping the subject to focus on the object, even in its absence, remain emotionally distinct from the object, and determine the best course of action for the object’s needs” (Preston & de Waal, 2002 , p. 20).

Considering the central role of empathy in human relationships, which has also been supported empirically (Eisenberg & Miller, 1987 ; Kardos et al., 2017 ; Mitsopoulou & Giovazolias, 2015 ; Sened et al., 2017 ; Vachon et al., 2014 ), its importance in social occupations has been recognized for a long time. For instance, Rogers ( 1959 ) proposed that the therapists’ ability to accurately perceive their clients’ point of view will facilitate the therapeutic process and, in turn, produce change in personality and behavior. In line with this assumption, studies with psychotherapists and also with physicians showed that their empathy predicted their patients’ satisfaction and clinical outcomes (Elliott et al., 2018 ; Hojat et al., 2011 ). Like psychotherapists or physicians and their clients, teachers are in close interpersonal contact with their students. Hence, it seems plausible to assume a central role of empathy in their professional lives as well.

The Role of Teacher Empathy

Caring for students and establishing positive teacher-student relationships are a central part of teachers’ professional roles (Butler, 2012 ; O’Connor, 2008 ; Watt et al., 2021 ). Furthermore, providing high levels of emotional support as indicated by a positive emotional tone in the classroom, sensitive responses to students’ emotional, social, and academic needs, and consideration of their interests is one aspect of high-quality classrooms (Pianta & Hamre, 2009 ). To achieve this, the ability to read students’ (non-)verbal signals—in others words: empathy—is vital (Pianta, 1999 ). For instance, teachers’ cognitive empathy will help them better identify from a student’s facial expressions if he or she is sad about a bad grade, angry about an argument with friends, or bored with specific learning activities. Empathic teachers will know that students may feel anxious when confronted with challenging tasks or embarrassed and frustrated when repeatedly unable to answer the teacher’s questions. Having recognized negative affective states in their students, teachers’ affective empathy should motivate them to react sensitively to their students’ emotional needs, provide comfort, and encouragement (Batson, 2009 ; Weisz et al., 2020 ). The prosocial classroom model (Jennings & Greenberg, 2009 ) also integrates these ideas and further states that teachers’ social-emotional competence, of which empathy is one part, should facilitate classroom management.

Effective classroom management means that teachers establish rules and order, apply appropriate strategies to prevent student behavior problems, and maximize time on task (Emmer & Stough, 2001 ). The ability to understand reasons for classroom disturbances could facilitate behavior management. For example, noticing students’ boredom could initiate teachers to choose a different instructional approach before students start off-task activities (Nett et al., 2010 ). Furthermore, taking the perspective of adolescents, teachers will be able to recognize their need for autonomy, which would collide with a controlling classroom management strategy (Aelterman et al., 2019 ; Eccles & Midgley, 1989 ). Yet, effective classroom management may be less dependent on teacher empathy than emotional support is. After all, classroom management includes several facets that go beyond empathy, for example, productive use of time and establishment of rules. For these tasks, specific classroom management knowledges is a key prerequisite (Kunter et al., 2013 ; Shulman, 1986 ).

Finally, even though not mentioned in the prosocial classroom model, teacher empathy could also play a role in instructional support, which is the third key aspect of high-quality teacher-student interaction in addition to emotional support and classroom management (Klieme et al., 2009 ; Pianta & Hamre, 2009 ). Instructional support comprises clear and engaging instruction that promotes content understanding and presents cognitive challenges. In addition, teachers scaffold learning by providing feedback and initiating content-related class discussions (Pianta et al., 2012 ). To adapt instruction to students’ learning needs and design engaging lessons, it is necessary to recognize when students struggle understanding content and which activities they find particularly interesting or boring (Bieg et al., 2017 ; Parsons et al., 2018 ). However, in addition instructional support requires high levels of (pedagogical) content knowledge so again one could assume that empathy plays a less central role than it does for emotional support (Kunter et al., 2013 ; Shulman, 1986 ).

In summary, from a theoretical perspective, a relationship between teachers’ empathy and the quality of teacher-student interactions, in particular with emotional support, appears plausible. By increasing interaction quality, empathy should also indirectly promote student development. Here, we distinguish between cognitive development, that is, outcomes related to students’ learning of subject matter, and psychosocial development, that is, motivational, emotional, and social variables. Prior research consistently shows that emotional support is positively associated with psychosocial outcomes, such as academic interest, self-concept, peer relatedness, and behavioral engagement, whereas classroom management and instructional support are most closely related to student achievement (Aldrup et al., 2018 ; Downer et al., 2014 ; Fauth et al., 2014b ; Kunter et al., 2013 ; Nie & Lau, 2009 ; Ruzek et al., 2016 ; Scherer et al., 2016 ; Wagner et al., 2016 ; Yildirim, 2012 ). Our heuristic working model in Figure 1 illustrates the hypothesized associations between teacher empathy, the quality of teacher-student interactions, and student outcomes. To test these theoretical assumptions, different methodological approaches are available, which we will explain next.

Assessment Approaches in Researching Teacher Empathy

Researchers interested in investigating teacher empathy can choose between different measurement approaches that are distinct in terms of two key dimensions: objective assessment versus self-report questionnaires and general versus profession-specific tools. On the one hand, researchers can apply objective assessments such as the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT; Mayer et al., 2002 ). The MSCEIT comprises subtests measuring a person’s ability to perceive and understand emotions in others. For example, participants see pictures of faces and are requested to select the degree to which it expresses each of five emotions. On the other hand, several self-report questionnaires are available. One prominent scale is the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (Davis, 1980 ) including subscales on empathic concern (“I often have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me.”) and perspective taking (“I sometimes try to understand my friends better by imagining how things look from their perspective.”). Emotional intelligence questionnaires typically include subscales on empathy as well. For example, the other-emotion appraisal subscale of the Wong and Law Emotional Intelligence Scale (Wong & Law, 2002 ) assesses the ability to perceive emotions in others (“I am sensitive to the feelings and emotions of others.”).

However, it is unclear if people can validly evaluate their own empathy and especially regarding the cognitive component, which consists of knowledge and skills, a performance-based approach seems more valid. In line with these concerns, Ickes ( 2001 ) concluded that performance-based measures of empathic accuracy predict performance in social situations whereas self-report measures do not. Likewise, Brackett et al. ( 2006 ) found no association between undergraduate students’ self-reported emotional intelligence and the extent to which others perceived them as friendly and socially engaged but using an emotional intelligence test yielded statistically significant associations. Self-serving bias could be one issue reducing the validity of people’s self-reported empathy. For teachers, in particular, exaggerating their empathy appears likely because establishing close, caring connections with students is an important aspect of their professional identities (O’Connor, 2008 ; Wubbels et al., 1993 ). Finally, the use of self-report questionnaires not only poses the risk of reduced correlations due to validity issues but also of inflated correlations due to common method bias when participants report on their empathy and the dependent variables at the same time (Podsakoff et al., 2003 ). Thus, whether researchers use an objective empathy assessment or a self-report questionnaire can largely affect the results and the degree to which the findings allow for valid conclusion.

In addition, researchers in teacher empathy have to decide on the context-specificity of their instrument. On the one hand, they can use one of the tools described above that were designed for use in the general population. On the other hand, they can choose profession-specific instruments asking teachers about their empathy for students. A profession-specific assessment has several advantages. Generally, performance in specific contexts is best predicted by variables that refer to the same context (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1977 ; Weinert, 2001 ). Furthermore, in contrast to day-to-day interactions with other social partners, teacher-student interactions are unique and characterized by an asymmetric nature (Pianta, 1999 ). Teachers and students differ substantially in terms of their knowledge and experiences and this lack of similarity may impede empathy (Preston & de Waal, 2002 ). Accordingly, teachers likely require profession-specific knowledge about their students’ developmental needs and concerns to facilitate empathy (Eccles & Midgley, 1989 ; Voss et al., 2011 ).

Present Study

The present study provides a systematic review of prior empirical research on the role of teachers’ empathy in effective teaching, which comprises the quality of teacher-student interactions and student development. The relevance of teachers’ empathy and related qualities has been highlighted from a theoretical perspective for over a decade (e.g., Brackett & Katulak, 2007 ; Jennings & Greenberg, 2009 ; Rimm-Kaufman & Hamre, 2010 ). Therefore, our goal was to gather what we have learned so far and whether the empirical evidence is in line with the theoretical claim that teacher empathy is positively associated with effective teaching. Furthermore, we aimed to identify questions that have remained unanswered to date in prior research on the association between teacher empathy and the quality of teacher-student interactions and student outcomes. For instance, reviewing the literature enabled us to carve out consequences of empathy that have been underrepresented in prior research (e.g., specific domains of teacher-student interaction quality or specific student outcomes) or methodological challenges that still need to be solved for ensuring the validity of results. From our perspective, this is an important step to research that can eventually support teachers, teacher educators, school psychologists, principals, and other stakeholders in the education system in evaluating the benefits of promoting teacher empathy.

The heuristic working model (Fig. 1 ), which is largely based on the prosocial classroom model (Jennings & Greenberg, 2009 ), illustrates the hypothesized role of teachers’ empathy in the quality of teacher-student interactions and student outcomes. As outlined above, we expected to find a positive relationship between teachers’ empathy and the quality of teacher-student interactions, in particular, with emotional support. After all, empathy allows teachers to understand students’ perspectives, read their nonverbal signals, and react with concern to students needing help—these qualities are all indicators of emotional support (Pianta et al., 2012 ). In turn, by promoting high-quality teacher-student interactions, teachers’ empathy can be assumed to foster student development. However, because student outcomes are more distal to teachers’ empathy than teacher-student interactions are, we expected less pronounced associations. Furthermore, because we speculated that empathy plays a role especially in teachers’ emotional support and because prior research revealed more consistent association between emotional support and psychosocial rather than cognitive student outcomes (e.g., Fauth et al., 2014b ; Kunter et al., 2013 ), we hypothesized that empathy would have the weakest relationship with student achievement.

Moreover, we speculated that methodological decisions could affect the magnitude of the relationships between teachers’ empathy, the quality of teacher-student interactions, and student outcomes. Thus, our first goal was to determine which methodological approaches have been applied in the field and consider them in reviewing the results from prior work. Based on the principle of correspondence, we expected particularly close associations when a profession-specific rather than a general assessment tool was used to measure teachers’ empathy (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1977 ). In addition, we hypothesized that the reliance on self-report measures to assess empathy and its consequences leads to larger correlations because of common method bias (Podsakoff et al., 2003 ).

Literature Search

We conducted our literature search in PsycINFO and Web of Science in October 2020 without date restrictions. To identify relevant articles on teachers’ empathy we used the following search terms: empathy OR “ perspective taking” OR compassion OR “ emotion* intelligence” OR “ emotion* knowledge” OR “ emotion* awareness” OR “ emotion* understanding” OR “ emotion* accuracy” OR “ emotion* perception” OR “ emotion* detection” OR “ emotion* identification” OR “ emotion* recognition” OR “ teacher* sensitivity” . Using a broad set of search terms allowed us to capture constructs which show substantial conceptual overlap with empathy and are frequently discussed in independent strands of research using different terminology (Mayer et al., 2008 ; Olderbak & Wilhelm, 2020 ).

In PsycINFO, among others titles, abstracts, heading words, tables of contents, and key concepts were searched for the defined terms. We conducted a thesaurus search using the exp Teachers/ command to limit results to teacher samples. Furthermore, we limited our search to quantitative studies using the quantitative study.md command. In Web of Science, the defined terms were searched in titles, abstracts, and keywords. To limit results to teacher samples, we entered our central search terms in combination with teacher* / professor* / educator* / lecturer* / faculty*. We applied the NEAR/3 command, which identifies studies mentioning two terms close to one another (in our case, three words or less in between empathy and teacher synonyms) in any order. Moreover, we excluded the following publication types: meeting abstracts, reviews, book reviews, editorial material, letters, and biographical items. In both databases, we excluded studies written in a language not based on the Latin alphabet (e.g., Chinese, Hebrew). For studies not written in English, we used Google Translate to retrieve the necessary information. This yielded 533 records from PsycINFO and 474 records from Web of Science, resulting in 931 records in total after removing duplicates.

We pursued two strategies to supplement our database search and to identify relevant articles we may have missed. First, we screened the reference list of all studies identified as eligible for our synthesis after evaluating the full-text. Second, we conducted a Google Scholar search in December 2020 to find articles citing the studies we had identified as relevant. These strategies produced 134 additional records.

Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria

We included studies in our research synthesis if they met the following criteria. First, empathy had to be measured in accordance with our definition of empathy. For instance, we neither included studies measuring empathy in rather broad terms (e.g., teacher sensitivity assessed with the Classroom Assessment Scoring System; Pianta et al., 2012 ) nor did we code effects pertaining to fantasy and personal distress. Fantasy and personal distress are subscales of the frequently used Interpersonal Reactivity Index (Davis, 1980 ). However, Baron-Cohen and Wheelwright ( 2004 ) argued that these scales do not measure empathy. For example, the personal distress scale only partly refers to interpersonal situations (e.g., “In emergency situations, I feel apprehensive and ill-at-ease.”). Second, studies had to measure an outcome relevant to our article, that is, aspects of teacher-student interaction or student outcomes. Third, it was necessary to report the statistical significance of bivariate correlations or another statistic convertible to a bivariate correlation. However, we retained studies that reported that an effect was not statistically significant without providing the exact size of the effect. Fourth, results had to be based on a sample of at least ten teachers. Regular and special education teachers of all grade levels were included (i.e., preschool to tertiary education). Importantly, even though teachers demonstrate different behaviors to realize high-quality teacher-student interactions, the three overarching domains of emotional support, classroom management, and instructional support remain relevant from preschool to tertiary education, making the inclusion of a broad range of education levels possible (Langenbach & Aagaard, 1990 ; Pianta & Hamre, 2009 ; Schneider & Preckel, 2017 ). Fifth, we only retained the study that provided the most information if multiple articles were based on the same sample and variables.

Based on these criteria and as illustrated in the PRISMA diagram (Page et al., 2021 ) in Figure 2 , 768 records were excluded after pre-screening the abstracts of the 931 records obtained through database searching. Pre-screening the abstracts of the 134 records from citation searching and footnote chasing left 61 potentially relevant records. In total, we could not retrieve a full text for six records. Thus, we proceeded screening the full-texts of the remaining 160 records from database searching and 58 records from citation searching and footnote chasing for eligibility. These steps were conducted by the first author, and in addition, the second author read 25% of the records to verify the inter-rater reliability. Cohen’s κ was .81, and we agreed in 98% of the articles regarding the questions of whether none versus any of the exclusion criteria were met. Considering reasons for exclusion via the multiple search strategies jointly, twelve did not include a relevant outcome and 13 were excluded for other reasons (e.g., eight articles did not present quantitative results and one article was based on a duplicate sample). In contrast, a comparably large number of 95 articles did not include a relevant predictor. Most often, this was due to emotional intelligence instruments not including empathy-related subscales (e.g., Trait Meta-Mood Scale, Salovey et al., 1995 ; Emotional Quotient Inventory: Short Form; Bar-On, 2002 ). Similarly, we would have needed to exclude 58 articles because they assessed relevant variables but did not report bivariate correlations or other statistics to estimate the relationship of teacher empathy with the quality of teacher-student relationships and student outcomes. Most often these studies used an emotional intelligence instrument including empathy-related subscales (e.g., Trait Emotional Intelligence Qustionnaire, Petrides & Furnham, 2003 ; MSCEIT, Mayer et al., 2002 ), but the analyses were conducted based on the total emotional intelligence scores. Due to the large number of studies that were relevant for our synthesis but that did not report the necessary statistics, we decided to contact the authors and ask for the correlation coefficients if we considered the study particularly informative for our research questions (i.e., the independent or dependent variable was measured with instruments going beyond teacher self-report). We contacted 15 authors, six responded, and one was able to provide the information we requested. Thus, 57 articles were excluded because no relevant analyses were available. Finally, 31 articles remained after full-text reading and citation searching and footnote chasing yielded ten additional records.

PRISMA diagram of the literature search process

Processing of Search Results

For the final set of records, we extracted information on the authors, the year and type of publication, and the sample (i.e., sample size, teachers’ gender, age, and years of job experience, school level, and country). Regarding our independent variable, teacher empathy, we retrieved information on (1) the components of empathy (i.e., affective, cognitive, composite); (2) the instrument; (3) whether a teacher self-report questionnaire, an objective assessment, or other approaches were used; and (4) whether the instrument took a general, a profession-specific, or a situation-specific perspective. For our dependent variables, teacher-student interactions, and student outcomes, we retrieved information on (1) the components of teacher-student interaction (i.e., emotional support, classroom management, instructional support) and student outcomes (i.e., cognitive, psychosocial) and (2) whether a teacher self-report questionnaire, student questionnaires, student achievement tests, classroom observations, or other measurements were conducted. Again, the first author performed these steps and the second author coded 20% of the records to estimate the inter-rater reliability regarding the coding of the components of empathy and the outcome categories. Both assigned the same category to 89% of the predictor and outcome variables. Finally, we retrieved correlation coefficients and information on statistical significance. To answer our research questions, we primarily relied on vote-counting and determined the number of effects that were statistically significant at α < .05. However, we also wanted to give the reader an impression of the size of the effects. Thus, in the few cases where effect sizes other than correlations were reported, we converted them to allow for between-study comparisons. More specifically, we used the formulas provided by Thalheimer and Cook ( 2002 ) to convert F -statistics and t -statistics to Cohen’s d and the formulas provided by Borenstein ( 2009 ) to convert odds ratios to Cohen’s d and to convert Cohen’s d to r . In addition, we recoded the correlations between empathy and negative qualities of teacher-student interactions and maladaptive student outcomes to facilitate the interpretation of the correlation coefficients. Thus, positive correlation coefficients can now be interpreted as indicative of effects in line with our heuristic working model (Figure 1 ). Tables 1 , 2 , 3 , and 4 provide a summary of the reviewed articles organized depending on the methodological approach that was used. The data and the review protocol are available at PsychArchives (Aldrup et al., 2021 ).

In the following, we will first describe general characteristics of the records included in this article and will then provide details about the methodological approaches used. The main part of this section is dedicated to outlining results from prior research on the relationship of teacher empathy with teacher-student interactions and student outcomes. Table 5 gives a summary of the statistically significant effects and the effect sizes for each dependent variable, and Figure 3 provides an overview of the effect sizes depending on the methodological type of study and the dependent variable.

Overview of all effects depending on the methodological type of study and the dependent variables

General Study Characteristics

This research synthesis is based on 23 journal articles, 15 theses, two proceedings papers, and one book chapter, which were published between 2004 and 2020 ( Md = 2014, M = 2014, SD = 3.92).The 41 included records reported results from 42 independent samples from 12 different countries—mostly the USA ( n = 22), followed by Australia and China ( n = 4). The teacher samples comprised between 11 and 467 teachers ( M = 119.02, SD = 103.10). On average, the teachers were M = 36.12 years old and 76.8% were female. The majority of studies included only in-service teachers ( n = 35), who had M = 9.08 years of job experience on average. Most samples were composed either of only secondary school teachers ( n = 16) or a combination of secondary school, elementary school, and, in some cases, early childhood teachers ( n = 8). Each five to six samples included exclusively early childhood teachers, elementary school teachers, or educators at the tertiary level. Only 14 studies provided information on the school subject the participants taught: seven samples included teachers from different subject domains, three assessed English, two mathematics, one physical education, and one law teachers.

The majority of studies (93%) reported only cross-sectional analyses regarding the link between teacher empathy and teacher-student interactions or student outcomes. However, Franklin ( 2014 ) measured empathy at one time point but included two waves of student outcomes and Aldrup et al., ( 2020 ) used longitudinal data across three time points. We only considered the within-wave correlations to make results from these studies comparable to the majority of articles that were cross-sectional. Finally, using a randomized pre-post-control group design, Okonofua et al. ( 2016 ) investigated the effects of an empathic mindset intervention.

Aspects of Empathy and Measurement

In most samples, the focus was on the cognitive ( n = 28) as opposed to the affective component ( n = 8) of empathy. In five samples, both cognitive and affective empathy were assessed and in one sample, a composite measure was used. In terms of measurement instruments, self-report questionnaires were predominant ( n = 29 samples/studies). In the following, we will list the self-report tools that were used in more than one study. The Interpersonal Reactivity Index (Davis, 1980 ) was applied ten times followed by the Wong and Law Emotional Intelligence Scale (Wong & Law, 2002 ), which was used four times. Three other studies measured the ability to perceive emotions in others as well, but based on the Self-Rated Emotional Intelligence Scale (Brackett et al., 2006 ). Three studies used the BarOn Emotional Quotient-Inventory , which measures the ability to understand and respect other people’s feelings (Bar-On, 1997 ). In contrast to these questionnaires designed for use in the general population, only one study applied a profession-specific instrument asking teachers, for example, “I am happy for students if they enjoy happy moments” (Wu et al., 2019 ). Likewise, the Bullying Attitudes Questionnaire (Craig et al., 2000 ; Yoon, 2004 ), which was employed in seven studies, measures teachers’ self-reported empathic concern for student victims of bullying and is therefore situated in the professional context as well.

Nine studies used approaches based on objective criteria to discriminate between more and less empathic teachers rather than using teacher questionnaires. Four studies employed the MSCEIT (Mayer et al., 2002 ). Similar tests—the Amsterdam Emotion Recognition Test (van der Schalk et al., 2011 ) , the Situational Test of Emotional Understanding (MacCann & Roberts, 2008 ), and the Test of Emotional Intelligence (Śmieja et al., 2014 )—were each used in one study. Friedman ( 2014 ) pursued a slightly different strategy and applied the newly developed Teacher Emotional Intelligence Measure , which asks teachers about their likely response to a hypothetical disciplinary incident in class in an open format. A coding manual is used to determine the teacher’s ability to perceive and understand the disputant’s emotions and to identify how other students in class would feel . Zinsser et al. ( 2015 ) conducted teacher focus groups on the role of emotions in classrooms. Based on teachers’ responses to semi-structured questions, trained coders detected the teachers’ emotion knowledge, that is, their ability to recognize and understand emotions in their students. Moreover, two studies asked students to report on their teachers’ empathy (Aldrup et al.,  2020 ; Latchaw, 2017 ). Thus, like in the studies by Friedman ( 2014 ) and Zinsser et al. ( 2015 ), the focus was on teachers’ empathy in the professional context and even more specifically in the respective subject domain. Finally, one article including two samples (Okonofua et al., 2016 ) reported results from an intervention aimed to induce an empathic mindset in their teacher-student interactions. However, the intervention study did not include a treatment check so it remains unknown whether it actually changed teacher empathy.

Effects on Teacher-Student Interactions

We identified 33 studies (34 samples) investigating the role of empathy in teacher-student interactions: 28 studies measured aspects of emotional support, ten measured classroom management, and six measured instructional support. Five studies applied measures of teacher-student interaction that we could not clearly assign to one of the interaction domains.

General Teacher-Student Interaction

Three out of five studies measuring blended aspects of teacher-student interactions found statistically significant associations (57% of the investigated effects were significant and positive; see Table 5 ). Secondary school teachers who rated their own ability to perceive other’s emotions higher evaluated their teaching performance ( r = .26, p < .001) more positively (Wu et al., 2019 ). In addition, in two studies with English as a foreign language teachers at high schools and private language institutes (Ghanizadeh & Moafian, 2010 ; Khodadady, 2012 ), teachers’ self-reported empathy was linked to their students’ ratings of teacher qualification (i.e., knowledge, self-confidence, comprehensibility; r = .10, p < .01) and students’ overall ratings of instruction ( r = .26, p < .05). In contrast, Corcoran and Tormey ( 2013 ) found no, or even counterintuitive associations of teachers’ test scores in perceiving ( r = –.15, p < .01) and understanding emotions ( r = .07, p > .05) with student teachers’ practicum performance evaluations, for example, the use of appropriate pedagogic strategies and material or the quality of teacher-student relationships. Petsos and Gorizidis ( 2019 ) did not find a relationship between secondary school teachers’ self-reported perception of other’s emotions and the extent to which students felt their teacher assigned students responsibility ( r = .08, p > .05).

Emotional Support

The number of studies finding a statistically significantly positive association between teachers’ empathy and their emotional support for students ( n = 15) slightly outweighed the number of studies not supporting this link ( n = 11) or finding mixed evidence ( n = 2). Because a substantial number of studies focused on teachers’ reactions to bullying among students as one specific aspect of emotional support, we will summarize results from this line of research separately after describing the findings for emotional support.

Six studies found statistically significant positive associations with teachers’ empathy but eleven found mixed or no evidence (25% of the investigated effects were significant and positive, 73% were not significant; see Table 5 ). Abacioglu et al. ( 2020 ) revealed that primary school teachers evaluating their perspective taking more positively reported using more culturally ( r = .33, p < .01) and socially sensitive teaching practices ( r = .24, p < .01). Similarly, teachers reporting a greater ability to perceive others’ emotions considered their attention to students needs as more pronounced ( r = .24, p < .01) (Nizielski et al., 2012 ). Furthermore, the theses by Gottesman ( 2016 ) and Metaxas ( 2018 ) showed that teachers reporting more empathy were more likely to choose emotionally supportive strategies in response to a hypothetical student exhibiting challenging behavior ( r = .36 and r = .24, p < .01). In these studies, teachers from different grade levels participated spanning pre- to high school. Finally, there were two studies using not only teacher self-report questionnaires and finding a relationship between empathy and emotional support. Khodadady ( 2012 ) found that high school students perceived better rapport with their teacher ( r = .10, p < .01) and greater teacher fairness ( r = .11, p < .01) when teachers reported greater empathy. Moreover, secondary school students reported more positive teacher-student relationships if their teacher attained higher test scores in perceiving ( r = .50, p = .02) and understanding emotions ( r = .45, p = .04) (Barłożek, 2015 ). However, neither Khodadady ( 2012 ) nor Barłożek ( 2015 ) accounted for the nesting of students in classrooms, which is associated with a higher risk of false positive findings (Snijders & Bosker, 2012 ).

Notably, eleven other studies that were not exclusively using teacher self-report questionnaires provided evidence that was less clear. Hu et al. ( 2018 ) assessed preschool teachers’ self-evaluations of their ability to perceive other’s emotions and asked both teachers and external observers to evaluate the quality of emotional support. Emotional perception was statistically significantly related only to teachers’ self-reported emotional support ( r = .31, p < .001). Swartz and McElwain ( 2012 ) asked pre-service early childhood teachers about their perspective taking and observed their responses to children’s emotional displays. Teachers’ perspective taking was unrelated to their strategies when dealing with positive emotions, but when children displayed anger or sadness, empathic teachers were more likely to show supportive ( r = .52, p < .01) rather than non-supportive behavior ( r = –.44, p < .05). Friedman ( 2014 ) also conducted classroom observations to assess the quality of emotional support. Middle and high school teachers with higher scores in a newly developed emotional intelligence test regarding their awareness, perception, and understanding of students’ emotions did not establish a more positive climate and did not show more sensitivity or regard for students’ perspectives. In addition, preschool teachers demonstrating superior emotion knowledge in a focus group were not observed to show more emotional support in the study by Zinsser et al. ( 2015 ). In a similar vein, Heckathorn ( 2013 ) did not find a statistically significant positive and even one negative correlation between teachers’ perception and understanding of emotions as assessed with the MSCEIT (Mayer et al., 2002 ) and the degree to that nontraditional evening graduate adult master’s level students perceived affiliation among learners, opportunities to influence lessons, and teacher support in terms of sensitivity and encouragement. Furthermore, high school teachers’ tests scores in emotion understanding were unrelated to their self-reported quality of teacher-student relationships (O’Shea, 2019 ) and participation in an empathic mindset intervention did not make middle school students feel more respected by their teacher—however, the intervention had an effect for students with a history of suspension (Okonofua et al., 2016 ). In the thesis by Fults ( 2019 ), there was no association between middle school teachers’ self-reported empathy and students’ perception of proximity and Wen ( 2020 ) did not establish a link between college teachers’ self-reported ability to recognize other people’s emotions and student-reported receptivity and liking of the teacher. Likewise, Petsos and Gorizidis ( 2019 ) found no statistically significant correlation between junior high school teachers’ self-reported emotion perception of others and students’ perceptions of their teachers’ helpful and friendly behavior and their understanding of students as opposed to displaying dissatisfaction and admonishing students. Finally, middle school teachers reporting greater empathy with victims of bullying or general perspective taking and empathic concern were not more likely to perceive their teacher-student relationship as close and free of conflict (Hammel, 2013 ; only empathic concern and closeness: r = .27, p < .05). To summarize, teachers who perceived themselves as empathic reported providing more emotional support. However, this impression was rarely evident in students’ and observers’ perspectives. Furthermore, higher test scores in empathy were unrelated to the quality of emotional support.

Likelihood to Intervene in Bullying

Nine of the twelve studies in this strand of research found an effect (62% of the investigated effects were significant and positive; see Table 5 ). Seven studies, including teachers from preschool to the secondary school level, found that teachers feeling empathic concern for a hypothetical student who was a victim of bullying reported a greater likelihood of intervening in the bullying situation (Byers et al., 2011 ; Dedousis-Wallace & Shute, 2009 ; Hines, 2013 ; Huang et al., 2018 ; Sokol et al., 2016 ; VanZoeren, 2015 ; Yoon, 2004 ). In these studies, the effect sizes were moderate to large (all r s > .30; see Figure 3 ). Likewise, teachers’ self-reported general empathic concern, perspective taking, and tendency to experience the feelings of others were positively associated with their likelihood to intervene in bullying from early childhood to college education (Dedousis-Wallace & Shute, 2009 ; Fifield, 2011 ; Huang et al., 2018 ; Singh, 2014 ). One exception of this pattern was the thesis by Hammel ( 2013 ). Only when the hypothetical student was the victim of social exclusion, but not when students became victims of gossip or when friends threatened to end a relationship, was there a statistically significant correlation between middle school teachers’ empathy with the victim and their likelihood to intervene. Moreover, teachers’ general empathic concern and perspective taking were not statistically significantly related with the likelihood to intervene. Similarly, Garner et al. ( 2013 ) did not find a relationship between prospective teachers’ self-reported cognitive empathy and their likelihood to intervene in bullying scenarios. Finally, when pre-service elementary and secondary teachers did not indicate their likelihood to intervene in bullying via self-report, but when they were asked in an open-format with researchers coding their responses, there was less evidence of a relationship between teachers’ self-reported empathic concern and perspective taking with their responses to bullying (Tettegah, 2007 ; 3 of 12 statistically significant effects).

Classroom Management

In seven of ten studies spanning early childhood to tertiary education, there was no statistically significant relationship between teachers’ empathy and classroom management (Abacioglu et al., 2019 ; Friedman, 2014 ; Fults, 2019 ; Gottesman, 2016 ; Hall, 2009 ; Heckathorn, 2013 ; Petsos & Gorizidis, 2019 ). As Table 5 shows, 83% of the investigated effects were not statistically significant. Except for Gottesman ( 2016 ), these studies used other than teacher self-report measures for either empathy or classroom management. In line with the trend to find an association especially when both predictor and outcome are measured via teacher self-report, Hu et al. ( 2018 ) found no association between preschool teachers’ self-reported emotional perception and observer ratings of their classroom management ( r = .03, p > .05), but they did find a link with teachers’ own perceptions of their classroom management ( r = .38, p < .001). However, two studies revealed a positive association between empathy and classroom management. In her thesis, Metaxas ( 2018 ) showed that primary and secondary school teachers reporting being more empathic were less likely to choose punitive behavior ( r = −.22, p < .01) in response to a hypothetical challenging student. Relatedly, Okonofua et al. ( 2016 ) revealed that middle school teachers participating in an empathic mindset intervention were more likely to consider empathic disciplinary strategies ( r = .40, p < .01) rather than punitive approaches ( r = −.41, p < .01). However, these results are again based on teachers’ evaluations of hypothetical scenarios.

Instructional Support

In three of six studies, all relying not only on teacher self-report questionnaires, there was no evidence (85% of the investigated effects were not significant; see Table 5 ) for a relationship between teachers’ empathy and the levels of instructional support they provide for students in secondary school or for college students (Friedman, 2014 ; Hall, 2009 ; Wen, 2020 ). Even though Heckathorn ( 2013 ) found that adults in an evening master’s program rated those teachers who obtained higher test scores in perceiving emotions as providing more organized and clear instruction ( r = .26, p < .01), there was no statistically significant correlation with understanding emotions. Moreover, neither perceiving nor understanding emotions were associated with personal goal attainment defined as the degree to which the teacher attended to students’ individual learning needs and interests. Notably, these results are based on only N = 11 teachers. Again, Hu et al. ( 2018 ) found a link between preschool teachers’ self-reported emotional perception with their self-reported quality of instructional support ( r = .36, p < .001), but not with observers’ ratings of instructional support ( r = −.03, p > .05). Khodadady ( 2012 ) obtained a small, but statistically significant positive relationship between high school teachers’ self-reported empathy and student-reported facilitation ( r = .05, p < .05). However, the nesting of students within classes was not considered in the analyses so caution is warranted in interpreting this finding.

Effects on Student Outcomes

We identified twelve studies investigating the role of empathy in student outcomes: four studies measured cognitive student outcomes and ten measured psychosocial student outcomes including, for example, student engagement, conduct problems, or prosocial behavior.

Cognitive Student Outcomes

Two of four studies, which assessed teacher empathy via student report and a test instrument, provided less support (64% of the investigated effects were not significant; see Table 5 ) for the role of secondary school teacher empathy in students’ cognitive outcomes in terms of achievement test scores, grades, and students’ self-reported abilities in mathematics (Aldrup et al.,  2020 ; Curci et al., 2014 ). Franklin ( 2014 ) found a positive relationship between elementary school teachers’ self-reported empathic concern and students’ reading ( r = .17, p < .05), but not mathematics achievement growth ( r = .00, p > .05). Latchaw ( 2017 ) revealed that college students rating their teachers’ awareness of others’ emotions higher expected a better end-of-course grade ( r = .22, p < .01).

Psychosocial Student Outcomes

Seven of ten studies found little evidence of a relationship between teacher empathy and students’ psychosocial outcomes (72% of the investigated effects were not significant; see Table 5 ). More specifically, preschool teachers who reported a greater ability in perceiving the emotions of others neither noticed more social skills nor fewer peer problems, general anxiety, emotional problems, aggressiveness, conduct problems, or hyperactivity among their students (Poulou, 2017 ; Poulou et al., 2018 ). Contrary to expectations, students even reported more frequent bullying in middle schools employing teachers who rated their empathic concern and perspective taking higher (Underwood, 2010 ). Moreover, teachers at integrated schools who perceived themselves as more empathic did not rate their students as showing less misconduct in class (Nizielski et al., 2012 ) and students did not indicate greater receptivity and involvement in these teachers’ courses (Wen, 2020 ). Likewise, in two small studies ( N ≤ 12) with teachers at a junior high school and in an adult evening master’s program, respectively, there was no association between teachers’ ability to perceive and understand emotions as measured with the MSCEIT (Mayer et al., 2002 ) and student-reported involvement in class (Heckathorn, 2013 ), their scholastic self-esteem, metacognitive beliefs, and goal setting (Curci et al., 2014 ; one of 14 correlations was statistically significant, but all rs  < .12).

In contrast, Aldrup et al., ( 2020 ) showed that secondary school students who perceived their mathematics teacher as more sensitive reported lower mathematics anxiety and were appraised as less anxious by their parents (−.18 ≤ r ≤ −.07). Okonofua et al. ( 2016 ) found that middle school students’ suspension rates were statistically significantly lower among teachers who had participated in an empathic mindset intervention ( r = –.10, p < .001). Furthermore, Polat and Ulusoy-Oztan ( 2009 ) showed that primary school students rated their emotional intelligence higher when their teachers evaluated their own ability to perceive other people’s emotions more positively ( r = .30, p < .01).

Empathy is considered one factor determining prosocial behavior among all humans (Preston & de Waal, 2002 ) and argued to be relevant for teachers’ professional effectiveness given the high social and emotional demands inherent to daily interactions with students (Brackett & Katulak, 2007 ; Jennings & Greenberg, 2009 ). Against this background, we aimed to review the empirical evidence for these theoretical assumptions and identified 41 journal articles, theses, chapters, and conference papers providing insights to the role of teacher empathy in the quality of teacher-student interactions and student outcomes. To date, most research has accumulated on the relationship between teachers’ empathy and their emotional support for students, whereas we know much less about other domains of teacher-student interactions and student outcomes. Overall, there was limited evidence for a statistically significant positive association between empathy and any of the dependent variables considered in this research synthesis. The exception were studies relying exclusively on teacher self-report for assessing empathy and their own (likely) behavior in terms of quality of teacher-student interactions (e.g., Abacioglu et al., 2020 ). In this regard, the most consistent finding was that teachers reporting greater empathy for a bullied student in a hypothetical scenario indicated a greater likelihood to intervene in the situation (e.g., Sokol et al., 2016 ; Yoon, 2004 ). Even though these studies show that feeling concerned for students in specific situations makes teachers more motivated to help them, it remains unknown whether teachers would actually behave as intended in a real classroom situation and whether they would choose appropriate interventions. Thus, at first glance, these findings do not support the theoretical assumptions of an association of teacher empathy with the quality of teacher-student interactions and student outcomes.

One explanation might be that other social-emotional characteristics are more important for predicting the quality of teacher-student interactions, emotional support in particular, and student outcomes. For example, recent studies linked teachers’ mindfulness—a nonjudgmental awareness and acceptance of one’s present experiences (Brown & Ryan, 2003 )—to higher levels of emotional support for students (Jennings, 2015 ; Jennings et al., 2017 ). Furthermore, there is growing evidence regarding the importance of teacher well-being. Prior studies found a positive association between teachers’ work enthusiasm with emotional support, student motivation, and achievement, whereas the reverse was true for burnout symptoms (Arens & Morin, 2016 ; Klusmann et al., 2016 ; Keller et al., 2016 ; Kunter et al., 2013 ; Shen et al., 2015 ). However, it is also possible that researchers have not been able to discover a relationship between empathy, the quality of teacher-student interactions, and student outcomes because they have not attended to some key methodological and conceptual issues that we consider vital for obtaining valid results in future research.

Avenues for Future Research

Dealing with common method bias and the valid assessment of empathy.

The majority of studies we reviewed applied teacher self-report measures of empathy in combination with self-report measures of interaction quality and student outcomes. This poses the risk of common method bias, which can cause positively biased associations between predictor and outcome variables (Podsakoff et al., 2003 ). Therefore, research can only provide valid conclusions about the role of teacher empathy in the quality of teacher-student interactions and student outcomes if more studies combine different data sources. To achieve this, researchers in the field have pursued different strategies.

One approach is to treat common method bias by measuring the dependent variable via student questionnaires, classroom observations, or achievement tests (e.g., Hu et al., 2018 ). This approach enables researchers to investigate whether teacher empathy becomes manifest in teachers’ actions and whether others notice differences between teachers with higher versus lower empathy. Considering the perspectives of other raters except for the teacher appears particularly important because students and external observers often perceive interaction quality differently than the teachers themselves do (e.g., Fauth et al., 2014a ; Kunter & Baumert, 2006 ). In this review, ten studies combined teacher self-report measures with other sources for assessing the outcome. The evidence in these studies was mixed and some found at least partial support for the hypothesis that empathy is associated with effective teaching (Franklin, 2014 ; Ghanizadeh & Moafian, 2010 ; Khodadady, 2012 ; Polat & Ulusoy-Oztan, 2009 ; Swartz & McElwain, 2012 ) whereas others did not (Fults, 2019 ; Hu et al., 2018 ; Petsos & Gorizidis, 2019 ; Underwood, 2010 ; Wen, 2020 ).

One explanation for the heterogeneous results could lie in the comparably small sample sizes. Only two of the studies were based on more than 100 participants—a sample size that is required for detecting medium effects—and five included 50 or less. Small sample sizes reduce the statistical power to detect meaningful effects. Yet, there is also evidence that effect sizes are larger in small samples, perhaps, because they are less likely to be published when yielding insignificant results than expensive larger studies (Slavin & Smith, 2009 ). Thus, future studies should include a sufficient number of teachers to avoid these issues.

Another reason for the inconsistent findings could be the construct validity of self-report empathy measures. Caring for others is at the core of teachers’ professional identity so self-serving bias could cause teachers to describe themselves more positively in terms of their empathy level (O’Connor, 2008 ; Wubbels et al., 1993 ). Furthermore, the self-assessment of social-emotional abilities is now questioned as correlations with objective tools are rather small but objective tools appear more closely related to social behavior (Brackett & Mayer, 2003 , Brackett et al., 2006 ). Therefore, the use of tests rather than self-report questionnaires (e.g., Hall, 2009 ) could improve the measurement of empathy in future research. At the same time, this strategy provides the opportunity to avoid common method bias. However, the few studies that have pursued this strategy have mostly yielded insignificant results. Again, only two of nine studies included more than 100 participants and five drew on only 32 teachers or less. Thus, studies with appropriate power are needed to evaluate the potential of objective empathy assessments.

In addition, we expected the closest relationship between empathy and emotional support, but as evident in Figure 3 , many of the methodologically sophisticated studies included either other domains of teacher-student interaction quality or student outcomes (e.g., Corcoran & Tormey, 2013 ; Hall, 2009 ). Thus, it was less likely to find pronounced effects in these studies from a conceptual point of view.

Finally, except for Friedman ( 2014 ), previous work with objective assessments has relied on tools that appear rather distant from teachers’ daily work with students. For example, in one subtest of the frequently used MSCEIT (Mayer et al., 2002 ), participants see images of landscapes and artwork and evaluate the degree to which the pictures express certain emotions. Consequently, it appears necessary to use measurement instruments more closely aligned with teachers’ professional tasks.

A Profession-Specific Perspective on Teacher Empathy

As the findings from our review showed, studies investigating the relationship between empathy with victims of bullying and the likelihood to intervene yielded the most robust and substantial correlations. In addition to the fact that both were assessed from the teacher perspective, one explanation for the close association could be that independent and dependent variable refer to the same situation. Another finding supporting the value of a profession-specific approach is that among the few studies of this kind, which either asked students about their teachers’ sensitivity for their emotions or intervened in teachers’ empathy with students (Aldrup et al., 2020 ; Okonofua et al., 2016 ), found statistically significant associations with interaction quality and student outcomes. However, only a few researchers have adapted and developed empathy questionnaires and tests that explicitly ask teachers to refer to the professional context; hence, more instruments of this kind are needed (Friedman, 2014 ; Wu et al., 2019 ; Zinsser et al., 2015 ). To go beyond paper-pencil formats and for a realistic assessment of cognitive empathy, the dyadic interaction paradigm (Ickes, 2001 ), which is frequently applied in empathic accuracy research, could serve as a guideline. Here, a dyad’s interaction is videotaped and each participant individually writes down their thoughts and feelings during specific episodes. Then, the partner’s task is to indicate what their counterpart experienced. In researching teachers’ empathy, one could videotape teacher-student interactions. Furthermore, teachers’ affective empathy has been only assessed via questionnaires thus far, which appears reasonable because it reflects a person’s subjective experiences. Nonetheless, one could also consider using teachers’ facial expressions in response to students’ emotions as an indicator of their affective empathy (e.g., Marx et al., 2019 ).

Moreover, in developing profession-specific instruments, considering different levels of specificity would allow us to gain additional insights about the degree to which teacher empathy is context-dependent. One option would be a situation-specific assessment as was done in bullying research (e.g., Yoon, 2004 ). Likewise, Friedman ( 2014 ) developed a tool for measuring teachers’ ability to perceive and understand students’ emotions during a hypothetical disciplinary incident in class. Another option would be a class-specific assessment. At the secondary school level in particular, teachers see different groups of students each day and it may be easier for them to empathize with some than with others, for example, depending on the students’ age or the number of lessons they see each other per week. Furthermore, Frenzel et al. ( 2015 ) showed that teachers’ emotions largely depend on the class they teach. Being in a class that elicits enjoyment rather than anger or anxiety could facilitate cognitive empathy because positive emotions promote cognitive processes (e.g., broaden-and-build theory, Fredrickson, 2001 ). Of course, one could think of several other relevant specific situations such as empathy with students struggling with content or with students from specific backgrounds who are at risk of adverse developmental trajectories. For example, Warren ( 2015 ) developed a scale measuring teacher empathy for African American males.

Importantly, when using situation- or class-specific assessments, we suggest aligning the specificity of the empathy measure and the dependent variable of interest. We will give an example to illustrate this point: The instrument developed by Friedman ( 2014 ) measures empathy in a very specific situation, but does not tell us about the teachers’ ability to recognize their students’ emotions and take their perspectives in other contexts. Hence, finding an association with dependent variables closely connected to the specific situation of the empathy measure is most likely, whereas a relationship with broader variables appears less probable. Finding no relationship between Friedman’s ( 2014 ) measure of empathy and classroom observations of teacher-student interactions is in line with this idea. Inversely, this means that one should refrain from using situation- or class-specific instruments when the research interest is in explaining teaching effectiveness more broadly.

Interplay with Other Teacher Characteristics and Students’ Prerequisites

In addition to methodological challenges, our unexpected finding could be because teacher empathy alone is not sufficient to achieve high-quality teacher-student interactions and positive student outcomes. First, a hierarchical organization of social-emotional competence is hypothesized with empathy being a precursor of more advanced abilities such as emotion and relationship management (Joseph & Newman, 2010 ; Mayer & Salovey, 1997 ). From this perspective, it can be argued that teacher empathy can only be effective in combination with knowledge and skills about effective behavior in social situations. In line with this, Aldrup, Carstensen et al. ( 2020 ) showed that teachers with greater knowledge about relationship management reported providing more emotional support and perceived their relationships with students more positively.

Second, it is possible that teacher empathy only shows when teachers are motivated to act accordingly. In other words, they may not always display their full empathic potential. Considering the finding that teachers’ emotions largely depend on the group of students they teach (Frenzel et al., 2015 ), one could speculate that teachers will be more motivated to demonstrate empathic behavior in a class they like, making a class-specific assessment of empathy particularly interesting in this line of research. Further aspects, such as emotional stability, pro-sociality, or self-efficacy, have been suggested as relevant determinants of the degree to which people perform empathic behavior (Cavell, 1990 ; DuBois & Felner, 2003 ; Rose-Krasnor, 1997 ). Furthermore, teacher empathy may interact with their well-being such that burnout and the lack of emotional resources impair teachers’ empathy (Trauernicht et al., 2021 ). Likewise, other teacher characteristics may mask their empathy. For instance, the belief that strict discipline is needed because children are naturally rebellious and lazy could lead teacher to suppress empathic tendencies (c.f., Rimm-Kaufman et al., 2006 ).

Third, empathy may not always be beneficial as is evident in the phenomenon of compassion fatigue. Compassion fatigue denotes a loss of interest in empathizing with others and a lack of energy, which can result from self-giving work with people who are in pressing need for help (Adams et al., 2006 ; Knobloch Coetzee & Klopper, 2010 ). In other words, excessive empathy puts people at risk of suffering themselves. For example, teachers with greater empathy for victims of bullying also feel angrier and sadder when witnessing bullying incidents (Sokol et al., 2016 ). To alleviate negative feelings and protect one’s emotional resources, teachers may eventually distance themselves from their students (for a similar line of reasoning, also see Maslach et al., 2001 ). In line with this, prior research showed that people who feel distressed by seeing other people suffering avoid the situation or even show aggressive reactions (Eisenberg & Fabes, 1990 ). Hence, both low and extremely high levels of teacher empathy might be problematic potentially causing a nonlinear relationship with the quality of teacher-student interactions and student outcomes. Considering this, teachers may only benefit from extremely high levels of empathy if they are able to distance themselves from the emotional demands of their work. Potentially interesting moderators of the empathy-outcome relationship include emotion regulation and mindfulness. Prior research shows that they reduce negative emotions so they could be a protective resource for highly empathic teachers (Klingbeil & Renshaw, 2018 ; Lee et al., 2016 ).

In addition to investigating the interplay between empathy and other social-emotional teacher characteristics, we suggest considering whether students’ prerequisite moderate the role of empathy in the quality of teacher-student interactions and student outcomes. For example, prior research shows that teachers play a more prominent role in the development of students at risk of adverse educational trajectories (Hamre & Pianta, 2005 ; Klusmann et al., 2016 ). Hence, teacher empathy might be particularly relevant for students with a low socioeconomic status or with cognitive or social-emotional difficulties. Another important aspect might be students’ age. On the one hand, one could assume that teacher empathy is particularly relevant for young students, for example, because they are still more dependent on adult support to regulate their emotions (Calkins & Hill, 2009 ). On the other hand, student disengagement represents a particular challenge during adolescence and teachers often struggle to meet adolescents’ developmental needs (Eccles & Midgley, 1989 ; Wang & Eccles, 2012 ). Thus, teachers who consider adolescents’ perspectives and care for their feelings might be particularly important during this phase. In line with this assumption, meta-analytic evidence shows that the association between the teacher-student relationship and student engagement and achievement gets closer for older students (Roorda et al., 2017 ).

Limitations

In this article, we aimed to provide the first comprehensive overview of prior research on the relationship between teacher empathy, teacher-student interactions, and student outcomes. Therefore, we included studies from different lines of research that diverge in their operationalization of empathy. For example and as outlined in the Results section, even though both the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (Davis, 1980 ) and the MSCEIT (Mayer et al., 2002 ) were designed to measure whether one is able to consider other’s perspectives, the types of questions/tasks differ substantially. Thus, it is unclear whether all studies actually measured the same underlying construct. A similar problem applies to our dependent variables where there was large heterogeneity in terms of the instruments.

Furthermore, we decided to consider theses, proceedings papers, and book chapters in addition to studies from peer-reviewed journals. Almost half of the studies were not from journal articles. Thus, our approach allowed for a more exhaustive overview of the field and helped to reduce the risk of publication bias. The large number of studies with insignificant results let us conclude that our strategy for reducing publication bias was successful. However, it may have reduced the quality of the included studies. Even though follow-up analyses revealed no differences between the publication types in terms of sample size or the avoidance of common method bias, we cannot rule out other potential limitations such as lower quality of data collection, preparation, and analyses in studies from sources other than journals.

In addition, a large number of studies assessed constructs relevant for our review without reporting correlation analyses. Due to our concerns about the reliance on teacher self-report measures for assessing the independent and dependent variables, we decided to contact the authors only when they had pursued a different methodological approach. Because studies that included only teacher questionnaires typically found closer associations, we should note that our decision might have reduced the number of statistically significant results.

Finally, a meta-analytical analysis would have been ideal to investigate the extent to which methodological study characteristics moderate the size of effects (Borenstein, 2009 ). Nonetheless, we decided against this approach as we identified only a relatively small number of relevant studies for most dependent variables. In addition, we had the impression that computing an overall effect size was not appropriate because of the huge heterogeneity in the research field. The different methodological approaches are not equally valid for assessing empathy and sophisticated studies typically included small samples reducing their weight in meta-analyses.

Theoretical models (e.g., Jennings & Greenberg, 2009 ) emphasize the relevance of teachers’ empathy for high-quality teacher-student interactions and positive student outcomes, but to date, only limited evidence supports this claim. Nonetheless, rather than abandoning the idea that teacher empathy is a relevant construct, we call for methodologically sophisticated studies that go beyond teacher self-report and allow for robust conclusions. Perhaps, we would otherwise overlook an important social-emotional teacher characteristic, where there is an urgent need for action given that teachers frequently struggle to recognize student emotions (Karing et al., 2013 ; Spinath, 2005 ).

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Aldrup, K., Carstensen, B. & Klusmann, U. Is Empathy the Key to Effective Teaching? A Systematic Review of Its Association with Teacher-Student Interactions and Student Outcomes. Educ Psychol Rev 34 , 1177–1216 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-021-09649-y

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Empathy Essay

What are the main features of empathy essay, how to start an empathy essay: tips on how to start, how to create an outline: outline structure, how to write a thesis for an empathy essay, how to write an introduction, how to write body paragraphs: tips on body writing, how to finish an empathy essay: tips on conclusion writing, tips on revision, empathy essay sample.

Have you ever felt sad or experienced difficulty that your colleagues go through as well as having the emotional feelings? Well, you have empathy towards others. However, can you express such empathy in an essay? Empathy essay elaborates on the aptitude that detects on the feelings of other people and emotional experience of the essay writer .

When writing such a paper, you should consider the following features:

• The essay should be in first person narration .
• It has an empathic task especially the understanding of the thought of the character in a situation.
• It should have facts and feelings.
• It should be comprehensive with writers giving more information about a character.
• This paper should have the proper interpretation of the reaction of the character (content about the feeling of the character).
• Use the style and language of the character such as the use of slang, form or informal as well as colloquial.
• Identify the feeling of the character about the subject and those of other characters.
• Identify special words to use in the essay.
• Prepare relevant quotations for the main characters or important ideas.
• Use the first person narration.
• Apply adjectives in writing and give an honest thought as the character speaks or thinks.

INTRODUCTION

• Provide a thematic subject.
• Highlight the first aspect of the subject.
• Highlight the second aspect of thematic subject.
• Highlight third aspect of thematic subject.
• Give reason/thesis statement for choosing the specific number of characters as example to the point.

First character

• Reason for selecting the character to demonstrate the theme.
• How the character shows thematic point of view.
• How the person illustrates the second thematic subject.
• How the person illustrates the third thematic subject.
• Summary of the way the character elaborates your point.

Second character

Third character

• Reason for selecting the character to demonstrate the theme

CONCLUSION (Summary paragraph)

• Provide the synthesis of the essay in a different way.
• Synthesize the first subtopic.
• Synthesize the second subtopic.
• Synthesize the third subtopic.
• Final statement

When writing a thesis statement, the writer should give a specific claim that supports his or her empathy. Besides, you should present the subject, your position and reason for defending the position. Furthermore, you should provide the number of thematic points or characters in the essay. Lastly, the statement should appear at the end of the introduction.

The introduction should begin with an engaging statement that reveals a thematic subject or point. The writer author follows in with the aspects of the thematic position in the order as they will appear in the body. Lastly, thesis statement appears at the last part of the introduction.

The following are the tips for writing body paragraphs of an empathy essay:

• Provide a clear topic sentence for each character elaborating on thematic point for every paragraph.
• Give specific evidence to support the point.
• Provide examples on how the character illustrate the thematic point.
• Provide a summary on how the character demonstrates the point.
• Use transitions between the sentences and the paragraphs.
• Provide an overview of the essay.
• Synthesize the thematic points in the body paragraphs as viewed by different characters.
• Provide the final statement and direction to the reader.

After completing empathy essays, students should

• Read the essay aloud and correct the mistakes within the paper.
• Invite a family member, a schoolmate or a friend to read the paper and identify the simple mistakes.
• Follow the instruction of the tutor regarding the format.
• Run the essay in Grammarly software to correct grammar mistakes, spelling errors, spacing errors and misused vocabularies before turn it in.

Mr. Robson:

“Don’t ever dare to come near my family! Crank. You think you can divert my attention and pay attention to your yappy mouth? Love! What about it? You moron get lost!”

Mrs. Robson:

“My dear I beg your pardon. He just wanted to express his opinion. However, his thoughts of meeting you have lowered your social status. Please, can we accord him a chance? Young men of today take time to learn etiquette and need some time to appreciate the elderly. Do you recall when you first approached my dad concerning our courtship? Well, it was a hell you went through.”

“Father, I hate, but I just have to admit that you don’t mean good for my courtship. I have dated Thompson for half a year, we’ve been in college for three years, and I am 26. Dad can I have some peace of mind?”

“Indeed Sheila is right Father. However, she ought to have notified your mood before allowing Thompson to speak out his mind. Meanwhile, I appreciate your concern as a father who wants the best for his family. For now, I will rest my thoughts with your opinion until you permit Sheila to plan her wedding. Goodbye.”

“Sorry sir I never intended to hurt your feeling, but I felt it right to inform you of my plans. However, I need no rush into wedding plans without your blessings. But, it will be a death warrant if I hurt her feelings! She loves her life, and I am exactly that! Will you lose her for good?”

After all, marriage is sacred, and everybody has a right to start a family. Robson won nothing.

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• How to Write a Thesis Statement | 4 Steps & Examples

How to Write a Thesis Statement | 4 Steps & Examples

Published on January 11, 2019 by Shona McCombes . Revised on August 15, 2023 by Eoghan Ryan.

A thesis statement is a sentence that sums up the central point of your paper or essay . It usually comes near the end of your introduction .

Your thesis will look a bit different depending on the type of essay you’re writing. But the thesis statement should always clearly state the main idea you want to get across. Everything else in your essay should relate back to this idea.

You can write your thesis statement by following four simple steps:

• Start with a question
• Write your initial answer
• Develop your answer
• Refine your thesis statement

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Table of contents

What is a thesis statement, placement of the thesis statement, step 1: start with a question, step 2: write your initial answer, step 3: develop your answer, step 4: refine your thesis statement, types of thesis statements, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about thesis statements.

A thesis statement summarizes the central points of your essay. It is a signpost telling the reader what the essay will argue and why.

The best thesis statements are:

• Concise: A good thesis statement is short and sweet—don’t use more words than necessary. State your point clearly and directly in one or two sentences.
• Contentious: Your thesis shouldn’t be a simple statement of fact that everyone already knows. A good thesis statement is a claim that requires further evidence or analysis to back it up.
• Coherent: Everything mentioned in your thesis statement must be supported and explained in the rest of your paper.

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The thesis statement generally appears at the end of your essay introduction or research paper introduction .

The spread of the internet has had a world-changing effect, not least on the world of education. The use of the internet in academic contexts and among young people more generally is hotly debated. For many who did not grow up with this technology, its effects seem alarming and potentially harmful. This concern, while understandable, is misguided. The negatives of internet use are outweighed by its many benefits for education: the internet facilitates easier access to information, exposure to different perspectives, and a flexible learning environment for both students and teachers.

You should come up with an initial thesis, sometimes called a working thesis , early in the writing process . As soon as you’ve decided on your essay topic , you need to work out what you want to say about it—a clear thesis will give your essay direction and structure.

You might already have a question in your assignment, but if not, try to come up with your own. What would you like to find out or decide about your topic?

For example, you might ask:

After some initial research, you can formulate a tentative answer to this question. At this stage it can be simple, and it should guide the research process and writing process .

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Now you need to consider why this is your answer and how you will convince your reader to agree with you. As you read more about your topic and begin writing, your answer should get more detailed.

In your essay about the internet and education, the thesis states your position and sketches out the key arguments you’ll use to support it.

The negatives of internet use are outweighed by its many benefits for education because it facilitates easier access to information.

In your essay about braille, the thesis statement summarizes the key historical development that you’ll explain.

The invention of braille in the 19th century transformed the lives of blind people, allowing them to participate more actively in public life.

A strong thesis statement should tell the reader:

• Why you hold this position
• What they’ll learn from your essay
• The key points of your argument or narrative

The final thesis statement doesn’t just state your position, but summarizes your overall argument or the entire topic you’re going to explain. To strengthen a weak thesis statement, it can help to consider the broader context of your topic.

These examples are more specific and show that you’ll explore your topic in depth.

Your thesis statement should match the goals of your essay, which vary depending on the type of essay you’re writing:

• In an argumentative essay , your thesis statement should take a strong position. Your aim in the essay is to convince your reader of this thesis based on evidence and logical reasoning.
• In an expository essay , you’ll aim to explain the facts of a topic or process. Your thesis statement doesn’t have to include a strong opinion in this case, but it should clearly state the central point you want to make, and mention the key elements you’ll explain.

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

• Ad hominem fallacy
• Post hoc fallacy
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A thesis statement is a sentence that sums up the central point of your paper or essay . Everything else you write should relate to this key idea.

The thesis statement is essential in any academic essay or research paper for two main reasons:

• It gives your writing direction and focus.
• It gives the reader a concise summary of your main point.

Without a clear thesis statement, an essay can end up rambling and unfocused, leaving your reader unsure of exactly what you want to say.

Follow these four steps to come up with a thesis statement :

• Ask a question about your topic .
• Write your initial answer.
• Develop your answer by including reasons.
• Refine your answer, adding more detail and nuance.

The thesis statement should be placed at the end of your essay introduction .

Cite this Scribbr article

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McCombes, S. (2023, August 15). How to Write a Thesis Statement | 4 Steps & Examples. Scribbr. Retrieved April 5, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/academic-essay/thesis-statement/

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25 Thesis Statement Examples That Will Make Writing a Breeze

Understanding what makes a good thesis statement is one of the major keys to writing a great research paper or argumentative essay. The thesis statement is where you make a claim that will guide you through your entire paper. If you find yourself struggling to make sense of your paper or your topic, then it's likely due to a weak thesis statement.

Let's take a minute to first understand what makes a solid thesis statement, and what key components you need to write one of your own.

A thesis statement always goes at the beginning of the paper. It will typically be in the first couple of paragraphs of the paper so that it can introduce the body paragraphs, which are the supporting evidence for your thesis statement.

Your thesis statement should clearly identify an argument. You need to have a statement that is not only easy to understand, but one that is debatable. What that means is that you can't just put any statement of fact and have it be your thesis. For example, everyone knows that puppies are cute . An ineffective thesis statement would be, "Puppies are adorable and everyone knows it." This isn't really something that's a debatable topic.

Something that would be more debatable would be, "A puppy's cuteness is derived from its floppy ears, small body, and playfulness." These are three things that can be debated on. Some people might think that the cutest thing about puppies is the fact that they follow you around or that they're really soft and fuzzy.

All cuteness aside, you want to make sure that your thesis statement is not only debatable, but that it also actually thoroughly answers the research question that was posed. You always want to make sure that your evidence is supporting a claim that you made (and not the other way around). This is why it's crucial to read and research about a topic first and come to a conclusion later. If you try to get your research to fit your thesis statement, then it may not work out as neatly as you think. As you learn more, you discover more (and the outcome may not be what you originally thought).

Additionally, your thesis statement shouldn't be too big or too grand. It'll be hard to cover everything in a thesis statement like, "The federal government should act now on climate change." The topic is just too large to actually say something new and meaningful. Instead, a more effective thesis statement might be, "Local governments can combat climate change by providing citizens with larger recycling bins and offering local classes about composting and conservation." This is easier to work with because it's a smaller idea, but you can also discuss the overall topic that you might be interested in, which is climate change.

So, now that we know what makes a good, solid thesis statement, you can start to write your own. If you find that you're getting stuck or you are the type of person who needs to look at examples before you start something, then check out our list of thesis statement examples below.

Thesis statement examples

A quick note that these thesis statements have not been fully researched. These are merely examples to show you what a thesis statement might look like and how you can implement your own ideas into one that you think of independently. As such, you should not use these thesis statements for your own research paper purposes. They are meant to be used as examples only.

• Vaccinations Because many children are unable to vaccinate due to illness, we must require that all healthy and able children be vaccinated in order to have herd immunity.
• Educational Resources for Low-Income Students Schools should provide educational resources for low-income students during the summers so that they don't forget what they've learned throughout the school year.
• School Uniforms School uniforms may be an upfront cost for families, but they eradicate the visual differences in income between students and provide a more egalitarian atmosphere at school.
• Populism The rise in populism on the 2016 political stage was in reaction to increasing globalization, the decline of manufacturing jobs, and the Syrian refugee crisis.
• Public Libraries Libraries are essential resources for communities and should be funded more heavily by local municipalities.
• Cyber Bullying With more and more teens using smartphones and social media, cyber bullying is on the rise. Cyber bullying puts a lot of stress on many teens, and can cause depression, anxiety, and even suicidal thoughts. Parents should limit the usage of smart phones, monitor their children's online activity, and report any cyber bullying to school officials in order to combat this problem.
• Medical Marijuana for Veterans Studies have shown that the use of medicinal marijuana has been helpful to veterans who suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Medicinal marijuana prescriptions should be legal in all states and provided to these veterans. Additional medical or therapy services should also be researched and implemented in order to help them re-integrate back into civilian life.
• Work-Life Balance Corporations should provide more work from home opportunities and six-hour workdays so that office workers have a better work-life balance and are more likely to be productive when they are in the office.
• Teaching Youths about Consensual Sex Although sex education that includes a discussion of consensual sex would likely lead to less sexual assault, parents need to teach their children the meaning of consent from a young age with age appropriate lessons.
• Whether or Not to Attend University A degree from a university provides invaluable lessons on life and a future career, but not every high school student should be encouraged to attend a university directly after graduation. Some students may benefit from a trade school or a "gap year" where they can think more intensely about what it is they want to do for a career and how they can accomplish this.
• Studying Abroad Studying abroad is one of the most culturally valuable experiences you can have in college. It is the only way to get completely immersed in another language and learn how other cultures and countries are different from your own.
• Women's Body Image Magazines have done a lot in the last five years to include a more diverse group of models, but there is still a long way to go to promote a healthy woman's body image collectively as a culture.
• Cigarette Tax Heavily taxing and increasing the price of cigarettes is essentially a tax on the poorest Americans, and it doesn't deter them from purchasing. Instead, the state and federal governments should target those economically disenfranchised with early education about the dangers of smoking.
• Veganism A vegan diet, while a healthy and ethical way to consume food, indicates a position of privilege. It also limits you to other cultural food experiences if you travel around the world.
• University Athletes Should be Compensated University athletes should be compensated for their service to the university, as it is difficult for these students to procure and hold a job with busy academic and athletic schedules. Many student athletes on scholarship also come from low-income neighborhoods and it is a struggle to make ends meet when they are participating in athletics.
• Women in the Workforce Sheryl Sandberg makes a lot of interesting points in her best-selling book, Lean In , but she only addressed the very privileged working woman and failed to speak to those in lower-skilled, lower-wage jobs.
• Assisted Suicide Assisted suicide should be legal and doctors should have the ability to make sure their patients have the end-of-life care that they want to receive.
• Celebrity and Political Activism Although Taylor Swift's lyrics are indicative of a feminist perspective, she should be more politically active and vocal to use her position of power for the betterment of society.
• The Civil War The insistence from many Southerners that the South seceded from the Union for states' rights versus the fact that they seceded for the purposes of continuing slavery is a harmful myth that still affects race relations today.
• Blue Collar Workers Coal miners and other blue-collar workers whose jobs are slowly disappearing from the workforce should be re-trained in jobs in the technology sector or in renewable energy. A program to re-train these workers would not only improve local economies where jobs have been displaced, but would also lead to lower unemployment nationally.
• Diversity in the Workforce Having a diverse group of people in an office setting leads to richer ideas, more cooperation, and more empathy between people with different skin colors or backgrounds.
• Re-Imagining the Nuclear Family The nuclear family was traditionally defined as one mother, one father, and 2.5 children. This outdated depiction of family life doesn't quite fit with modern society. The definition of normal family life shouldn't be limited to two-parent households.
• Digital Literacy Skills With more information readily available than ever before, it's crucial that students are prepared to examine the material they're reading and determine whether or not it's a good source or if it has misleading information. Teaching students digital literacy and helping them to understand the difference between opinion or propaganda from legitimate, real information is integral.
• Beauty Pageants Beauty pageants are presented with the angle that they empower women. However, putting women in a swimsuit on a stage while simultaneously judging them on how well they answer an impossible question in a short period of time is cruel and purely for the amusement of men. Therefore, we should stop televising beauty pageants.
• Supporting More Women to Run for a Political Position In order to get more women into political positions, more women must run for office. There must be a grassroots effort to educate women on how to run for office, who among them should run, and support for a future candidate for getting started on a political career.

Still stuck? Need some help with your thesis statement?

If you are still uncertain about how to write a thesis statement or what a good thesis statement is, be sure to consult with your teacher or professor to make sure you're on the right track. It's always a good idea to check in and make sure that your thesis statement is making a solid argument and that it can be supported by your research.

After you're done writing, it's important to have someone take a second look at your paper so that you can ensure there are no mistakes or errors. It's difficult to spot your own mistakes, which is why it's always recommended to have someone help you with the revision process, whether that's a teacher, the writing center at school, or a professional editor such as one from ServiceScape .

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Medical students’ empathy positively predicts charitable donation behavior

Karen e. smith.

1. Department of Psychology, University of Chicago, 5848 S University Ave, Chicago IL 60615

Greg J. Norman

Jean decety.

Empathy is known to motivate prosocial behavior. This relationship, however is complex and influenced by the social context and the type of prosocial behavior. Additionally, empathy is a complex psychological capacity, making it important to examine how different components of empathy influence different prosocial behaviors. The current study uses a unique longitudinal sample to assess how changes in cognitive and affective components of empathy relate to charitable giving. Measures of empathy were collected from medical students in the fall and spring of students’ first three years of medical school. After this time, students had the opportunity to donate to charity. Positive changes in students’ cognitive empathy predicted their charitable giving, with students who demonstrated greater increases in cognitive empathy giving more money. This study points to an important role for cognitive empathy in certain prosocial behaviors, and suggests that long term changes in empathy influence individual differences in prosocial behavior.

Introduction

The role of empathy, or the ability to perceive and understand the emotional states of others ( Decety, 2015 ), in motivating a variety of prosocial behaviors is a question that has long been of interest in behavioral sciences ( Batson & Powell, 2003 ) and more recently in behavioral neuroscience ( Decety, Bartal, Uzefovsky, & Knafo-Noam, 2016 ). However, there is continued debate on whether empathy is important in motivating prosocial behaviors ( Paulus, 2018 ; Zahavi & Rochat, 2015 ). Prosocial behaviors refer to a wide range of behaviors aimed at benefitting another, including helping, comforting, sharing, and cooperating ( Batson & Powell, 2003 ; Davidov, Vaish, Knafo-Noam, & Hastings, 2016 ). There is solid empirical evidence demonstrating a critical role of empathy in motivating certain forms of prosocial behavior, in particular helping and comforting ( Batson & Powell, 2003 ; Decety & Jackson, 2004 ; Eisenberg, Eggum, & Di Giunta, 2010 ). Indeed, empathy has been related prosocial behaviors in children ( Decety, Meidenbauer, & Cowell, 2017 ) and adults ( Sze, Gyurak, Goodkind, & Levenson, 2012 ), as well as in some non-human animals ( Bartal et al., 2016 ). However, there is a growing literature suggesting that the relationship between empathy and prosocial behaviors is more complex than has previously been proposed, and that empathy does not necessarily lead to prosociality ( Davidov et al., 2016 ; Paulus, 2018 ). Findings linking empathy to prosocial behaviors differ based on how empathy and prosocial behaviors are measured ( Paulus, 2018 ), the context in which the relationship is assessed ( Maner & Gailliot, 2007 ), as well as a variety of individual level factors, including gender ( Mesch, Brown, Moore, & Hayat, 2011 ), early experiences with stress ( Lim & DeSteno, 2016 ), and cognitive performance ( Böckler, Tusche, & Singer, 2016 ).

One potential explanation for these varying findings is that the term prosocial behaviors represents a broad overarching category encompassing a wide range of different behaviors that are likely motivated by multiple and different proximate mechanisms ( Davidov et al., 2016 ; Decety et al., 2016 ). Indeed, not all prosocial behaviors are related, with many demonstrating only weak or non-significant correlations, suggesting prosocial behavior should not be treated as a simple global construct ( Cowell et al., 2017 ; Decety et al., 2016 ). Some forms of prosocial behavior are thought to be motivated by empathy (e.g. helping and comforting), while others are not necessarily associated with empathy (e.g. sharing) ( Cowell & Decety, 2015 ). Additionally, even within subtypes of prosocial behavior often linked to empathy, such as helping or sharing, these behaviors are likely to be multiply motivated, and are not always the result of the same combination of psychological processes across individuals ( Tomasello & Vaish, 2013 ). Indeed, generosity, a type of helping behavior that constitutes giving to others at a cost to oneself ( Gray, Ward, & Norton, 2014 ), has been evidenced to be motivated by a variety of differing and competing processes, including guilt, preserving a positive image eliciting positive reciprocity, or avoiding potential punishment (for review see: Chierchia & Singer, 2017 ). Some researchers have gone as far to argue that empathy in of itself is not sufficient to motivate prosocial behaviors, including helping and comforting ( Bekkers & Wiepking, 2011 ; Davidov et al., 2016 ). Overall, this suggests a need for continued research examining whether empathy motivates prosocial behaviors, and if it does, which types of prosocial behaviors and under what conditions.

One prosocial behavior that has been of interest to researchers is that of charitable giving ( Bekkers & Ottoni-Wilhelm, 2016 ). Charitable giving is a form of generosity ( Gray et al., 2014 ), and individual differences in empathy have been linked to variation in charitable giving ( Sze et al., 2012 ; Verhaert & Van den Poel, 2011 ). However, other work has found little or no link between empathy and charitable giving ( Bekkers, 2010 ; Davis, Hall, & Meyer, 2003 ; Einolf, 2008 ), or found that these relationships vary based on factors such as gender and guilt ( Mesch et al., 2011 ; Roberts, Strayer, & Denham, 2014 ). Additionally there is conflicting research on which components of empathy are most important in motivating charitable giving ( Kim & Kou, 2014 ; Marjanovic, Struthers, & Greenglass, 2012 ; Tusche, Bockler, Kanske, Trautwein, & Singer, 2016 ). Empathy is a multifaceted psychological construct, composed of a variety of interacting processes and representations, making it important to examine the unique effects of these component processes on individual’s social behaviors ( Decety, 2015 ). Empathy consists of both cognitive and affective components, with cognitive empathy primarily referring to an individual’s ability to understand another’s emotions and affective empathy primarily referring to the sharing of others’ emotions and caring for another’s welfare ( Decety, 2015 ). Affective empathy has been argued to primarily motivate prosocial behaviors, especially helping ( Batson & Powell, 2003 ). However, there is still debate about the mechanisms through which affective empathy may motivate prosocial behaviors ( Decety & Lamm, 2009 ). Some research has demonstrated an important role of affect sharing, or vicariously taking on and resonating with the emotional state of another ( Decety & Svetlova, 2012 ; Zaki & Ochsner, 2012 ), in supporting prosocial behaviors ( Hein, Lamm, Brodbeck, & Singer, 2011 ; Tomova et al., 2017 ), while other work suggests that it the ability to feel concern for another’s well-being, often referred to as empathic concern ( Smith, Porges, Norman, Connelly, & Decety, 2014 ), rather than sharing of another’s emotional state, that is important in producing giving behaviors ( FeldmanHall, Dalgleish, Evans, & Mobbs, 2015 ; Shdo et al., 2016 ). Additionally, recent work examining the relationships of both aspects of cognitive and affective empathy in concert, suggest that cognitive empathy may also play a role in motivating charitable giving ( Kim & Kou, 2014 ; Marjanovic et al., 2012 ; Tusche et al., 2016 ). These observed relationships are likely a result of the fact that, while the different components of empathy have somewhat separable effects, they are also intertwined and not independent of each other ( Decety, 2015 ). Given this, it is probable that they work together to motivate charitable giving and other prosocial behaviors. Indeed, research suggests that individuals differentially recruit neural processes related to affective and cognitive components of empathy when making donation decisions, and these processes together predict charitable donation behavior ( Tusche et al., 2016 ). This indicates a need for further research assessing how affective and cognitive collectively predict charitable donation behaviors.

Lastly, empathy is often characterized as a relatively stable dispositional trait ( Singer & Lamm, 2009 ). However, a growing body of work suggests empathy can be influenced age ( Bailey, Brady, Ebner, & Ruffman, 2018 ) and context ( Konrath, O’Brien, & Hsing, 2011 ). Despite this, there has been little longitudinal work examining how contextual driven changes in empathy over time are associated charitable giving ( Prot et al., 2014 ). One area where longitudinal changes in empathy over time has been examined extensively is the growing body of research suggesting empathy changes over the course of medical school ( Decety, Smith, Norman, & Halpern, 2014 ; Neumann et al., 2011 ). This literature offers the opportunity to examine how longitudinal changes in empathy in medical students relate to their charitable giving behavior, the influences of both cognitive and affective components of empathy to charitable giving, and which observed changes in empathy during medical school have implications for students’ behaviors. Examining the relationship between empathy and charitable giving in the medical context is additionally of interest as medical school and medicine represent an environment where students and physicians are consistently exposed to high stress situations ( Cheng, Chen, & Decety, 2017 ), and there is recent work suggesting that experiences of stress modulate the relationships of empathy and charitable giving ( Buchanan & Preston, 2014 ; Tomova et al., 2017 ).

The current study utilized a unique data set, where measures of empathy and prosocial behavior were collected at regular intervals from medical students over the course of the first three years of medical school to examine whether changes in medical students’ self-reported empathy predict their willingness to make a charitable donation. Students’ self-reported empathy was assessed in the fall and spring of each academic year during their first three years of medical school. At the end of this time, students were asked if they were willing to donate money to a well-known charity as a measure of their prosocial behavior. We then assessed whether individual differences in changes in students’ empathy predicted how much money they donated to charity. Based on the previous literature linking empathy to charitable behavior, we expected that positive changes in both cognitive and affective empathy would be positively associated with donating more money to charity.

Materials and Methods

Participants.

This study was part of a larger longitudinal project conducted in the greater Chicago area examining changes in students’ empathy over the course of medical school which has been described elsewhere ( Smith, Norman, & Decety, 2017 ). Study participants were 110 students, ages 21 to 33 years at start of medical school (n = 57 (51.9%) female) who had complete data survey and behavioral data for the last data collection time point (Spring of third year of medical school; for full attrition information see: Smith et al., 2017 ). Of these students, 16 (14.5%) identified as Asian or Asian American, 8 (7.3%) identified as Black or African American, 4 (3.6%) identified as Hispanic or Latino, 67 (60.9%) identified as non-Hispanic White, 14 (12.7%) identified as multiracial, and 1(0.01%) identified as other. All participants gave written consent to participate at each appointment, and this study was approved by the *blinded* Institutional Review Board.

Students attended appointments at the beginning and end of each academic year for their first three years of medical school (2012 – 2015) for a total of six appointments. At each appointment, students completed a set of online surveys and computerized tasks, assessing different components of empathy (see Smith et al., 2017 ). This study focuses on study measures assessing medical students’ self-reported empathy and charitable donation behavior.

Survey Measures

Students’ completed two questionnaires at each time point assessing changes in empathy over the course of their medical training. First, the Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy – Student Version (JSE), developed to measure physician and medical student empathy specific to patient interactions ( Hojat et al., 2009 ), widely used in much of the previous literature demonstrating declines in medical student empathy. The JSE is thought to assesses primarily cognitive aspects of clinical empathy ( Hojat et al., 2009 ). However, it is unclear whether the JSE predicts patient perceived prosocial behaviors in medical students ( Chen et al., 2010 ). Second, students also completed the Questionnaire of Cognitive and Affective Empathy (QCAE), which assesses overall cognitive and affective empathy in concert ( Reniers, Corcoran, Drake, Shryane, & Völlm, 2011 ) (for further detail see Smith et al., 2017 ).

Prosocial Behavior Measure

At their last appointment, students were given the option to donate money from their $60 subject payment (up to $10 in dollar increments) to one of two charities (the Red Cross or the Inspiration Corporation). The amount of money students chose to donate was used as a measurement of their prosocial behavior. The majority of students who opted to donate an amount of money greater than 0 chose to donate to the Inspiration Corporation, a Chicago area based organization that provides programs for the homeless, (n = 42 of 50), and as such we did not look at differences between donation place.

Statistical Analyses

Descriptive statistics for all study variables are reported in Table 1 . Correlations across all study variables for the current sample are reported in Table 2 . To assess whether individual differences in changes in self-reported empathy affect prosocial behavior, a linear regression was run with donation amount (in dollars) as the outcome variable and change in QCAE cognitive and affective subscales and JSE total score as predictors. Change scores for predictors were calculated by subtracting scale score at the start of medical school from scale score at the end of students’ third year in medical school (coinciding with end of study and collection of donation behavior), such that positive values represent greater positive change. While there are strong statistical methods available to analyze relationships between co-occurring repeated measures longitudinal data, these methods do not allow for examining relationships between a repeated measures predictor and single time-point outcome ( Chen, Ferguson, Meeker, McElrath, & Mukherjee, 2015 ; Welten et al., 2018 ). Given there is still debate over which methods are best equipped for this type of data, chose to use the most parsimonious method, calculating change scores to examine how change over the course of medical school relates to students donation behavior. Given there have been reliable gender differences observed in empathy, and differential effects of empathy on charitable donation behavior by gender, it was included as a covariate. Additionally, given previously evidenced relationships between age and the predictor variables ( Smith et al., 2017 ), age was incorporated as a predictor in the model. To this end, we ran four different models: 1) all predictors of interest; 2) all predictors of interest and gender; 3) all predictors of interest and age; and 4) all predictors of interest along with age and gender. Model fit was compared using the adjusted R 2 , which increases when the addition of a predictor improves the model above chance and decreases when the addition of a predictor improves the model less than expected by chance.

Descriptive Statistics

Correlations between predictor variables

Note: All predictor variables were mean centered.

Given change in JSE scores were significantly associated with change in QCAE Cognitive scores ( r = 0.48, p < 0.001) and changes in QCAE Cognitive scores were significantly associated with changes in QCAE Affective scores ( r = 0.27, p < 0.01), all predictor variables were centered to reduce issues of collinearity ( Raudenbush & Bryk, 2002 ). For all models, to ensure there were no problems of multicollinearity across the predictor variables, the variance inflation factor (VIF), which measures how much the estimated variance of the i th regression coefficient is increased above what it would be if equaled zero and provides a reasonable indication of the effects of multi-collinearity on the variance of each regression coefficient ( Alin, 2010 ), was calculated.

The model which best fit the data was that of Model 3: including predictors of interest and gender. There was a significant effect of change in the QCAE cognitive subscale on the amount of money students’ donated (β = 0.18, SE = 0.08, CI = [0.02, 0.34], p < 0.05; full model results reported in Table 3 ), such that students who had larger increases in cognitive empathy as assessed by the QCAE (0.5 sd above the mean) donated more money to charity ( Figure 1 ). There were no significant effects of QCAE affective subscale score, JSE scores, or gender on students’ donation amount ( Table 3 ). The VIFs for this model were all <2.00 ( Table 3 ), indicating minimal issues with multicollinearity ( Alin, 2010 ).

The relationship between change in cognitive empathy and donation behavior. Change in Questionnaire of Cognitive and Affective Empathy (QCAE) cognitive empathy positively predicts the amount of money medical students are willing to donate (β = 0.18, SE = 0.08, p < 0.05), such that students who demonstrate greater increases in cognitive empathy during the first three years of medical school, donate more money to charity.

Model effects from best fit model examining effects of changes in empathy components and gender on charitable donation amount

The model with no covariates, only primary predictors (change in QCAE Affective empathy, change in QCAE Cognitive empathy, change in JSE), demonstrated no significant effects on donation amount and had an adjusted R 2 = 0.001 ( Table 4 ). Adding gender to the model improved the model fit ( R 2 = 0.04; Table 3 ), and there was a significant effect of change in QCAE Cognitive scores on donation amount (β = 0.18, SE = 0.08, CI = [0.02, 0.34], p < 0.05). Adding age to the model did not improve model fit ( R 2 = −0.02; Table 5 ) and there were no significant effects of any of the predictor variables or age. Including both age and gender did not improve model fit beyond the model including only gender ( R 2 = 0.01; Table 6 ), and the effect of change in QCAE Cognitive Empathy was no longer significant but still trending (β = 0.16, SE = 0.09, CI = [−0.02, 0.35], p < 0.10)

Model effects from regression examining effects of changes in empathy components on charitable donation amount no covariates

Model effects from regression examining effects of changes in empathy components on charitable donation amount including age

Model effects from regression examining effects of changes in empathy components on charitable donation amount including age and gender

The current study takes advantage of a unique longitudinal data set, which includes measures of both empathy and prosocial behavior, to examine the relationship between longitudinal changes in both cognitive and affective empathy and charitable donation behavior in medical students. This work finds that changes in cognitive empathy during medical school influence students’ charitable giving, with students who demonstrate greater increases in cognitive empathy being more willing to give money to charity. This work adds to the growing literature suggesting that aspects of cognitive empathy, along with affective, may play an role in motivating charitable donations ( Marjanovic et al., 2012 ; Tusche et al., 2016 ). Additionally, this work provides evidence that long term changes in empathy over time have implications for individuals’ helping behaviors.

Our finding that cognitive empathy, but not affective, is associated with charitable giving, is in contrast to some previous work, which suggests that affective empathy predominantly predicts charitable giving ( Kim & Kou, 2014 ; Mesch et al., 2011 ; Ottoni Wilhelm & Bekkers, 2010 ). However, other recent work has found that cognitive and affective empathy act together to predict charitable donation behaviors ( Marjanovic et al., 2012 ; Tusche et al., 2016 ). Indeed, cognitive and affective components of empathy do not act in isolation, but rather collectively motivate prosociality ( Decety et al., 2017 ), making it important to continue examining them in parallel when attempting to understand how empathy, and changes in empathy, motivate charitable giving and other forms of prosocial behavior. It is also possible this finding stems from the specificity of the population and context being studied, which is in line with research suggesting that empathy’s involvement in certain prosocial behavior differs based on the population and context being studied ( Böckler et al., 2016 ; Lim & DeSteno, 2016 ; Mesch et al., 2011 ). Not only do medical students tend to be higher income and more highly educated than the general population, factors which influence the likelihood of charitable giving ( Yen, 2002 ), there is also evidence that medical students and physicians demonstrate higher levels of empathy than other populations ( Handford, Lemon, Grimm, & Vollmer-Conna, 2013 ). It is possible that in populations with high empathy, cognitive empathy may be more susceptible to long term changes due to exposure to certain types of experience, and may be more important to motivating specific types of prosocial behaviors. Indeed, in the current population, we previously found that cognitive aspects of empathy on average demonstrated positive change while affective aspects remained stable ( Smith et al., 2017 ).

Additionally, this study provides an initial step in linking empathy changes in medical school to medical students’ behaviors. Empathy changes during medical school have been the target of a wealth of recent research, that finds somewhat conflicting results ( Neumann et al., 2011 ) with some work finding decreases in students’ empathy ( Hojat et al., 2004 , 2009 ) and some finding increases or no change ( Costa, Magalhães, & Costa, 2013 ; Ferreira-Valente et al., 2016 ; Smith et al., 2017 ). Generally, this work assumes that the observed changes in empathy have implications for medical students’ patient directed behaviors ( Hojat et al., 2009 ; Neumann et al., 2011 ), yet this has not been directly tested ( Chen et al., 2010 ; Handford et al., 2013 ). The current study takes an initial step in addressing this gap, finding that observed changes in cognitive empathy during medical school influence students’ charitable giving, with students who demonstrate greater increases in cognitive empathy being more willing to give money to charity. This is especially important, as it is medical students’ cognitive empathy that has previously been demonstrated to exhibited the most pronounced positive change during medical school ( Smith et al., 2017 ).

One limitation of the current study is that it only examined students’ charitable donation behavior at the end of the study time period, meaning we cannot assess how students’ willingness to give to others changes over medical school and if any changes parallel those observed in cognitive components of empathy. It is possible that students who are more susceptible to changes in empathy are more willing to donate to others. However, when donation behavior was included as the predictor of empathy (cognitive and affective QCAE, and JSE), there were no significant relationships (see Table 7 ), which is consistent with the argument that it is changes in empathy that influence donation behaviors. Additionally, we chose to only collect charitable giving behavior at the end of the study as assessing donation behavior at multiple time points makes it difficult to determine whether any changes are due to changes in students’ generosity or due to their previous giving behavior (i.e. students who already gave money may be less likely to give money again). This study is also somewhat limited by the fact that it utilized such a specific population, and the observed effects may not generalize to other populations. However, the advantage of using this population, was that we were able to examine changes over an extended period of time. Future work should continue to explore the relationships between longitudinal empathy changes and prosocial behavior across a range of contexts, to better understand how empathy influences behavior.

Donation amount as a predictor of empathy changes

Note: Donation amount is not a significant predictor of changes during the first three years of medical school in any of the empathy measures.

This work provides initial evidence of a relationship between long term changes in empathy and individuals’ prosocial behaviors, and indicates a need for more research examining how different aspects of empathy contribute to prosocial behaviors in different populations and contexts. Additionally, this work indicates that cognitive empathy, along with affective empathy, plays an important role in certain prosocial behaviors, indicating a need for future work that incorporates measures of both cognitive and affective empathy, rather than focusing primarily on affective components. Given the continued debate about the role of empathy in prosocial behaviors ( Chierchia & Singer, 2017 ; Zahavi & Rochat, 2015 ), future work should continue to examine the subtleties of the relationships between cognitive and affective components of empathy in prosocial behaviors, as well as explore how changes in empathy in other contexts relates to individual differences in prosocial behaviors, and examine whether these relationships are congruent across different populations and contexts.

Acknowledgements:

Funding Details: This work was supported by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation (The Science of Philanthropy Initiative and Wisdom Research at the University of Chicago); the National Institutes of Health under Grant R01MH087525 and R01MH084934; and National Institute of Mental Health of the National Institutes of Health Award Number T32MH018931.

Declarations of Interest: The authors have no conflicts of interest to report.

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