The fact that humans cooperate with nonkin is something we take for granted, but this is an anomaly in the animal kingdom. Our species' ability to behave prosocially may be based on human-unique psychological mechanisms. We argue here that these mechanisms include the ability to care about the welfare of others (other-regarding concerns), to "feel into" others (empathy), and to understand, adhe...

We draw upon past research on gender and prosocial emotions in hypothesizing that empathy can help explain the gender gap in charitable giving. In a nationally representative survey, we found that men reported less willingness to give money or volunteer time to a poverty relief organization, gaps that were mediated by men's lower reported feelings of empathy toward others. We also experimentall...

Aim Emotional intelligence (EI) is the ability to use emotions effectively and productively. It is becoming increasingly clear that these skills are one of the primary foundations for better performance of students in classrooms and in the society as well and EI provides the basis for competencies important "in almost every job." So we accessed the EI of teenagers as a guide of their academic s...

BACKGROUND Empathy is a crucial component of medicine. However, many studies that have used quantitative methods have revealed decline of learners' empathy during undergraduate and postgraduate medical education. We identified medical students' and residents' conceptual structures of empathy in medicine to examine possible differences between the groups in how they conceive empathy. METHODS W...

Empathic deficits have been linked to poor functioning in schizophrenia, but this work is mostly limited to self-report data. This study examined whether performance-based empathy measures account for incremental variance in social competence and social attainment above and beyond self-reported empathy, neurocognition, and clinical symptoms. Given the importance of working memory in theoretical...

CONTEXT Empathy towards patients is associated with improved health outcomes. However, quantitative studies using self-reported data have not provided an in-depth opportunity to explore the lived experiences of medical students concerning empathy. OBJECTIVES This study was designed to investigate undergraduate medical students' experiences of the phenomenon of empathy during the course of the...

Research on empathy in schizophrenia has relied on dated self-report scales that do not conform to contemporary social neuroscience models of empathy. The current study evaluated the structure and correlates of the recently-developed Questionnaire of Cognitive and Affective Empathy (QCAE) in schizophrenia. This measure, whose structure and validity was established in healthy individuals, includ...

Dehumanization is endemic in medical practice. This article discusses the psychology of dehumanization resulting from inherent features of medical settings, the doctor-patient relationship, and the deployment of routine clinical practices. First, we identify six major causes of dehumanization in medical settings (deindividuating practices, impaired patient agency, dissimilarity, mechanization, ...

OBJECTIVES The aim of this study was to investigate whether a patient's preference for a doctor's face is associated with better assessments of relational empathy in the patient-doctor relationship after the first clinical consultation. METHODS A total of 110 patients enrolled in a traditional Korean medical clinic participated in the study. Patients' preference for doctors' faces was assesse...