Measuring Intercultural Empathy To Combat Intergroup Bias
Author(s):
Hugo González González (presenting / submitting) José Luis Álvarez Castillo (presenting) Clara Chacón Muñoz Gemma Fernández Caminero
Conference:
ECER 2016
Network:
09. Assessment, Evaluation, Testing and Measurement
Format:
Paper

Session Information

09 SES 11 C, Methodological Issues in Tests and Assessments

Paper Session

Time:
2016-08-25
17:15-18:45
Room:
NM-F107
Chair:
Jan-Eric Gustafsson

Contribution

The empathy has been defined by Hoffman (1975, 1981, 1982, 1983) and Strayer & Eisenberg (1987) as the affective experience of other person' s feelings. The research and practice connected to the use of empathic strategies in multicultural educational settings is emerging as one of the most effective ways to combat intergroup bias.

In spite of the huge variety of approaches, a certain degree of consensus has been achieved in relation to the determination of some behavioral correlate of the empathy. In recent years, its importance in relation to the pro-social attitude of people has been highlighted (Belacchi y Farina, 2012; Butrus & Witenberg, 2013; Hodges,Clark & Myers, 2011; Shen, Carlo & Knight, 2013; Welp & Brown, 2014), as well as its role played in social conflicts (Barnett y Mann, 2013; Sanmartín, Carbonell y Banos, 2011; Zembylas, 2013). In a review concerning the different studies about this issue, Eisenberg (2000) considers the relevance of the empathy in the moral development, understood as an emotional response that comes from the comprehension of the other person’s situation, with the effect of experiencing the other person’s similar feelings. Therefore, the empathic response includes the capacity to understand the other person and to put oneself in the other person’s shoes, using observation, verbal information or other type of information approachable from the memory (perspective taking), by covering the affective reaction produced when an emotional condition is shared. This can generate sadness, discomfort or anxiety. Empathy, understood in this way, would play a central role in the pro-social attitude of people (Eisenberg, 2000).

If we go beyond and also consider the link between empathy and prejudice, social exclusion and intergroup explicit and implicit attitudes (Albiero & Matricardi, 2013; Li, Mai & Liu, 2014; Shih, Stotzer, & Gutierrez, 2013; Shi, Trahan, Wang & Stotzer, 2009), we will understand better the reasoning used to stand up for the research and practice related to the use of empathic strategies in multicultural educational environments (Belacchi y Farina, 2012; Numata, 2013) as well as the use of different programmes of intercultural education with the goal of increasing the empathy (Peek & Park, 2013; Todd, Bodenhausen & Galinsky, 2012). In conclusion, the empathy is a key concept in the establishment of social relationships. This is why it is perceived as an educational need in the intercultural contexts of our schools and society.

Although the empathy has been the object of study of numerous studies from different perspectives, when it is analyzed from a cultural or ethnic approach, we find that this field of research is barely investigated (Green, 1998; Lawrence & Luis, 2001; Rasoal, Eklund, Hansen, 2011). Here, the construct has not been labelled or operationalized in the same way.

Perhaps Ridley and Lingle (1996) are the first researchers who used and defined the concept of cultural empathy. This construct would exceed the concept of general empathy, including comprehension and the acceptance of the other person’s culture.

Wang et al. (2003), who are aware of the importance of the cultural and ethnic components, developed the concept of ethnocultural empathy, which is similar to cultural empathy. This concept is also related to the concepts of cultural competence and cross-cultural empathy (Dyche y Zayas, 2001; Green, 1998; Wang et al., 2003). Wang and his colleagues understood the ethnocultural empathy as the empathy expressed towards members of cultural, ethnic or racial groups which are different from one's own. Advances in this kind of empathy would involve the reduction of intolerance, discrimination and conflicts, and, at the same time, understanding and mutual respect would progress, regardless the cultural or ethnic membership.

Method

The survey-based research included two samples; the first one was used to implement an exploratory study and the second sample to implement a confirmatory one. 821 university students of education degrees participated in both studies. The samples, both exploratory and confirmatory, belonged on a similar average to the provinces of Córdoba (48.3%) and Burgos (51.7%). The two cities were chosen because they represented different cultural contexts and they have an unequal representation of the Moroccan population, what can make a difference in intercultural empathy. The first sample, which is pilot, was used to test the index of discrimination of the items and to analyze the factorial structure of the instrument. It was composed of 250 students of education degrees from the Universities of Córdoba and Burgos. On the other hand, the sample of participants involved in the confirmatory study consisted of 571 people. The instrument was designed ad hoc according to the inferences derived from the theoretical frame and following the instructions by Zhou, Valiente & Eisenberg (2003) in their revision about the different methods used to assess empathy (see Batson, 1987). So, it was measured the evaluative component of the bias towards the members of a specific collective, who were identified by means of images which were presented on a computer screen. In the instrument, the students were asked, in the 20 items, to evaluate the degree in which several emotions were experimented by them, while they observed a photo on a computer. The images portrayed faces that were prototypical of the outgroup members (Moroccan immigrants). These 20 images were selected from the prototypical scoring that 4 judges gave to 100 photographs taken from a database of Moroccan immigrants´ faces. These photographs had been previously filtered to unify the format, that is, their size, colour, brightness and perspective. The judges were asked to give a distinctiveness score of the people shown in the photos in relation to the category "Moroccan" in a 5-point rating scale. The photos which did not achieve the total agreement of the 4 judges in the A level were rejected. The self-assessed emotions were five: being moved, sympathy, tenderness, affection and compassion (see Batson, 1991; Vescio, Sechrist and Paolucci, 2003). Each participant was shown four images for each one of the emotions asked to self-assess. Ratings of the emotional intensity experimented by the participant were made on 7-point Likert scales.

Expected Outcomes

By means of the exploratory factor analysis it was verified that, in relation to the structure, the model showed appropriate values. The saturation of items in the theoretical factors widely exceeded the threshold of .30. Besides, the discrimination indexes of the items (by means of the corrected item-total correlation, obtained with ViSta-CITA) and the estimated reliability of the factors (table 4) were of a high size. On the other hand, the correlation between factors (none of them reach .70) allows us to anticipate that the factor structure is adequate. After starting the confirmatory factor analysis on the data of the second sample, the indexes of modification showed the existence of covariance between errors associated to items belonging to different factors. This circumstance made the model to be reformulated, evolving from the 5 initial factors to only 3 (three of the initial factors were summarized in a more general one, "Empathic Concern"). Although the total variance explained by the factorial techniques was reduced to 74.84%, the reliability of each factor was kept beyond .80 and the validation of the model, by using structural analysis, turned out to be successful. Against other studies which try to validate a general instrument in a specific population and that they do not consider the specific idiosyncrasy of the context where these studies are applied, this research has validated a measure of intercultural empathy, specifically designed to evaluate this variable in the Spanish population in relation to a minority but relevant social group, as it is the Moroccan one (CIS, 2014). On this point, our results show a solid validity and reliability, and a clear factorial and hierarchic structure which have allowed us to gather dimensions that are very close together from a conceptual point of view.

References

Albiero, P. & Matricardi, G. (2013). Empathy towards people of different race and ethnicity: Further empirical evidence for the Scale of Ethnocultural Empathy.International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 37, 648-655. doi: http://dx.doi.org10.1016/j.ijintrel.2013.05.003 Barnett, G. & Mann, R. E. (2013). Empathy deficits and sexual offending: A model of obstacles to empathy. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 18, 228-239. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.avb.2012.11.010 Butrus, N. & Witenberg, R. T. (2013). Some Personality Predictors of Tolerance to Human Diversity: The Roles of Openness, Agreeableness, and Empathy. Australian Psychologist, 48, 290-298. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1742-9544.2012.00081.x Eisenberg, N. (2000). Emotion, Regulation, and Moral Development. Annual Review of Psychology, 51, 665-697. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.51.1.665 Hodges, S. D., Clark, B. A. M. & Myers, M. W. (2011). Better living through perspective taking. En Biswas-Diener (Ed.), Positive psychology as social change (pp. 193-218). New York, NY: Springer Science + Business Media; US. Hoffman, M. L. (1975). Developmental synthesis of affect and cognition and its implications for altruistic motivation. Developmental Psychology, 11, 607-622. Hoffman, M. L. (1981). The development of empathy. En J. P. R. y. R. M. S. (Eds.) (Ed.), Altruism and helping behavior social, personality and developmental perspectives. New Jersey: L.E.A. Hoffman, M. L. (1982). Development of prosocial motivation: Empathy and guilt. In N. E. (Ed.) (Ed.), The development of prosocial behavior. New York: Academic Press. Hoffman, M. L. (1983). Empathy, guilt and social cognition. In W. F. O. (Ed.) (Ed.), The relationship between social and cognitive development. London: L.E.A. Li, W., Mai, X. & Liu, C. (2014). The default mode network and social understanding of others: what do brain connectivity studies tell us. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 8, 1-15. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00074 Sanmartín, M. G., Carbonell, A. E. & Banos, C. P. (2011). Relationships among empathy, prosocial behavior, aggressiveness, self-efficacy and pupils' personal and social responsibility. Psicothema, 23, 13-19. Shen, Y. L., Carlo, G. & Knight, G. P. (2013). Relations between parental discipline, empathy-related traits, and prosocial moral reasoning: A multicultural examination. Journal of Early Adolescence, 33, 994-1021. Strayer, J. & Eisenberg, N. (1987). Empathy viewed in context. En N. Eisenberg & J. Strayer (Eds.), Empathy and its development (pp. 389–398). New York: Cambridge University Press. ... Welp, L. R. & Brown, C. M. (2014). Self-compassion, empathy, and helping intentions. Journal of Positive Psychology, 9, 54-65. Zembylas, M. (2013). The Emotional Complexities of "Our" and "Their" Loss:

Author Information

Hugo González González (presenting / submitting)
University of Cordoba, Spain
José Luis Álvarez Castillo (presenting)
University of Cordoba, Spain
Clara Chacón Muñoz
Manuel Reina Secundary School
Gemma Fernández Caminero
University of Cordoba, Spain

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