Sarah Konrath, lead author of a new study that shows young people have
less empathy and compassion than before, discusses how in the connected
internet era, emotional connections appear to be fading.
The
University of Michigan test
Changes in Dispositional Empathy in American College Students Over Time:
A Meta-Analysis
Personality and Social Psychology Review
Sara H. Konrath, Edward H. O'Brien, Courtney Hsing
"The current study examines changes over time in a commonly used measure
of dispositional empathy. A cross-temporal meta-analysis was conducted
on 72 samples of American college students who completed at least one of
the four subscales (Empathic Concern, Perspective Taking, Fantasy, and
Personal Distress) of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) between
1979 and 2009"
2010-12-29 -Who
Cares? Not College Students: Study Finds Co-ed Empathy Decreasing
- Time
If you're wondering why you never hear about student protests these
days, this might be the answer. New research shows that the empathy
levels of college students has dramatically declined over the past 30
years.
2010-12-29 -
Is Less Reading Making Americans Less Empathetic?
Scientists have long considered empathy an inherent
trait, with infants barely a year old offering assistance and sharing
their resources during lab tests. But a decline in empathy proves that
even inborn tendencies can be profoundly impacted by social situations.
The question now is what those empathy-depleting social situations are.
2011-01-19 - What, Me Care? A recent study finds a
decline in empathy among young people in the U.S.
Empathy is a cornerstone of human behavior and has long
been considered innate. A forthcoming study, however, challenges this
assumption by demonstrating that empathy levels have been declining over
the past 30 years.
2010-06-06 -Psychologyy Today:
Is The "Me Generation" Less Empathetic?
Is Generation Y--or the "millennials," as they are often
referred to--less empathetic, and more self-centered than previous
generations? Or is our society in general more self-centered and less
empathetic?
2010-06-25 -
NY Times: From Students, Less Kindness for Strangers?
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/27/fashion/27StudiedEmpathy.html
Vindication for crotchety Gen-Xers — already depressed to find themselves the
elders in this social relationship — arrived in a paper presented in May at the
annual meeting of the Association for Psychological Science in Boston. “Changes
in Dispositional Empathy in American College Students Over Time: A
Meta-Analysis,” by Sara Konrath, a researcher at the
University of Michigan, found that college students today are 40 percent
less empathetic than those of 30 years ago, with the numbers plunging primarily
after 2000. Previous studies have tussled over how to define empathy. Is
it a cognitive mechanism through which we imagine how another person feels? A
manifestation of sympathy? Do we empathize with others purely to reduce our own
levels of stress?
2010-11-24 - Inside Higher Ed -
Empathizing 101
Are you often quite touched by things you
see happen? Do you try to look at everybody’s side of a disagreement
before you make a decision? When you see people being taken advantage
of, do you feel protective of them? If you are a college student or recent graduate, you are
more likely to answer “no” to the above questions, which are excerpts
from a
University of Michigan test designed to measure the presence of
empathy in people of different ages. What they found was disconcerting:
College students today are 40 percent less empathetic than those who
graduated two or three decades ago.
2010-12-18 -
The Decline of Empathy: How You Can Help
Here are a few tips for teaching empathy taken from the website
Parenting Science. They are evidenced
based tools to help teach empathy in children. Try them out with your
own kids--or adapt them and try them out with your husbands, wife's,
partners, and friends. You could make the world a little more friendly.
College Students Are Less Empathic Than Generations Past Scientific American - May 29, 2010
Research presented at the conference of the Association for Psychological
Science found that today's college students are far less empathic than their
...
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,593832,00.html
Empathy is one of the most valuable
psychologicalresources we have. It allows us to
resonate with and respond to the suffering of others. It also allows us to care
deeply about the fates of those we love, including our spouses and
children. When empathy is
destroyed, people are free (in a terrible way) not only to ignore the needs of
others, but to perpetrate emotional or physical violence upon them
Empathy Died? | Socyberty
Fox News recently reported a study done by The University
of Michigan. 14000 college students were involved in the empathy focused
study.
University of Michigan study: Generation Me-dia lacks empathy
Obviously, such findings don't apply across the board. This
generation, like all before it, can count people of extraordinary moral
character among its numbers. But, in general, the findings do ring true. Not
just college kids, but society in general seems a little nastier than it once
was. But is is interesting that a scientific study has actually quantified the
change. And, yes, I am one of those people who think the media bears a large
part of the blame.
