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Culture of Empathy Builder:  Hunter Gehlbach

http://j.mp/11eu6hi

Hunter Gehlbach and Edwin Rutsch: How to Build a Culture of Empathy in Education

Hunter Gehlbach is Associate Professor of Education at Harvard Graduate School of Education. He is an educational psychologist who brings social psychological principles to bear on educational challenges. His research focuses on improving educational settings through enhancing the social interactions of teachers and students. His specific interests within social psychology focus on social perspective taking – how people discern the thoughts and feelings of others within the classroom.

Hunter says, "Education is a fundamentally social act. Almost all classroom learning (and much of the learning that occurs outside of schools) involves social interaction – even reading entails communication between author and reader. Our lab group’s research strives to enhance these social interactions. Primarily through bringing social psychological principles to bear on educational problems, we aim to impact students’ (and teachers’) learning, motivation, behavior, and psychological well-being.

 

Our group focuses particularly on social perspective taking – the capacity to figure out the thoughts, feelings, and motivations of others – which we view as the core aptitude that people employ to navigate their social world. By helping teachers and students improve their social perspective taking and better understand where each other are coming from, we aspire to improve the classroom experience for both students and teachers."

Sub Conferences: Education and Science


 

 

Hunter Gehlbach and Edwin Rutsch: How to Build a Culture of Empathy in Education

 

Transcripts

(Video Transcriptions: If you would like to take empathic action and create a transcription of this video, check the volunteers page.  The transcriptions will make it easier for other viewers to quickly see the content of this video.)



 

Social Aspects of Immersive Learning
"Understanding and fostering positive relationships with others – particularly those who hold divergent points of view from our own – has often thought to be enhanced by the ability to “walk a mile in someone else’s shoes.” Yet, a literal interpretation of this advice seems impractical and unhelpful. Thus, we are left to wonder whether “walking a mile in someone else’s moccasins” will truly benefit one’s relationships and, if so, why these benefits might occur."

 

Social perspective taking: A multidimensional approach
"Understanding the thoughts, feelings, and motivations of other people – social perspective taking – plays an important role in the classroom experience. It supports the development of social skills and academic learning. Previous research on social perspective taking has focused on either ability or motivation to take on board another person's perspective. According to HGSE assistant professor Hunter Gehlbach, a more realistic approach combines ability and motivation with other factors such as the classroom environment. After years of work with students and teachers, Gehlbach is extending his research to examine the ways "experts" – such as trial lawyers and police detectives – carry out perspective taking. In an exclusive feature, Gehlbach invites Usable Knowledge readers to test their own perspective taking abilities."

 

Gehlbach, H. (2004). A new perspective on perspective taking: A multidimensional approach to conceptualizing an aptitude. Educational Psychology Review, 16(3), 207-234. doi: 10.1023/b:edpr.0000034021.12899.11
"Social perspective taking (SPT) is thought to be important in its own right and is often associated with other important skills, such as interpersonal conflict resolution. Previous research on SPT, however, has conceptualized it as a unidimensional construct leaving scholars with an insufficient understanding of this aptitude and how it relates to valued educational outcomes. To best understand SPT, a multidimensional approach should include assessments of personal characteristics (including the propensity and the ability to engage in SPT) and features of the situation (including features of the SPT task and the larger context). Using Richard Snow's conceptualization of aptitudes as a framework, this article illustrates the problems with treating SPT as a unidimensional construct, defines SPT as a complex aptitude, and provides a taxonomy of SPT to promote understanding and to guide future research in this area. The taxonomy organizes and reviews the existing literature that relates personal and situational characteristics to SPT aptitude. Where research has not yet been conducted, this article hypothesizes how these characteristics might relate to SPT aptitude."


Gehlbach, H., & Brinkworth, M. E. (2012). The social perspective taking process: Strategies and sources of evidence in taking another’s perspective. Teachers College Record, 114(1), 226-254.

"Background/Context: Research indicates that social perspective taking--the capacity to discern the thoughts and feelings of others--plays a role in many important outcomes in schools. Despite the potential benefits for students and educators, little is known about social perspective taking (SPT) as a process.

Purpose/Research Question: If educational researchers are ultimately to design interventions to help improve the perspective-taking capacities of those in schools, they need to fully understand the underlying process, that is, how social perspective taking actually happens. Particularly important is the need to understand what strategies individuals use and what sources of evidence they draw from when they take the perspective of others.

Participants: To investigate this question, a sample of 18 adults from an array of different professions (who were nominated as adept perspective takers) and 13 high school students (who were nominated as struggling with social perspective taking) participated in the study. Research Design: Participants completed in-depth interviews and a "think-aloud" protocol as part of this mixed-method exploratory study. The interviews and think-alouds were coded for the type of social perspective taking that strategy participants employed and for the sources of evidence they relied on, respectively. Findings: Results indicated that participants relied on 12 different types of SPT strategies and drew from seven different sources of evidence when discerning others' thoughts and feelings

Conclusions/Recommendations: These findings provide foundational knowledge that lays groundwork for ultimately developing approaches to teach social perspective taking. At a practical level, these findings provide options for students and educators to experiment with as they attempt to take the perspective of one another."


Gehlbach, H., Brinkworth, M. E., & Wang, M.-T. (2012). The social perspective taking process: What motivates individuals to take another’s perspective? Teachers College Record, 114(1), 197-225.

"Background/Context: A growing literature describes multiple benefits of social perspective taking--many of which are particularly important for schools. Despite these potential benefits for administrators, counselors, teachers, and students, little is known about social perspective taking as a process.

 Purpose/Research Question: If educational researchers are ultimately to design interventions to help improve the perspective-taking capacities of those in schools, they need to fully understand the underlying process. Particularly important is the need to understand: What initially motivates individuals to take the perspective of others?

Participants: To investigate this question, a sample of 18 adults from an array of different professions (who were nominated as adept perspective takers) and 13 high school students (who were nominated as struggling with social perspective taking) participated in the study. Research Design: Participants completed a survey, a performance task, and in-depth interviews as part of this mixed-method exploratory study. The interviews served as the primary source of data and were coded for evidence of what triggered (or inhibited) participants' motivation to engage in the social perspective-taking process. Findings: The interview data established the existence of 13 specific factors that impacted participants' motivation to engage in social perspective taking across a wide array of contexts. Seven factors generally enhanced individuals' motivation to engage in social perspective taking; three factors were mixed; and three factors inhibited their motivation.

Conclusions/Recommendations: This research indicates that not only might individuals be motivated to engage in social perspective taking through multiple pathways, but these pathways might be combined and/or interact with one another. These motivating factors raise important issues for further research. In addition, at a practical level, they provide a foundation for developing structures to motivate individuals in schools to engage in perspective taking more often."


Gehlbach, H., & Brinkworth, M. E. (2008). Motivated thinkers and the mistakes they make: The goals underlying social cognitions and their consequences for achievement. In M. L. Maehr, S. Karabenick & T. Urdan (Eds.), Advances in motivation and achievement: Social psychological perspectives. (Vol. 15, pp. 119-144). Bingley, UK: Emerald.


Gehlbach, H., Young, L. V., & Roan, L. (2012). Teaching social perspective taking: How educators might learn from the Army. Educational Psychology, 32(3), 295-309. doi: 10.1080/01443410.2011.652807

"Frequently and accurately discerning others’ thoughts and feelings is associated with
multiple valued educational outcomes across an array of settings. Despite its foundational role in
social interactions, it is unclear whether individuals can be taught to improve their social
perspective taking capacities. This experiment assesses whether a curriculum taught to U.S.
Army personnel (N = 116) improved their social perspective taking prior to deployment. Results
showed that participants improved their ability to detect biases in others, generate more initial
hypotheses to explain others’ behaviors, and adapt their hypotheses in the face of new evidence.
The curriculum did not affect participants’ perspective taking accuracy on a video measure. We
discuss these findings with respect to their implications for different learning environments. "