Empathy Case - Emotions

Abstract:

Emotions are a fundamental part of every-day life. But do certain emotions expressed differently or felt stronger in different genders? There is little pervious literate regarding how emotions effects sexes differently. This paper will try and address this gap and find out if males and females react differently to the emotion of empathy? This paper uses qualitative techniques to address the emotion of empathy. A focus group consisting of four first undergraduate psychology students was carried out to highlight the underlining themes of empathy, such as, factors that influence the empathy, and who we feel empathy towards. The transcript was then critically evaluated to find out, do males and females react differently to the emotion of empathy? The results show that both males and females experience empathy, however they act on it differently.

Introduction:

Empathy is an emotional response when a person identifies with and understands another's situation or feelings. Cannon-Bard theory of emotion explains what happens when are emotions turn to empathy. When we are in a situation when we feel empathic, we 'react to a specific stimulus and experience the corresponding emotion simultaneously'. For example, if an individual hears news of a friend's bereavement, they feel emotional empathic. As they are now in the emotional state of empathy, this changes their reaction to towards the friend. Instead of acting as they normally would, they may be more forgiving and understanding because they feel need to change their behaviour due to the circumstances. In future when this person hears of another bereavement, they will experience the same emotions but will be familiar with them.

Another theory that addresses empathy is Schachter-Singer theory two-factor theory of emotion. This theory states that human emotion has two factors: physiological arousal and cognition (a conscious understanding of that arousal). The emotion of empathy agrees with this theory. For example, a friend has a family bereavement. The physiological arousal is the news of a friend's bereavement. This is a big event and has caused a permanent change, making you aware of that arousal. The emotion of empathy happens because it is culturally expected that you should feel sympathetic towards the friend.

A qualitative approach was taken during this research. The reason for this is because it fits the style of the investigation. Qualitative techniques will allow a better understanding of the participant's attitudes, feelings, and experiences. It is very hard to measure how emphatic a person is. Quantitative research methods would be time consuming and meaningless as the results would be inaccurate and the results and tables would not be logical in this style of research. To carry out this research, focus groups will be organised where a research will ask the group to answer and discuss a variety of questions designed to draw out there feelings of empathy. The results will then be analysed and a conclusions drawn up.

Research aims:

This is a relatively new piece of research. After reading past literate on theories of emotion, are group established a gap in the field. Prior to this research, there was little investigation into differences in emotion between the genders. Through interviewing focus groups we want to find out:

- Who do we feel empathy towards and why?

- Do males and females react differently to the emotion of empathy?

Method:

Approach:

The approach used in this experiment was to use qualitative methods. Qualitative research allows its self for this experiment as there is no accurate measure of empathy. Therefore a focus group was organised, where the participants were asked a number of questions and their views and discussions were recorded. This allowed are group to analysis and draw up conclusions on the discussion that was recorded.

Participants:

The four participants that were involved in the focus group were 1st year undergraduate psychology students and gave their consent to their involvement in the focus group. Each participant has dealt with and understood a range of motions. This is important as they will need to relate to a time when they have felt empathy, to provided valid answers in the focus group.

- The participants where aged between 18 - 21

- There were two males and two females

Materials:

The materials used to carry out this experiment where; a dictaphone and the researchers questions. The dictaphone allows the focus group conversation to be recorded in its entirety which enables the researcher to make a written transcribe, and is a permanent reference. The researcher questions are

Procedure:

As a group we identified questions that should be asked to the focus group. The nature of these questions where very important as they needed to ensure the participants would give relative answers, focusing on their taught of empathy. When we had decided