Empathic creativity: can trait empathy predict creative concept generation and selection?

Abstract

Over the past decade, engineering design research has seen a significant surge of the discussion of empathy. As such, design researchers have been devoted in devising and assessing empathic design activities. While prior research has examined the utility of empathic design experiences on driving creative concept generation, little is known about the role of a designer's empathic tendencies in driving creative concept generation and selection in an engineering design project. Without this knowledge, we cannot be sure if, when, or how empathy influences the design process. Thus, the main goal of this paper was to identify the role of trait empathy in creative concept generation and selection in an engineering design student project. In order to achieve this objective, a study was conducted with 103 first-year engineering students during two design stages of an 8-week design project (concept generation and concept selection). The main findings from this paper highlighted that empathic concern tendencies positively impacted the generation of more ideas while personal distress tendencies negatively impacted the generation of more ideas. During concept selection, perspective-taking tendencies positively impacted participants’ propensity for selecting elegant ideas. This research took the first step in encouraging empirical investigations aimed at understanding the role of trait empathy across different stages of the design process.

A Literature Review to Explore a Relationship: Empathy and Empathy and Mindfulness in Design Education

“…Empathy plays an integral role during concept generation and selection because students have to be constantly negotiating not just technical requirements and constraints but also consider the affective responses individuals and communities may have towards their design. As such, students who tend to show empathic concern (emotional response through compassion and concern) can generate more ideas during concept generation (Alzayed et al, 2021;Stocks et al, 2011).…”

Efficacy of Humanities-Driven Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Curriculum on Integrating Empathy into Technology Design

“…Jaycox, et al [14] explicitly discusses the implementation of this pedagogy for empathy integration within courses for ethical reasoning and engineering design. Alsager Alzayed, et al [15] discusses empathetic creativity and the institution of empathy within design generation. Huerta, et al [16] discusses a mindfulness training program for first-year engineering students for the development of intrapersonal and interpersonal competencies.…”