Empathic Features and Absorption in Fantasy Role-Playing

Abstract

This study examined the levels of empathy and absorption of individuals who regularly play fantasy and science fiction role-playing games. A hypothesis was developed that higher levels of empathy would be found in individuals who fantasy role-play based upon previous research in hypnosis such as J. R. Hilgard's (1970) imaginative involvement hypothesis, research into the "fantasy prone" personality type (Wilson & Barber, 1981), and the empathic involvement hypothesis (Wickramasekera II & Szlyk, 2003). The participants in the current study were 127 fantasy role-players who volunteered and completed the Davis Interpersonal Reactivity Index (empathy) and the Tellegen Absorption Scale (absorption). The results demonstrated that those who play fantasy role-playing games scored significantly higher than the comparison group on the IRI scale of empathy, confirming the hypothesis that fantasy role-players report experiencing higher levels of empathic involvement with others. Correlational analysis between the measures demonstrated a significant positive correlation between empathy and absorption (r = .43, p < .001). These results collectively suggest that fantasy role-players have a uniquely empathically-imaginative style. The results also confirm and extend previous findings on the relationship between empathy and absorption as predicted by the Empathic Involvement Hypothesis (Wickramasekera II & Szlyk, 2003).

Effects of environmental education on environmental ethics and literacy based on virtual reality technology

“…Yahaya et al (2015) indicated that environmental education activities could induce the perception and sensitivity to environment, enhance the knowledge related to environmental sustainability, provide people with correct environmental ethics about the interaction between people and environment and present the cognition and skills to improve or solve environmental problems when facing regional or global environmental issues to establish learners' environmental action experience and to become the citizens with environmental literacy (Yahaya et al, 2015). Rivers et al (2016) mentioned to cultivate people's positive environmental ethics through the teaching and emphasis on environmental education so that people could appreciate the nature and the operation system, enhance the environmental literacy, appreciate and accept different culture, concern about disadvantaged groups and further concern about the survival and development of future generation (Rivers et al, 2016). Hsu and Wu (2016) proposed that environmental education could be applied to cultivate the citizens' environmental ethics, to enhance the knowledge, attitudes, skills and value to protect the environment, and to promote the environmental literacy; to enhance the emphasis on environment, and to take actions to achieve the sustainable development (Hsu and Wu, 2016).…”

How Does the Optimism of Students Learning a Foreign Language Affect Their Creative Self-Efficacy? The Mediating Effects of Hope and Empathy

“…For example, teachers could provide students with more group-based tasks, such as working together on creative writing and cultural presentations, as a way to promote interactive communication and cooperation, to cultivate their awareness of listening to, understanding, and assimilating the perspectives of others, and to enhance their interest in foreign cultures, thereby enhancing their creativity in FLs. Moreover, given that the conception of persona (i.e., using a persona during ideation) can raise empathy levels ( Miaskiewicz and Kozar, 2011 ), teachers should give students more opportunities to role-play in FL classes because doing so helps to promote the development of empathy skills ( Rivers et al, 2016 ).…”

Perception and aggressive ideation: A microgenetic approach.

“…Conceivably, this is due to the fact that such empathetic distress (Kesner & Horáček, 2017, p. 12) is blocked in these individuals suffering from mental disorders. Yet, this does not mesh with the fact that this particular group, having a history of aggression, was found in this study to score high on trait absorption (see also Rosen et al, 2017), given that absorption and empathy are positively correlated (Rivers et al, 2016;Scacchia & De Pascalis, 2020;Wickramasekera, 2007). Hence, a plausible alternative is that our microgenetic procedure inherently disrupts the development of such an empathetic process.…”