Empathy and Social Support Provision in Couples: Social Support and the Need to Study the Underlying Processes

Abstract

Social support researchers and clinicians have repeatedly expressed the need to identify the antecedents of social support provision within close relationships. The aim of the present study is to investigate the extent to which individual differences in cognitive empathy (perspective taking) and affective empathy (empathic concern and personal distress) are predictive of social support provision in couples. Study 1 involved 83 female participants in a relatively young relationship; Study 2 involved 128 married couples. The authors used self-report measures in both studies to assess individual differences in empathy and participants' support provision behaviors. The main findings suggest a significant contribution of the different components of empathy with rather different pictures for each of these components. The authors discuss the present findings in light of existing theory and research on social support in relationships.

On the Role of Empathy in Customer-Employee Interactions

“…From an extensive literature review and in line with more recent studies on the empathy phenomenon (e.g., Devoldre et al 2010;Giacobbe et al 2006;Mencl and May 2009), we understand empathy to be the ability to sense and share another's thoughts, feelings, and experiences and to react to the observed experiences of another person. Therefore, we posit that empathy involves a cognitive dimension, namely, perspective-taking, and two emotional dimensions, namely, emotional contagion and empathic concern.…”

“…Emphasizing a cognitive view, several scholars refer to empathy as a person's intellectual understanding of the internal state of another person (Hogan 1969;Lamont and Lundstrom 1977;Pilling and Eroglu 1994), and describe cognitive efforts to recognize and understand someone else's mind and thoughts as ''perspective-taking'' (Barrett-Lennard 1981;Bernstein and Davis 1982;Dymond 1949). Perspective-taking enables an individual to understand the role or point of view of another person, to anticipate the reactions of the other, and to address the other's perceived needs, motivations, or opinions (Devoldre et al 2010).…”

The Role of Empathy in Dealing with the Complexity and Uncertainty within the Educational Field: Meaningful Learning at the “Museum Adventure” Course

“…Despite various meanings and uses of the term empathy [31], there seems to be a consensus that empathy involves seeing the world from another's perspective [32] as well as identifying and understanding another's state and emotions [33]. That is, empathy is a way of being with another person in order to enter his/her world without prejudice [34].…”

“…That is, empathy is a way of being with another person in order to enter his/her world without prejudice [34]. Empathy is a multidimensional concept that encompasses both afective and cognitive elements [31], together with awareness and behavioral dispositions. The afective dimension stresses the emotional response of the individuals when they identify an emotional experience in the other person, while the cognitive dimension focuses on their understanding of the other person's, afective, cognitive, or behavioral internal state [35][36][37].…”

The Impact of Service Quality Dimensions on Patient Satisfaction in the Private Healthcare Industry in Pakistan

“…The perspective of cognitive about empathy, also report as "perspective taking", is the understanding of another person's direction at a cognitive level [41]. Perspective taking allows a person to cognitively gauge the situation from another person's point of view and assume their needs and motivations [42]. The emotive view of empathy is described as an emotional impression that increments the understanding of another person's perception [43].…”