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Empathy training programs have been developed for a diversity of groups including: high school and college students (Hatcher
et al., 1994), medical students (Patore, 1995), nursing staff (Herbek
& Yammarion, 1990), and parents (Brems, Baldwin, & Baxter,
1993). However, the authors are aware of no published programs
that have a sole focus on an increased expression of empathy with
a romantic partner. While numerous marital and premarital programs are available that focus on active listening, communication,
and conflict resolution skills, no other programs are designed
solely to increase partner empathy. For example, the Relationship
Enhancement Program (Guemey, 1988) has one component of the
30-hour training that addresses the skill of empathy. However, the
stated purpose of the nine-step program is to promote the values of
honesty, compassion, and equity in order to improve family relationships, not increase family empathy. Given the empirical support for the importance of empathy, and the lack of other empathy
training programs designed for couples in romantic relationships,
the senior author developed an empathy training program (Long,
1995). The purpose of the present study was to provide empathy
instruction to a volunteer group of couples involved in romantic relationships and then assess the effectiveness of that instruction at
the conclusion of and six months following the training.
With all of the participants, every effort was made to encourage active participation in the training process. Although couples
were not expected to disclose private information about their relationships while meeting with the group, they were expected to
complete the homework and discuss issues privately with their
partners. Each of the five, two-hour sessions included a brief lecture about a component of empathy, along with the opportunity
for a large group discussion of the material. Then couples were
given an opportunity to discuss the expression of that component
of empathy privately, within the context of their own relationships. After Session One, each subsequent session began with a
rehearsal of the most salient points from the previous meeting to
maintain continuity from week to week.
Session One
During Session One, participants were provided with an
overview of the five-week training, and were asked to complete
informed consent forms. An operational definition of empathy
was given to each of the individuals. Empathy was defined as: (a)
an accurate understanding of the situation of a partner, putting
*An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of The National Council on Family Relations in Washington, D.C., 1997. We gratefully acknowledge
the valuable contributions of Dr. Phame Camarena who read an earlier version of this paper.
Key Words: dyadic perspective taking, empathy, marital and premarital enrichment, relationship enhancement programs, relationship satisfaction.
Vol.
1999,
48,
No.
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3235
group then brainstormed a list of personal characteristics of individuals they knew who were very empathic. For homework, cou-
Session Two
porarily putting one's own point of view aside. Couples were asked
describe people they had noticed during the previous week who
had demonstrated very high or low levels of empathy. The con-
were provided with a copy of the seven items from the Emotional
Sensitivity Scale (Riggio, 1989) as a way of illustrating empathic
sensitivity.
To help participants think about their own empathic sensitivity, the group was shown a video of a couple discussing a relation-
partner. An important part of the present program was understanding those factors that would encourage the expression of empathy
within the context of a specific relationship. Previous research indicated that people may have the ability to be empathic, but fail to
be empathic within the context of a specific relationship (Long &
Andrews, 1990). Davis and Franzoi (1991) differentiate between
the capacity and the tendency to be empathic. A capacity refers to
one's ability to be empathic; however, a tendency refers to the
likelihood of being empathic with another. One can have a capacity
that is not likely to be expressed within the context of a specific
relationship. Throughout the entire empathy training, individuals
were asked to think about those situations that would increase the
empathic listening with their partners happen in a satisfactory manner and then communicate that information with their partners.
(0) or difficult (6) it would be to discuss each issue with their partners. During empathy assignments, couples were encouraged to
only discuss issues that were on both partners' lists, and those that
were not too negatively charged with emotion, since they were
learning new skills.
Session Three
Session Three began with a brief talk about gender differences
in communication (Tannen, 1990). Tannen argues that women typi-
cally use language to get close to people and join; thus, communi-
uals were asked to write down a list of those situations where they
would be the most and the least likely to be empathetically sensitive with their partners. Couples were then given private time
with each other to discuss this information. The facilitators were
236
of dominating others and pushing them around. For males, communication is often used to protect oneself from others. Several
scholars indicate that gender differences in communication patterns give rise to the pursuer/withdrawal pattern (Gottman, 1994;
Markman, Stanley, & Blumberg, 1994; Notarius, & Markman,
1993). Though this pattern does not always hold true, men are
more likely to withdraw from the discussion of relationship issues,
Family
Relations
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tionship issues had not been made. The sole purpose of the program
mate relationships.
ples, this sole focus upon empathy without any attempt to solve
person adopting the role of the speaker while the partner listens
and then paraphrases the content and feelings of the speaker.
Then, individuals change roles. The facilitators presented a video
demonstration of the speaker/listener technique and a couple
trained to use this process modeled the successful use of the technique. Finally, couples were given time with their partners to
practice the technique. After couples had practiced the speaker/
listener skills, they were asked to evaluate this process and determine whether or not partners were feeling understood. Any questions couples had were discussed and answered within the large
group setting. At the end of this session, a homework assignment
was given to couples to select a minor relationship issue and practice the speaker/listener skill twice during the upcoming week.
Session Four
At the beginning of Session Four, the facilitators introduced
the idea of empathy checking, which is an attempt to assess the
question posed to the speaker was, "To what degree was the listener's paraphrase an accurate understanding of the message
sent?" If the listener could communicate the message so that the
sion, once empathy had been demonstrated, the facilitators discussed resolving relationship issues. To solve specific relationship
issues the facilitators suggested that couples follow four steps,
which were an adapted and abbreviated version of the nine-step
Method
The average age of the participants was 31.84 years. The partici-
the speaker was to point to the bull's eye center of the target. If
the listener did not completely understand the communication,
then the speaker was to point out a location on the target that best
Design
achieved during the empathy check, then the speaker was to communicate the message once again to the listener in an attempt to
the effectiveness of the training program over time. Pre and post-
listed comparison group was used to control for any pretest differ-
ences in empathy that might have existed between the two groups
prior to the empathy training (Kerlinger, 1973). Both groups went
Session Five
components of empathy. Again, the facilitators stressed the importance of understanding the situations that make an empathic
understanding more or less likely to happen within the context of
Vol.
was trained five weeks before the wait listed comparison group.
The authors did not consider it feasible to have a comparison
group that received no treatment at all. Volunteers were all recruited based on their interest in empathy training, therefore, the
authors felt ethically obliged to offer the empathy training to all
the volunteers.
48,
No.
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237
Week
Week
Week
10
Week
24
Week
29
thy training at the same time and location would have been very
rion and construct validity indicated that the measure was a valid
Measures
with the single item version of the Dyadic Adjustment Scale, the
DAS (Spanier, 1976). The DAS was reported to be the most com-
Index (Davis, 1980). The measure was designed to assess the de-
Procedure
1980; Davis, Hull, Young, & Warren, 1987). The Alpha coefficient
of reliability with the present sample was .81.
The self-reported expression of empathy with a partner was
assessed using the Self Dyadic Perspective Taking (SDPT) Scale
(Long, 1990). The SDPT was a 13 item, self-report scale which
included items such as, "I sometimes try to understand my partner
indicated that the scale had adequate validity. The Alpha coefficient of reliability with the present sample was .80.
Hypotheses
Table 1
11.29***
.63
8.67***
PT: Measure of general perspective taking. SDPT: Measure of self dyadic per-
Hypothesis Two: Given that the program specifically sought to increase partner empathy, the authors hypothesized that over the sixmonth period an increase in empathy scores on the self-reported
Family
Relations
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Results
As mentioned above, couples were randomly assigned to either
3.6-
34
1999,
3-
Females
|-
Males
X
1
Time of Measurement
Changes in perception of partner's empathy over time. A significant change in the perceptions of a partner's empathy (ODPT)
over time was indicated. No differences by group on the ODPT
were evident; both the wait listed comparison and treatment groups
scores on the ODPT improved over time. Over the six-month
period, all the participants reported an increase in their partner's
expression of empathy. Hypothesis Three was also supported.
Once again no gender differences in the changes in the ODPT
scores were found. Both males' and females' scores improved as a
result of the training. On the ODPT no time by gender interaction
effect was demonstrated.
Figure 3. Changes in SDPT Means Over Time by Gender
2.8 -
2.6
Vol.
'
; 3.2 -
2.4
L
-~
'
Females
U-
Males
2.2
2
Time of Measurement
48,
No.
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239
2.4 -
2.3>
2.2
2.1
'
-0
*-Females
Males
0 2- *"
1.9 - I l l__ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Time of Measurement
Time of Measurement 1 = Pre-test (before the training)
Time of Measurement 2 = Five weeks (at the end of the training)
Hypotheses Four and Five empathy difference scores were calculated for all participants. For example, a difference score was calculated for the general measure of empathy by subtracting the PT
eral. This was evidenced even though the purpose of the program
was solely to increase empathy with a partner. Subjects in this
study reported that their new empathic understanding was generalized to relationships outside of the relationship with their romantic
partners. The self-report of empathy with others increased for both
males and females. In this culture, empathy is a behavioral expectation for females more than it is for males; thus, one might expect
females to generalize their new empathy skills to other relationships more than males. However, having highlighted the importance of empathy within relationships, both genders realized the
importance of empathy within the context of relationships and reported they were more empathic with others in general.
As expected, an increase in the self-reported expression of empathy with a partner and an increase in the perception of one's partner's empathy were demonstrated. Males and females both rated
more empathic over the six-month period. For a time, social scien-
tists debated whether or not people could learn to be more empathic with others (Myrick & Erney, 1985). This study, however,
adds to a growing body of literature that demonstrates that empathy can, indeed, be learned. Even within the context of intimate relationships, people can learn to express greater empathy towards
their partners. Even in a culture where males are often not expected
to be as empathic as females, males can learn to be more empathic.
eral expression of empathy with others during the five week program. Another difference score was calculated for each individual
by subtracting the PT score at the end of six months (post-test 2)
from the pre-test PT score. This difference score (PT6) was used
as a measure of the individuals' increased expression of empathy
post-test. As noted above, the authors attempted to make the program easy to understand and relevant. The fact that the change in
empathy scores could be measured at six months may be an indication that the program achieved the goals of ease and relevance. Future research would do well to assess the effect of the program for
an even longer period of time, so that interventionists can decide
grams have been designed to teach empathy to a variety of populations. However, this is the only program the authors are aware of
The interaction effects noted in these analyses need clarification in future research. For both the self-report PT and SDPT
scales, the pattern of change over time was different by gender.
The time by gender interaction effect denotes the importance of
gender change over time. As indicated in figure two, the change in
empathy scores during the first five weeks was more pronounced
for females than males. When asked about their own general empathic abilities, females were more likely than males to report a
more rapid response to the training. While gender difference in
scores were not demonstrated, the change over time was unique
by gender. Future research would do well to assess the reason and
extent of that gender change in scores over time.
Also important is the fact that the change in empathic expression with a partner was positively related to relationship satisfaction. The increased expression of empathy over six months
accounted for 15% of the relationship satisfaction six months following the training. The change in the expression of empathy at
five weeks was not significantly related to satisfaction at five
weeks but only after six months. Perhaps both males and females
over time. Had one's partner really changed or did a 10-hour pro-
240
Family
Relations
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results indicated that by six months those who truly perceived their
partners as more empathic were also more likely to have higher
tion, one would expect this finding. This finding again verified the
When individuals improve their empathic abilities, partners' relationship satisfaction improves.
research needs to examine the relationship and individual characteristics of those willing and unwilling to invest five weeks in the
improvement of their relationships.
As is true with any longitudinal design, attrition of partici-
pants was a problem with the current study. Several subjects who
completed the program and the five week assessment had moved
with previous empirical work was the fact that, at the pre-test, females did not have significantly higher scores than males on all
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are those individuals who come without a history of relationship
problems. These questions should be examined in future research.
1999,
Vol.
48,
No.
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241
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23 select articles to create a valuable David H. Demo and Anne-Marie Ambert Editors
resource and an exciting text. The authors J A
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