Relationship between emotional intelligence and empathy towards humans and animals

Gómez‐Leal, Raquel; Costa, Ana; Megías‐Robles, Alberto; Faria, Luísa

doi:10.7717/peerj.11274

Cited by 26 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 55 publications

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“…As expected, according to pre-existing literature, self-reported empathy toward humans ( Christov-Moore et al, 2014 ; Rochat, 2022 ) and toward animals ( Gómez-Leal et al, 2021 ) is more intense in females, and this occurs across all sampled age groups.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 84%

Empathy development from adolescence to adulthood and its consistency across targets

Gaspar

Esteves

2022

Front. Psychol.

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This research was conducted with two main goals—to contribute to knowledge on the development of empathy from early adolescence to adulthood, including its contribution to decoding emotion expression, and to improve the understanding of the nature of empathy by simultaneously assessing empathy toward two different targets—humans and animals. It unfolded into two cross-sectional studies: One (S1) obtaining measures of empathy toward humans and animals as targets across five age groups (from pre-adolescents to adults); and another (S2) where a subset of the adolescents who participated in S1 were assessed in emotion expression decoding and subjective and physiological responses to emotional video clips. The results of S1 showed that empathy toward animals and most dimensions of empathy toward humans increase toward adulthood, with important gender differences in empathy to animals and humans, and empathy levels in girls starting off in the age trajectory at higher levels, A moderate correlation between empathy toward human and toward animal targets was also found. S2 showed that the expression of positive emotion is better recognized than that of negative emotion, surprise, or neutral expression, and that the measure of human-directed empathy predicts successful decoding of negative emotion, whereas skin conductance responses (SCRs) and subjective valence ratings predicted successful identification of positive emotion. Gender differences emerged but not across all age groups nor all subscales. Results yield keys to the developmental “pace” and trajectory of the various dimensions of empathy and to how empathy relates to emotion decoding.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 84%

Empathy development from adolescence to adulthood and its consistency across targets

Gaspar

Esteves

2022

Front. Psychol.

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“…Empathy towards animals seems to have originated in a similar way as that shown towards other humans [ 150 , 151 ]. It has been proposed that animal-directed empathy may generalize to human-directed empathy [ 152 ] and that the amount of empathy towards animals may indicate a more general capacity for empathy and related prosocial behavior [ 153 ].…”

Section: Empathy Attachment and Anthropomorphism: A Key Triad Of The ...mentioning

confidence: 96%

The Complexity of the Human–Animal Bond: Empathy, Attachment and Anthropomorphism in Human–Animal Relationships and Animal Hoarding

Prato-Previde

Ricci²,

Colombo³

2022

Animals

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The human–animal relationship is ancient, complex and multifaceted. It may have either positive effects on humans and animals or poor or even negative and detrimental effects on animals or both humans and animals. A large body of literature has investigated the beneficial effects of this relationship in which both human and animals appear to gain physical and psychological benefits from living together in a reciprocated interaction. However, analyzing the literature with a different perspective it clearly emerges that not rarely are human–animal relationships characterized by different forms and levels of discomfort and suffering for animals and, in some cases, also for people. The negative physical and psychological consequences on animals’ well-being may be very nuanced and concealed, but there are situations in which the negative consequences are clear and striking, as in the case of animal violence, abuse or neglect. Empathy, attachment and anthropomorphism are human psychological mechanisms that are considered relevant for positive and healthy relationships with animals, but when dysfunctional or pathological determine physical or psychological suffering, or both, in animals as occurs in animal hoarding. The current work reviews some of the literature on the multifaceted nature of the human–animal relationship; describes the key role of empathy, attachment and anthropomorphism in human–animal relationships; seeks to depict how these psychological processes are distorted and dysfunctional in animal hoarding, with highly detrimental effects on both animal and human well-being.

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“…Moreover, previous studies have shown that individual’s emotional intelligence can promote them to show more empathic behaviors. 36 , 37 Therefore, it is possible that emotional intelligence of school-age children mediates the relationship between student-teacher relationship and empathy.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Influence of Student-Teacher Relationship on School-Age Children’s Empathy: The Mediating Role of Emotional Intelligence

Xiang¹,

Qin²,

Zheng³

2022

PRBM

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Objective Empathy is the ability to adopt another person’s perspective and experience the thoughts and emotions of that individual. A growing number of studies have shown that school-age children’s empathy robustly contributes to their interpersonal communication, academic achievement and psychosocial adjustment. For school-age children, school becomes the main place for learning and socializing. The student-teacher relationship is an important interpersonal relationship between children and adults after they leave home, which plays an important role in the development of children’s self-ability. However, the relationship between student-teacher relationship and children’s empathy and its mechanisms are unclear. This study aimed to explore the influence of student-teacher relationship on school-age children’s empathy, and the mediating roles of emotional intelligence. Methods 468 school-age children (250 boys and 238 girls) aged 8–11 ( M age = 9.22, SD age = 1.20) from Guizhou Province completed questionnaires about student-teacher relationship, emotional intelligence, and children’s empathy. Results The results showed that student-teacher relationship positively and directly predicted empathy for girls, but not for boys. In addition, we also found that emotional intelligence mediated the relationship between student-teacher relationship and children’s empathy among both boys and girls. Conclusion This study reveals the effect of student-teacher relationship on the school-age children’s empathy, and the unique mediating role of emotional intelligence. Moreover, this study further reveals the different effects of student-teacher relationship on boys’ and girls’ empathy, emphasizing that positive student-teacher relationship can directly promote the development of girls’ empathy. Finally, this study emphasizes that cultivating and improving the emotional intelligence of school-age children may be an effective way to promote the development of children’s empathy.

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Relationship between emotional intelligence and empathy towards humans and animals

Cited by 26 publications

References 55 publications

Empathy development from adolescence to adulthood and its consistency across targets

Empathy development from adolescence to adulthood and its consistency across targets

The Complexity of the Human–Animal Bond: Empathy, Attachment and Anthropomorphism in Human–Animal Relationships and Animal Hoarding

The Influence of Student-Teacher Relationship on School-Age Children’s Empathy: The Mediating Role of Emotional Intelligence

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