While the role of empathy in socio-emotional functioning has received extensive support in the literature, affective empathy has been identified as a risk factor for internalising disorders. However, little literature has explored the mechanisms through which affective empathy exerts its counter-effect and what aspects could regulate this…

Scholars from various disciplines have theorized a relationship between reading fiction and empathy. Research in cognitive studies suggests that understanding fiction requires Theory of Mind, or the cognitive ability to understand the feelings and motivations of others. Some studies build on this research to suggest reading fiction helps to…

Being able to defend victims of school bullying is central in any intervention; thus, it seems paramount to investigate which factors may contribute to defending behavior. The present report aims to investigate whether empathic self-efficacy is associated with helping behavior and whether interpersonal factors (i.e., social preference and…

In this study, we investigated whether a colourful design would foster the aesthetic appreciation of Chinese classic poetry, and the role of learners' empathy trait in this process. Middle school students (N = 159) were assigned to one of four conditions in a 2 (Colour Design: Colourful vs. Grayscale) × 2 (Empathy Trait: High vs. Low)…

School bullying is a pervasive global issue with profound implications for students' well-being and academic performance. While extensive research has examined the role of bystanders--individuals who witness bullying--in mitigating such behavior, the specific influence of classroom climate on the emergence of positive bystander behavior,…

Despite the many contributions of nonhuman animals in history, nonhuman animal representations are seldom crafted with care and accuracy in curricular texts. Because of the anthropocentric vantage point of textbook creation, the nonhuman animal is often portrayed as an object, but as our relationship with the nonhuman world continues to…

Communities have their own set of cultural values that make their way into their classrooms and serve as criteria for the labeling of "insider" or "outsider." This article describes how critical empathy can allow the barriers between these constructs to be broken down as students are given the chance not only to listen but to…

Prior research has documented that mindfulness is negatively associated with aggressive behaviors. Recently, studies have examined mediating psychological constructs that account for the relationships between mindfulness and cyberbullying perpetration. The purpose of the current study was to examine the longitudinal relationship between…

Parental attachment promotes moral maturity in adolescents by improving empathy. Narcissism, one of the three dark personalities, affects both empathy and moral development. However, little is known about how narcissism moderates the influence of parental attachment on moral development in adolescents. A total of 1,574 Chinese middle school…

The purpose of this quasi-experimental posttest only nonequivalent comparison-group study was to examine the influence of teacher read aloud using narrative fiction on early adolescent empathy. Participants (n = 151) were seventh-grade students in one suburban Pennsylvania public school district. Experimental participants (n = 82) were exposed to…

Building on research showing social-emotional benefits from a single live theater performance, this study tests for significant differences in pre to post social-cognitive outcomes among a racially and economically diverse sample of young audiences who attended the same theater performance with or without additional pre- and post-show educational…

This study aims to test the mediating role of responsibility and benevolence between empathy skills and the justice value of eighth-grade secondary school students. The study group, which was designed in the type of a multifactorial predictive correlation, consisted of 646 eighth-grade secondary school students attending 20 different secondary…

This study explored the impact of secondary administrator perceptions on implementing restorative discipline practices in Texas middle school campuses. Ten secondary middle school administrators from diverse Texas school districts that utilized restorative practices for non-expellable offenses participated in open-ended, semi-structured…

Professional development (PD) can support science teachers to learn about instructional reforms, but more work needs to be done on broadening our understanding of how specific PD activities support teacher learning. One understudied PD activity is the "student hat": when teachers engage in student learning activities while considering…

This study employed a qualitative content analysis design to examine the extent to which 8th and 11th-grade U.S. History textbooks, adopted by the State of Texas, foster historical empathy and disciplinary knowledge and skills in the subject of history through student engagement with textbook activities. The textbook activities collected for this…