Memo 10

Memo 10

Argument

Empathy interventions that target perspective taking will increase positive relationships among students by decreasing both the use of explicit language and emotional currency.

Claim 1

Students view emotions as currency and will only provide support to those students that deserve it. For instance, students were asked the questions, “have you provided empathy for someone?”. Several students expressed that, “Some people don’t deserve my empathy” and therefore they haven’t been empathic. Some students responded by saying that they will only be empathic for someone they care about or for someone that have given them support before. For instance, one students specifically stated that, “I only care for my friends and nobody else”. When asked, “was there a time you could have been empathic but decided not to be?”, some students responded by explaining that being empathic was uncomfortable for them, they quote, “don’t want to feel what the other person is feeling”. This behavior is supported by Rieffe and Camodeca (2016) who believe that, “denoting a self-oriented concern at the expense of concern for the person who is in discomfort, was negatively related to another aspect of emotion awareness, that is the ability to identify causal factors underlying the emotion. So far, this data suggests that students feel uncomfortable providing empathy, possibly because they are unable to determine the underlying causal factors of their friend’s emotions and therefore will only venture into this unknown territory for someone that will most likely return the favor.

In observing the students throughout the weeks, it was easy to see these statements come to life. During group work, when a student was feeling down, the group members would choose to leave the sad student alone rather than reaching out to that students and providing support. In fact, the group members would slightly turn their bodies away from the peer in distress, completely isolating the peer. These groups members were not close friends and could be considered acquaintances instead. The few times a student did reach out to help a peer, was when one of the group members was a close friend. But even then, the conversation was superficial and surface level. The helpful student would provide either a pat on the back or a quick side hug. Typically, the friend would check in with the distressed student, provide the level of empathy they felt necessary and then leave the student alone.

            Later, in the intervention, students were read the Giving Tree and asked, during a one-on-one interview to explain how the boy in the story made them feel. The majority of the students gave disengaged responses like, “bad”, “sad”, “angry”. Some students went further and expressed that, “it didn’t matter how the story made me feel, it’s a story, it can’t do anything for me”. This quote suggests that since the story can’t provide the student any support, why should the student waist emotional energy on the story. Therefore, students view emotions as currency, what they give they should get back.

Claim 2

Developing and maintaining positive relationships among students is tough emotional work and therefore frustration typically manifests into explicit language. For instance, when students disagree on a topic, question, or plan of strategy, instead of understanding each other’s perspective, they will debate their side of the argument until a winner is determined. In these moments of tough emotional work, my students use explicit and harsh language to communicate. In my classroom you will constantly hear statements like: “No you fucking idiot, that idea is stupid, you’re so fucking retarded, I’m right” and “Shut the fuck up nigga, you don’t know what you are talking about”. Along with using harsh words, my students match their rough language with bold body language, such as, standing up, raising hands in the air, pointing at each other with finger shaped guns, and straight on chests.

In past research, it has been found that lower scores of empathy can be associated to higher levels of aggression (Euler, Steinlin, & Stadler, 2017). Since my students refuse to gain an understanding for what their peer has to say, they are demonstrating lower levels of empathy. Furthermore, they are demonstration levels of aggression by using explicit language and bold body movements. Even though my students are showing lower levels of empathy and higher levels of aggressions, it does not mean they don’t have empathy at all. In fact, during private interviews, my students have actually expressed that they have empathy they just chose to push it aside, “Ms. just because I cures doesn’t mean I don’t have empathy”. This quote strongly suggests that in difficult conversations, that involve vulnerability, my students will hide their frustration and weakness by exhibiting signs of aggression: like cursing and using bold body language.

Claim 3

According to Rieffe and Canodeca (2016), adolescents who pay more attention to their own and the feelings of others will have greater levels of empathy, including being able to understand the emotions of others. Therefore, positive student relationships will increase when students increase their perspective taking skills. This effect was witness from the start of the empathy intervention to the end. At the beginning of the study, it was observed that students would only listen to the perspective of and share feelings with close friends. Additionally, highest levels of observed empathy occurred during times of tragedy. For instance, a student hugging a crying peer whose family member died the day before due to a shooting. In contrast, during times of little to no tragedy, lowest levels of empathy were witnessed. Such as, a student forgetting lunch or arguing over an academic disagreement. During these disagreements students use explicit and harsh language to communicate. Students rather prove that they are correct instead of taking time to understand the reason for the argument. When interviewed about the Giving Tree, students didn’t care about how the boy made them feel, the boy in the story didn’t matter because he couldn’t give the student anything. Furthermore, when asked, “can you understand why the boy did what he did”, some students would respond by stating, “no I can’t understand his perspective because I would never act like that”. This quote suggests that instead of perspective taking, students were projecting the boy’s actions onto themselves. Additionally, at the start of the intervention students took the Brief IRI survey, which measured their average empathy level. As a class the students averaged a 3 in perspective taking, meaning they felt neutral, this didn’t feel strongly either way about perspective taking. All in all, at the beginning of the study students had low perspective taking skills, and therefore viewed emotions as currency and used foul language to express themselves in times of frustration, which in turn, created poor relationships.

By the end of the intervention, students were able to increase their perspective taking skills which decreased their use of foul language and usage of emotional currency, which in turn, increased positive relationships. This interaction can be seen through several pieces of data like: observations, student discourse, interviews, and survey results. For student observations, as the interventions went on, student begun to perspective take during group work. Statements like, “what do you mean by that” and “I don’t get it, can you explain again” or “alright, fine, you’re right” could be heard several times. Additionally, the tone and body language used were less harsh and aggressive. It has been suggested that high levels of empathy are correlate with prosocial behavior (Noorden, Haselager, Cillessen, & Bukowski, 2015). These interactions suggest that students have increased their level of empathy for one another because foul language has decreased, which is a sign of decreased frustration. And frustration has decreased because students are beginning to understand the feelings of their peer.

 When asked about homelessness, students were able to express feelings of sadness and remorse and participate in a critical conversation about the correlation between homelessness and race. Some students went as far as expressing feelings of action, like, “It makes me sad, I wish I could help in some way”. When interviewed again about the Giving Tree, responses changed to, “I guess I get why he did it”. When pushed further students would state that, “if I knew why he did what he did, then I think I would feel differently about him”. This quote demonstrates that students are starting to truly perspective take, they are clearly recognizing that if they understand the motive of the boy than maybe they would be mad at the boy. Finally, at the end of the empathy intervention the students took the B-IRI survey again, and as a class the average perspective taking score was a 4.37. The students significantly increased their ability to perspective take from the beginning of the intervention to the end of the intervention and, in turn, were able to build stronger relationships with one another.