Group dynamics: Theory, Research and Practice

Does My Group Know How I Feel? Measuring Intellectual Empathy in Groups Using the Social Relations Model
Rayna Markin Online First Publication, November 8, 2010. doi: 10.1037/a0020292

CITATION Markin, R. (2010, November 8). Does My Group Know How I Feel? Measuring Intellectual Empathy in Groups Using the Social Relations Model. Group dynamics: Theory, Research and Practice. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1037/a0020292

Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice 2010, Vol. , No. , 000 000

2010 American Psychological Association 1089-2699/10/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0020292

Does My Group Know How I Feel? Measuring Intellectual Empathy in Groups Using the Social Relations Model
Rayna Markin
Villanova University The purpose of this study was to try out a relatively new method for assessing intellectual empathy in groups, using the Social Relations Model (SRM; Kenny, 1988). Duan and Hill (1996) identied major problems with current empathy rating scales. Duan and Kivlighan (2002) then tried out a new method for measuring intellectual empathy in counseling dyads that addressed these limitations. Building upon Duan and Kivlighans method, intellectual empathy, in the present study, was dened as the relationship between group members perception of a target members emotions and that members self-ratings of his or her emotions. Forty-three group members in 6 personal growth groups completed self-ratings of their own emotional experiences in the group and also rated their perception of the emotional experiences of every other member in the group. The Social Relations Model analysis suggested that, overall, group members did not accurately identify the emotional experiences of other members in a group session. Instead, group members tended to perceive other members in the group as experiencing similar emotions to one another. Furthermore, group members tended to assume that the emotional experiences of the other members were similar to their own. Keywords: intellectual empathy, groups, social relations model

Although the concept of empathy enjoys a special status among many therapists and therapy researchers (cf. Barrett-Lennard, 1962, 1981; Gladstein, 1977, 1987; Rogers, 1957), reviewers have remarked that the empathy research is fraught with conceptual and methodological problems and has reached few conclusive ndings (Gladstein, 1983; Duan & Hill, 1996; Sexton & Whiston, 1994). When one examines the empathy literature across psychotherapy, counseling, and emotion studies, the ndings are, by and large, confusing (Gladstein, 1983; Duan & Kivlighan, 2002; Moore, 1990). To date, empathy studies have been hindered by inconsistent denitions of empathy and a reliance on assessment via self-report (Hassenstab et al., 2007). In their review of the empathy

Rayna Markin, Department of Education and Human Services, Villanova University. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Rayna Markin, Department of Education and Human Services, 302 Saint Augustine Center, Villanova University, 800 Lancaster Ave., Villanova, PA 19085. E-mail: rayna.markin@villanova.edu 1

literature in the counseling and psychotherapy disciplines, Duan and Hill (1996) suggest that this confusion reects the multidimensional, multifaceted, nature of empathy and that future researchers need to better understand, operationalize, and measure the different components of empathy that they wish to study. From their review of the literature, these researchers identied two types of empathic experience, intellectual empathy and empathic emotion, along with major problems with existing methods for assessing both types of empathy. Intellectual empathy is typically dened in the literature as, a person (typically the therapist) taking the perspective of another (typically the client), understanding anothers cognitive or affective states, or both, as the other experiences it (Duan & Hill, 1996; Duan & Kivlighan, 2002). On the other hand, empathic emotion refers to a person responding with the same emotion as another, feeling an emotion as the other experiences it (Duan & Hill, 1996). Duan and Hill (1996) argue that past research has failed to adequately study empathic emotion and intellectual empathy as conceptually distinct (although perhaps related) constructs,

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which is necessary to ultimately develop a valid measure for these two types of empathic experience. The second core problem that Duan and Hill (1996) identied in the empathy literature is the presence of confounding factors in current empathy rating scales. Therapist empathy has typically been measured by empathy scales, such as the Barrett-Lennard Relationship Inventory (Barrett-Lenard, 1962) and the Traux Relationship Inventory (Traux & Carkhuff, 1967). These measures use therapist self-reports on his or her own ability to empathize, client reports on the degree to which the therapist understood him or her, or rater reports, in which raters assess the therapist empathy level on a videotape therapy session (Ickes, 1993). Although these scales are frequently used and relatively convenient, critics have pointed out that empathy, as measured by these scales, is inuenced by confounding factors such as sex (Oleskar & Balter, 1972), level of functioning (Cannon & Carkhuff, 1969), and therapy experience (Fish, 1970). Furthermore, a general good guy factor has been observed to account for as much as 89% of the variance of some of the empathy scales (Muehberg et al., 1969). Additionally, global therapist quality has been found to account for more variance than actual empathy in empathy scores (Gurman, 1977). Moreover, Duan and Hill (1996) argue that the most fundamental problem with these empathy measures is their reliance on self- or otherperceptions, which can be awed or inaccurate. The therapist may think that he or she understands the client, or the client may think that the therapist understands him or her, but actually the therapist does not. Similarly, the raterreport method can only capture the therapists overt empathic response, which may be confounded with his or her ability to communicate. Taken together, the conceptual and methodological problems with current empathy scales cause researchers to use caution when interpreting empathy ndings. The limitations of current empathy scales highlight the need for researchers to begin to develop new and more creative methods to assess empathy. In line with the recommendations put forth by Duan and Hill (1996), this study set out to assess a specic type of empathy, that is, intellectual empathy, rather than studying empathy as a general overarching construct. Intellectual

empathy refers to an intellectual understanding, or cognitive knowing, of another persons cognitive or affective states (Duan & Kivlighan, 2002). The present study specically examined group members ability to correctly identify another group members emotional experience, as the target group member experienced his or her emotions during a group session. For example, group member Linda felt lonely in todays group session, by her own self-report, and fellow group member Bill understood that Linda felt lonely. Bill does not need to subjectively experience Lindas loneliness as she feels it (i.e., empathic emotion), but instead possess a cognitive understanding that Linda experienced loneliness (i.e., intellectual empathy). Intellectual empathy involves accurately understanding the subjective emotional experience of another person, which may differ from overt emotional cues given off by the target person (Duan & Hill, 1996; Hassenstab et al., 2007; Moore, 1990; Zaki et al., 2009). For example, suppose group member Linda smiles and overtly looks happy in the group session; however, on a self-report questionnaire, she reports really feeling sad throughout the group session. To intellectually empathize with Linda, group member Bill has to understand that Linda felt sad (not happy) during the group. Because intellectual empathy refers to accurately understanding another persons emotional experience, rather than overt expression of emotion, group members in this study were asked to rate the emotional experiences of other members on a questionnaire. There is some evidence that the ability to accurately identify the emotional experience of other group members may be important to the group process, as Duan and Kivlighan (2002) found that, in counseling dyads, accuracy of therapist perception of client emotions correlated with session depth. Given the limitations of existing empathy measures, Duan and Kivlighan (2002) tried out a new way of measuring intellectual empathy in therapy dyads. They used the similarity between the therapists perception of the clients emotions and the clients self-reported emotions as an estimate for intellectual empathy. Theoretically, this similarity reects the degree to which the therapist accurately understands the clients emotional experiences (Duan & Kivlighan, 2002). Duan and Kivlighans method for assessing intellectual empathy may minimize human

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perceptual errors and social desirability because their method involves less inference by raters than many other empathy measures (Duan & Kivlighan, 2002). Although this method for assessing empathy is relatively new to the counseling and psychotherapy literature, emotion researchers typically operationalize what they call empathic accuracy as the correlation between the perceivers inference and the targets selfrating (e.g., Zaki et al., 2009). This study built upon Duan and Kivlighan (2002) by adapting their method of assessing intellectual empathy in therapy dyads to assess intellectual empathy in personal growth groups. The primary goal of this study was to utilize a relatively novel method for assessing intellectual empathy in groups, using the SRM, which circumvents common problems associated with current empathy scales. Why Study Group Member Intellectual Empathy? Although the counseling and psychotherapy literature typically studies therapist empathy in individual therapy sessions, in groups, empathy may be an important process not only between group leaders and members, but also between the members themselves. Group member perception of empathy and support has been found to be a therapeutic factor in psychotherapy and personal growth groups (Dierick & Lietaer, 2008; Weinberger & Rasco, 2007). However, reviews of empathy in counseling and therapy groups have had mixed to positive results predicting outcome in group treatment (Johnson, in press). In addition to this relationship between empathy and group outcome, the presence of empathy in groups has been theorized to provide a helpful therapeutic climate that fosters other positive process variables (MacKenzie, 1998; Yalom & Leszcz, 2005). For example, Yalom and Leszcz (2005) write that when conict arises between group members, these members must develop an empathic understanding of the other to resolve the conict. Past research in social psychology suggests that empathizing with a person that one believes to be in ones group, increases the chance of helping that other person (Sturmer et al., 2005). However, this study operationalized empathy as caring and concern, which reects sympathy rather than any type of empathy, as it is dened in the

literature. Better methods of assessing group member empathy are needed before group researchers can further study the effects of empathy on group outcome. Research on empathy in groups has suffered from the same limitations delineated by Duan and Hill (1996) in the individual therapy and counseling empathy literature, including. Confounding variables are a particular problem when measuring empathy in groups. Measures of group empathy are highly related to other group variables that serve the same function, such as group cohesion (Roarck & Sharah, 1989), alliance (Horvath, 1994), and group climate (Phipps & Zastowny, 1988). Johnson, Burlingame, Davies, and Gleave (2005) examined the overlap between group climate, cohesion, alliance, and empathy in personal growth groups and psychotherapy groups and found that group member self-report ratings of these variables best t a 3 factor model: Bonding, Working, and Negative Factors, rather than one higher-order factor as the researchers predicted. A limitation of this study is that the researchers used The Empathy Scale (ES; Burns & Auerbach, 1996) to assess group member ratings of member and leader empathy. This scale measures warmth, genuineness, and an overall positive/negative relationship, which reect the quality of the relationship rather than empathy per say, again highlighting the problem in the group empathy research of confounding variables and a clear denition of empathy. The Social Relations Model: Assessing Intellectual Empathy in Groups The current study used the Social Relations Model (SRM; Warner, Kenny, & Stoto, 1979), a methodological and statistical model, which can analyze data across the various levels that exist in a group and can account for the dependency in observations that naturally occur in a group. Related to this, the SRM accounts for group level variance to safely combine different groups. The SRM has been used to help understand other components of group member relationships, such as transference (Markin & Kivlighan, 2008) and interpersonal feedback (Marcus, 2006).

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The Social Relations Model In a SRM study, perceiver, target, relationship, group effects, and error dene the various levels and sources of variance at play. For example, in a hypothetical group, suppose Bill (the perceiver) indicates that Cathy (the target) feels sad. This may be because Bill tends to think everyone feels sad ( perceiver effect), or perhaps because everyone in the group thinks Cathy feels sad (target effect). Alternatively, Bill might think Cathy is sadder than he thinks other members are and more than most people think Cathy is sad (relationship effect). Alternatively, perhaps Bill and Cathys group has developed a norm for expressing sadness and vulnerability over happiness (group effect). Lastly, perhaps Cathy is just having an off day and appears sad but is just tired (error). How can the SRM variance components be used to measure intellectual empathy in groups? Recall that Duan and Kivlighan (2002) measured intellectual empathy in individual counseling by the similarity between the therapists perception of the clients emotions and the clients self-reported emotions. In group counseling, with numerous members and leaders, how can such a similarity score be obtained? First, it is important to note that this study focused on member empathy and did not include group leader empathy scores because despite the theoretical importance of group member empathy (Yalom & Leszcz, 2005), there is a lack of research in this area. Second, the SRM was created to analyze round robin data in which every group member rates every other group member on one or more variables. In the present study, every group member rated every other member on a list of positive and negative emotions, indicating on a scale from 0 to 7 the extent to which he or she perceived every other member to have experienced each emotion in the group session just completed. In addition, each group member provided self-ratings, indicating the extent to which he or she experienced the same list of emotions in the group session. Finally, this study used the round robin ratings and self-ratings to assess the relative match between the groups perception of how a member feels and that members self-report of how he or she feels. For example, if hypothetical group member Cathy self-reported (on a questionnaire) feeling sad in todays group session,

then did the other group members also report that Cathy felt sad in the group today? In other words, did the group perception of how Cathy felt relate to Cathys perception of how she felt? This study hypothesized that the SRM can be used to measure intellectual empathy in groups. Target effects. Signicant target variance indicates that there is consensus among group members. Consensus implies that there is something about the situation (or target group member) that elicits a certain perception from others in the group (Marcus & Holahan, 1994). In this study, target variance in angry ratings would suggest that group members generally agree that Bill, for example, feels angry. If Bill agreed with the consensus of the group, also selfreporting that he felt angry, then this relationship, between the groups consensual perception of how Bill felt (target variance) and Bills self-report of his emotions, was interpreted as the groups intellectual empathy. Perceiver effects. In a social relations analysis, signicant perceiver variance, or assimilation, suggests that perceivers tend to see everyone as being similar, no matter who the other person is or their unique relationship. Assimilation suggests that the perceivers perceptions have more to do with internal factors of the perceiver than with the target being rated (Kenny, 1988). In the study at hand, assimilation in angry ratings, for example, would suggest that group members tend to see all other members similarly in term of how angry they feel. Assimilation is common in studies of interpersonal perception, typically accounting for about 17% of total score variance (Kenny & La Voie, 1984), and has been found to account for as much as 50% of the total variance in ratings of group member central relationship themes (Markin & Kivlighan, 2008). Assimilation in studies of interpersonal perception is not particularly surprising, as human beings possess stereotypes or schemas for perceiving and making sense of situations and people. However, less is known about why assimilation occurs in groups. In some instances, assimilation may represent a process of projection or assumed similarity. For example, Bill may perceive other members to feel guilty because he feels guilty. To test this hypothesis, the relationship between perceiver variance in ratings of group member emotions and member self-ratings of emotions was examined. More specically, it was hypothesized that

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the perceiver variance in emotion ratings would signicantly relate to group member self-ratings of emotions, suggesting that a group member perceived the emotional experience of the other members similarly as a result of group member projection of his or her emotions onto the group. This hypothesis is supported by research, using the Social Relations Model, which has found signicant relationships between self- and otherratings, that is, the relationship between how one sees the self and others (e.g., Branje et al., 2003; Greguras et al., 2001). Yalom and Leszcz (2005) write about a process whereby group members reach a consensual reality (e.g., all group members share the same perception of Bill as angry). In this process, called consensual validation, group members validate one anothers perception of a target member. In SRM language, consensual validation is best captured by target variance, or the degree to which group members in a group agree. On the other hand, client transference or parataxic distortion may explain why different group members often perceive the same member differently from one another (Sullivan, 1954). When group member perceptions of a target member are based more on the unique experiences and associations of the member perceiving, than on the target group member, this effect is best captured by perceiver variance. Similarly, Markin and Kivlighan (2008) interpreted perceiver variance in group member ratings of other members central relationship themes as transference. Additionally, Mallinckrodt and Chen (2004) interpreted assimilation in Impact Message Inventory ratings of fellow group members as an indicator of transference and correlated the perceiver variance with member ratings of attachment style and early parental memories. In general, there is a precedent for treating perceiver effects as reecting an assimilation of target characteristics into a preexisting schema (e.g., Cook, 2000). The extent to which group members project their own experiences onto other members has implications for the groups ability to accurately empathize with other members. Are Some Emotions Easier Than Others to Intellectually Empathize With? A secondary goal of this study was to assess whether it was more or less difcult for group

members to accurately identify positive or negative emotions, as experienced by the target group member. Empathy research has traditionally focused on empathy with target persons experiencing unpleasant emotions, although there are recent attempts to study empathy with target persons experiencing positive emotions (e.g., Batson, Turk, & Klein, 1995; Duan, 2000). Surprisingly, Duan (2000) found that the valence of a targets emotions did not relate to the observers intellectual empathy. Duan (2000) concluded that people may be able to separate their intellectual process from their emotions; for example, it is probably easier to think that a person is sad than to actually feel that persons sadness. Duans (2000) study took place in a laboratory using vignettes, while the study at hand assessed empathy in real-life growth groups. The present study examined whether the results found in Duans study could be replicated in a growth group context. It was hypothesized that there would be minimal differences in intellectual empathy for positive and negative emotions, as found in Duan (2000). Looking outside of the counseling and therapy literature, the emotion literature has yielded mixed results as to whether certain emotions are easier to identify than others. In a recent study, Calvo and Marrero (2009) found that when given emotion face targets, subjects identied happier expressions faster than angry or sad targets, and that, misjudgments happened more often for angry and sad expressions. On the other hand, Rozin et al. (2005) studied the ability to identify negative emotions as an individual difference variable and found substantial individual differences in the ability to correctly identify emotions. However, they did not nd evidence for specic decits in the detection of any particular emotion. Intellectual Empathy: Trait or Situation Specic? The empathy literature is unclear as to whether empathy is a trait-like construct or a situational one (Duan & Hill, 1996). Some theorists and researchers refer to empathy as a personality trait or general ability (e.g., Book, 1988; Danish & Kagan, 1971; Dymond, 1950; Hogan, 1969; Rozin et al., 2005; Rogers, 1957), while others conceptualize empathy as a situation-specic state (e.g., Barrett-Lennard, 1962;

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Batson & Coke, 1981; Greenson, 1967; Traux & Carkhuff, 1967). Perceived emotional intelligence is theorized to be a trait-like ability that varies between individuals, which may relate to a group members ability to intellectual empathize with other members (Salovey, Mayer, Goldman, Turvey, & Palfai, 1995). Attention is one factor of Perceived Emotional Intelligence that assesses ones ability to pay attention to and label ones own emotions. Past research has found a relationship between self-reported attention and empathy (Ramos, FernandezBerrocal, & Extremera, 2007; Salovey, Stroud, Woolery, & Epel, 2002); however, they are not equivalent. Attention is a self-reported individual difference variable that captures ones ability to accurately pay attention to and label ones own emotions. While intellectual empathy is a state or trait variable that captures the degree to which one accurately understands another persons emotions, as experienced by the other person. As opposed to a trait variable, situation specic factors, like how engaged a group member feels during a group session, may impact his or her ability to intellectually empathize with other members. Group members may feel more or less engaged from session to session and their level of engagement is likely to inuence how much they pay attention to accurately identifying the feelings of other members. This study asked whether group member attention or level of engagement related to how group members perceive the emotional experiences of other members. Method Participants Marcus and Kashy (1995) suggest using 6 groups of 4 5 members for a round robin design. In the study at hand, participants were 43 group members drawn from 6 weekly personal growth groups (ns 10, 9, 8, 5, 6, and 5). From the participating groups, 10 group members did not participate in the study because they were not present in the group at the time of data collection, and thus the total number of participating and non participating members in each group were (ns 10, 12, 10, 7, 8, and 6). Eight groups were asked to participate, and 6 of these groups agreed. All groups were personal growth groups for freshman college

students that took place at a Liberal Arts College in the northeast. The groups were run through the ofce of Campus Ministry, partly as a training opportunity for interns to learn how to lead a group and to practice counseling and guidance skills. The stated goals of these groups are to: deal with transitional issues to college (the ups and downs), share on a deeper level, nd meaning and challenge each other, meet diverse people with similar interests and values, share on topics that matter, such as Who am I? Where am I going? How do I live a meaningful life? Group sessions met once a week and lasted 60 70 min. There was one group leader per group (White 4, Asian 1, Hispanic 1; men 1, women 5; Age 24 25 years old). Four of the group leaders were counseling masters students, one was a theology masters student, and one was a nursing student. All group leaders were interns in Campus Ministry and conducted groups as a part of their internship requirements. Group leaders received individual and group supervision. All group members were freshman college students (White 37, Asian 4, other 2; women 40, men 3) and identied as Catholic. Although these groups begin annually at the start of each academic year and terminate at the end of the academic year ( 9 months), new group members can be admitted at any time into the group throughout the year. Participating group members indicated that they were in the group, on average, for 6 months at the time of data collection (M 23.3 weeks, SD 6.4). Group members indicated on a one item scale, ranging from 0 (not engaged at all) to 8 (extremely engaged), that they felt very engaged during the group session after which data were collected (M 6.5, SD 1.4). This study was Institutional Review Board approved. Group members were assured that their participation in the group would not depend on their level of participation in the study and that all data were anonymous and condential. Measures Positive and Negative Emotion Scale. This is a 10 item, self-report scale. Participants are instructed to rate their experience of each emotion on a 9-point scale, ranging from 0 none to 8 extreme. In this study, participants

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were instructed to rate their experience of each emotion during the group session that just ended. Positive emotions include happiness, amusement, and pride. Negative emotions include anger, contempt, discomfort, disgust, fear, guilt, and sadness. Anderson et al. (2003) reported good to excellent reliability for the emotion scale and relatively stable reliabilities over time. At Time 1, ranged from .77 to .78 for the positive emotion scale and .85 to .95 for the negative emotion scale. At Time 2, was .77 to .85 for positive emotion and .84 to .90 for negative emotion. Positive and Negative Emotion Scale Round Robin. Every participating group member rated every other member that was present on the 10 positive and negative emotions from the Positive and Negative Emotion Scale, on a scale from 0 none to 8 extreme. The instrument asked group members to rate the extent to which each group member experienced the following emotions during todays group session, followed by a list of the 10 emotion words. These directions are consistent with the directions given to participants in similar studies (Duan & Kivlighan, 2002). For example, in a hypothetical group, Bill rated Cathy, Al, Sue, and Linda on how angry he perceived each to have felt during the group session that just ended. Bill would then repeat this procedure for each of the 10 emotions listed. Trait Meta-Mood Scale (TMMS). The TMMS (Salovey et al., 1995) measures selfreported or perceived emotional intelligence and is comprised of three factors: attention to emotions (ability to pay attention to and identify ones emotions), clarity of emotional experience (ability to understand ones emotions), and management of emotions (ability to manage or regulate ones feelings). However, only one of these subscales (attention) was used in this study because of time limitations. The attention subscale assesses ones self-reported ability to label and perceive ones own emotions. The attention subscale includes 13 items, such as, I pay a lot of attention to how I feel. In past research, it had an alpha of .86 and did not correlate with the other subscales (Salovey et al., 1995). The internal consistency for the attention scale for the sample in this study was .84. Salovey et al. (1995) provided evidence for the convergent and discriminant validity of the TMMS, as the TMMS related to measures of

mood and mood management in theoretically predictable ways. Procedure The author contacted the coordinator of the group program to obtain permission to recruit participants from the personal growth groups. Once permission was obtained from the coordinator, the author briey met with the group leaders of these growth groups, in a group format, to discuss the study. The author told the leaders that the purpose of the study was to learn more about group member emotions and that group members would be asked to complete a series of self-report measures, once, after a group session. Because these groups are semistructured and often revolve around a theme, a common theme was agreed upon for the particular group session after which data would be collected, to ensure some uniformity across groups. The group theme was designated to be relationship conicts. A particular week/ group session was also chosen for group leaders to administer the questionnaires to members so that all group members completed the questionnaires around the same time. Subsequently, the author delivered packets of questionnaires to the group leaders. The author included a detailed protocol for group leaders, explaining how to administer the questionnaires to group members. A set of questionnaires included: an informed consent form, general directions, demographic form, the Positive and Negative Emotion Scale, the Round Robin Emotion Scale, the engagement item, and the Attention subscale. Each participant was assigned a random identication number. Participants were identied by a random set of letters in the round robin instrument. Consistent with the typical structure of the groups, group leaders instructed their group members to journal about a past or present relationship conict and the feelings and behaviors associated with that conict, during the week before the group session after which data were to be collected. Then, the following group session began with the members discussing their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors while journaling. After this initial warm up activity, the group session consisted of open discussion about relationship conicts. When the group ended, the group leader administered the ques-

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tionnaires to the members who immediately completed the questionnaires and returned them in a secure drop box. Results Kennys (1993) computer program WINSOREMO, which performs social relations analyses on data collected from round robin designs, was used for all data analyses. The formulas and their derivations that form the basis for this program may be found in Warner et al. (1979) and Kenny (1981). The results are based on 6 groups (N 43 group members) with varying number of participants per group. Group member selfratings of his or her positive and negative emotions were entered into WINSOREMO as a self-measure, whereas group member attention and engagement scores were entered as a personality variable. Relative Variance Partitioning Although no specic hypotheses about the SRM variance components themselves were made, the relative variance components are the basis of any SRM analysis. However, WINSOREMO performs signicance tests on absolute variance components. Analyses were performed to create two constructs in WINSOREMO (positive and negative emotions), to separate relationship and error variance. However, these

constructs yielded unstable variance and thus could not be computed. Consequently, relationship variance in this study is a combination of relationship variance plus error and is not tested for signicance in WINSOREMO. However, no hypotheses were made involving the relationship variance. The relative variance components are presented in Table 1. Do all group members look alike in terms of their emotions? Perceiver variance. The results yielded signicant perceiver variance, suggesting that group members have general ways of perceiving other members emotions across all relationships in the group, statistically controlling for target and relationship effects. Perceiver variance was signicant for every positive and negative emotion, accounting for, on average, 54% of the variance (range 31 74%). For example, 53% of the variance in member ratings of other members experience of anger was accounted for by the perceiver, suggesting that Cathy perceives Bill as angry largely because she tends to perceive everyone as feeling angry. Correlations Projection: Perceiver-self correlations. It was hypothesized that signicant perceiver variance in group member emotion ratings was related to a process of projection or assumed similarity. To test this hypothesis, a self-measureperceiver

Table 1 Relative Variance Partitioning for Group Members Ratings of Other Members Positive and Negative Emotions and Self Correlation
Dyadic variable Happiness (PE) Anger (NE) Amusement (PE) Contempt (NE) Pride (PE) Discomfort (NE) Fear (NE) Guilt (NE) Sadness (NE) Disgust (NE) Mean Perceiver .74 .53 .74 .56 .70 .42 .41 .35 .31 .66 .54 Target .05 .15 .05 .08 .03 .13 .15 .12 .11 .03 .09 Perceiver-self correlations .51 .48 .82 .62 .56 .65 .67 .18 .64 .70 Target-self correlations .55 .25 .02 .09 .25 .75 .24 Relationship-error .21 .32 .21 .36 .28 .45 .44 .54 .58 .31 .37

Note. PE positive emotion; NE Negative Emotion. The values in the Relationship-error column represent the variance accounted for by the relationship effects combined with the error variance. Results are based on group size of 7.1. N 6 groups. p .05.

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variance correlation statistic was used, which represents assumed similarity in the SRM. Target and relationship variances are partialed out of these self correlations (Malloy & Kenny, 1986). Major signicant correlations were found for all the emotion ratings, except for guilt, and can be viewed in Table 1. For example, the signicant self-measureperceiver correlation for discomfort was r .65, p .05, suggesting that if Cathy felt discomfort in the group, then she assumed everyone else in the group also felt uncomfortable. Trait variables and intellectual empathy: Attention and perceiver correlations. This study asked whether a trait variable like attention would relate to how group members perceive the emotional experiences of other members. This question was examined with a personalityperceiver variance correlation statistic, which partials out target and relationship variance. Personalityvariance component correlations are disattenuated to take into account the reliabilities of the variance components. WINSOREMO conservatively computes signicance tests on the uncorrected correlations (Malloy & Kenny, 1986). Overall, attention was not signicantly correlated to perceiver variance in member emotion ratings. The one exception was a signicant attentionperceiver variance correlation for disgust (r .39, t 2.4, p .05). This suggests that the more attention a group member paid to his or her emotional experiences, the less likely he or she was to perceive other group members as feeling disgusted. Situation specic variables and intellectual empathy: Engagement and perceiver correlations. This study asked whether a situation specic variable like engagement would relate to how group members perceive the emotional experiences of other members. This question was examined with a personalityperceiver variance correlation statistic. A signicant correlation was only found for happiness (r .33, t 2.1, p .05) and guilt (r .34, t 2.2, p .05). These results suggest that the more engaged a group member felt in the group session, the more likely he or she was to perceive other members as feeling happy but the less likely he or she was to perceive other members as feeling guilty.

Group consensus: Relative target variance. In this study, signicant target variance suggests that group members agree on the emotional experiences of the other group members, statistically controlling for perceiver and relationship effects. Target variance was signicant for 6 of the 10 emotions, accounting for, on average, 9% of the variance (range 315%). However, even when the target variance was signicant, the percentage of target variance was minimal when compared to the perceiver and relationship variances. For example, 5% of the variance in member ratings of other members experience of happiness was accounted for by target variance, suggesting that it may be in part that Cathy perceives Bill as happy because everyone perceives Bill as happy. In other words, there is some signicant agreement among group members that Bill felt happy (target variance 5%), but moreover, members seem to have generalized ways of perceiving other members experience of happiness (perceiver variance 74%). Group member intellectual empathy: Target-self correlations. To assess intellectual empathy, a target varianceself measure correlation statistic was used to assess the degree to which group members perception of a certain members emotional experiences was similar to that members self-ratings of his or her emotional experiences. Only 2 of the 10 target variance-self measure correlations were signicant, happiness and guilt, as can be seen in Table 1. These results suggest that group members who self-reported as happy or guilty were also seen by other group members as feeling happy or guilty. For example, group member Bill self-reported as feeling guilty in the group, and the group accurately identied Bill as feeling guilty. Are Positive or Negative Emotions Easier to Intellectually Empathize With? A secondary goal of this study was to examine whether the results found in Duans (2000) study could be replicated in a growth group context. Differences between the target varianceself measure correlations for positive and negative emotions would have been examined to test for signicant differences. However, given that only two signicant correlations were found, one for a

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positive emotion (happiness) and one for a negative emotion (guilt), there were not enough significant correlations to compare. Discussion The primary purpose of this study was to use a relatively new method for assessing intellectual empathy in groups that circumvents common problems with current empathy scales. Contrary to most other empathy scales, the method used in this study did not assess a group members experience of the groups empathy, which can be inaccurate. Instead, group members self-reported their emotional experiences, and the group was considered to accurately empathize with a member when the groups perception matched the target group members self-reported experience. Neither did this method assess an individual group members empathy, which would not have provided a picture of the emotional understanding of the group as a whole. Instead, using this method, one may ask, did the group have an accurate understanding of how its members felt? According to the results of this initial study, in some instances, the answer may be no. The lack of signicant self measuretarget variance correlations suggests that the groups perception of how a member felt during a session, overall, did not relate to the target group members self-report of his or her emotional experiences. Overall, the groups consensual perception of a target members emotions did not relate to the targets perception of his or her own emotional experiences. However, the two exceptions were signicant self measuretarget correlations for guilt and happiness. It is surprising that guilt and happiness were the only two emotions that the group accurately identied in members. Although Duan (2000) failed to nd evidence that some emotions are easier to intellectually empathize with than others in a laboratory study, perhaps guilt and happiness are easier emotions to intellectually empathize with in a real-life group setting. Happiness is a pleasurable emotion that a person may willingly acknowledge in other people, as it may make him or her feel good. Some research on emotions suggests that individuals make fewer mistakes identifying happy facial expressions than angry or sad expressions (Calvo & Marrero, 2009). While guilt is of course not a pleasurable emotion, it may be

relatively easy to accurately identify in others, as it often has verbal markers, including blaming the self and accepting too much responsibility. Zeelenberg and Breugelmans (2008) found that guilt tends to arise in situations of interpersonal harm. Because group members were instructed to discuss relationship conicts, perhaps group members who spoke of personal experiences in the session shared instances where they perceived doing harm to others, giving rise to a predominant feeling of guilt. It is interesting that the perceiver variance for happiness and guilt were the only 2 of the 10 emotions to also signicantly relate to group member engagement. Group members who were more engaged in the session were more likely to perceive other members as happy. Because the results also suggest that the group accurately perceived other members experience of happiness, it seems that engaged members were more likely to see other members as feeling happy because they really were feeling happy. On the other hand, group members who were more engaged in the session tended to perceive other members, overall, as not feeling guilty. Because the results also suggest that the group accurately perceived a members experience of guilt, one explanation is that engaged members tended to perceive less guilt in the group because there really was less guilt overall. However, when a group member did selfreport experiencing guilt, the results suggest that the group as a whole also perceived that member to feel guilty. Perhaps these group sessions focused on only a few members relationship conicts and these few group members experienced guilt as a result of self-disclosing to the group. These results provide some initial support for the premise that situation specic variables, like group member engagement, relate to group member intellectual empathy in certain circumstances. To help make sense of the overall lack of intellectual empathy (self measuretarget correlations) found in the current study, the author conducted a brief interview with each of the group leaders after the study was completed. Each leader was asked the extent to which they thought their group members understood the feelings of one another and what they thought helped or hindered their understanding? Interestingly, all six group leaders were unanimous in their impression that their members did not gen-

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erally understand one anothers feelings. Furthermore, these group leaders all believed that the developmental stage (late adolescence) of their group members played a signicant role in hindering their understanding of one anothers emotional experiences. For example, one group leader stated, they [group members] are in that adolescent frame of mind where they are much more focused on themselves and how they are coming across to other members, than what other members are going through. The comments of these group leaders are consistent with the literature. For example, Elkind (1967) rst dened adolescent egocentrism to include the imaginary audience (i.e., those around them are concerned and focused on them as they themselves are) and the personal fable (i.e., the belief that the individual is special, unique, and invulnerable). Although Elkinds (1967) original conception espoused that egocentrism peaked in early adolescence and then declined by middle adolescence (around 15 years old), recent research has suggested that in late adolescence there is a resurgence of egocentrism (Peterson & Roscoe, 1991; Rycek, Stuhr, McDermott, Benker, & Swartz, 1998; Schwartz, Maynard, & Uzelac, 2008). These authors suggest that during stressful times of life transitions and new situations, like attending college, egocentrism reemerges as a coping mechanism in late adolescents. Perhaps the group members in this sample, who were all college freshman, experienced a reemergence of egocentrism that hindered their ability to empathize with others in the group. The fact that perceiver variance components were on average 5 times bigger than the target variances suggest that group member ratings of other members emotional experiences had more to do with the perceiver than the target group member. The results suggest that group members tended to see all other members similarly in terms of their emotional experiences, rather than understanding the unique emotional experience of each member in the group. Similarly, Johnson et al. (2005) found that group members tended to view all other members in the group as either empathic or not, adding to the literature that points to a strong perceiver effect in groups (e.g., Mallinckrodt & Chen, 2004; Markin & Kivlighan, 2008). The nding that the group did not make unique distinctions among the emotional experiences of the mem-

bers could not be explained by differences in the personality variable attention, suggesting that trait-like variables, such as attention, may not relate to intellectual empathy in certain circumstances. Instead, the attention results suggest that a group members ability to identify and pay attention to emotions did not explain his or her ability to distinguish between group members in terms of their emotional experiences. Perhaps group members possessed the ability to identify their own emotions but did not pay attention to other group members emotions as much as their own. Furthermore, perceiver variance in emotion X signicantly correlated with all self-ratings of group member emotion X, except for guilt. In other words, group members perceived all the other members in the group to feel similarly to each other and in terms of how the group member perceiving felt. It appears that group members in this sample used the self as a reference point when making judgments about the emotional experiences of other members. This assumed similarity may be a function of projection, as group members project aspects of the self onto other members. Similarly, Sturmer et al. (2005) found that group members tend to focus on similarities within the group. Perhaps group members in this sample created similarities between their own emotional experiences and those of the other members, even when such similarities did not actually exist. Social psychology research supports the notion that perceived similarity in relationships relates to interpersonal attraction, and in some cases, more so than actual similarity. Montoya, Horton, and Kirchner (2008) conducted a metaanalysis on 460 effect sizes from 313 laboratory and eld investigations in three relationship conditions: no interaction, short interaction, and existing relationships. Their results indicated that the associations between interpersonal attraction and both actual similarity (r .47) and perceived similarity (r .39) were signicant and large. Moreover, the data indicated that there was a signicant reduction in the effect size of actual similarity beyond no-interaction studies, and the effect of actual similarity in existing relationships was not signicant. Alternatively, perceived similarity predicted attraction in no-interaction, short-interaction, and existing relationship studies. Perceived similarity, even when it is not accurate, may help group members

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to feel safe disclosing to the group, provide a sense of universality, and to build a sense of group cohesion and group identication. Limitations and Future Research The results of this study must be considered in terms of certain limitations. Because all of the groups in the sample were comprised of college freshman students in personal growth groups, the generalizability of the results are limited to this population. However, because college counseling centers and other campus agencies frequently work with this population in these types of groups, it seems important to better understand aspects of group member relationships for this population. The generalizability of these results is compromised further by the fact that the sample was mostly White and female. Another limitation may have been the use of few too emotions; however, requiring group members to rate a longer list of emotions on the round robin instrument would have not been practical. The method used in this study to assess intellectual empathy may be confounded by the possibility that some emotions may be easier to detect than others. However, if the results were an artifact of some emotions being easier to detect than others, then one would expect more evidence for intellectual empathy, rather than almost no evidence for intellectual empathy. Furthermore, contrary to the results, one would have expected evidence for more intellectual empathy for stronger emotions like anger, as stronger emotions are theoretically easier to identify than more subtle ones. Instead, evidence for intellectual empathy was found for more subtle emotions like guilt. Contrary to the hypothesis that some emotions are easier to detect than others, it may be that some individuals are better at detecting emotions in general (Rozin et al., 2005; Salovey et al., 1995). However, group member attention, or the ability to identify and label emotions, overall, did not correlate with perceiver variance in this sample, suggesting that group member attention did not relate to how group members perceived the emotional experiences of other members. One possible limitation of the method utilized in this study to assess intellectual empathy is that it may not have captured all the dimensions of intellectual empathy. While the present study assessed that aspect of the groups intel-

lectual empathy that refers to the individual group members emotional experience, other aspects of intellectual empathy may include accurately identifying a group members: emotions as they are expressed behaviorally, as well as cognitions and thoughts. While the groups in the present study did not, overall, intellectually empathize with the emotional experience of other members, perhaps more evidence for group intellectual empathy would be found in future research for emotional expression. Emotional expression is a behavioral and observable variable that may be easier for the group to empathize with than the intrapsychic state of emotional experience. For example, suppose group member Linda acts angry in group (she yells, clenches her sts, grows red in the face), then it would be relatively easy to understand that Linda expressed anger. However, it would be more difcult to understand that Linda was actually experiencing sadness all the while she was acting so angry. While in many instances, emotions as expressed will mirror emotions as experienced, sometimes people are not congruent in how they express the emotions that they internally experience. In these instances, it may be more difcult and confusing for group members to rate the emotional experience of other members in the group. While future research should use the SRM to study the intellectual empathy of emotional expression versus emotional experience, this study chose to begin with the study of emotional experience for several reasons. First, past research on intellectual empathy in individual counseling has also focused on emotional experience (Duan & Kivlighan, 2002) and empathy is typically dened as understanding another persons experience not his or her behaviors (Duan & Hill, 1996). More importantly, it is a members intrapsychic emotional world that the group must understand, support, and work with to effectively help the group members. Similarly, future research, using the SRM, should be used to assess the groups intellectual empathy of members cognitions or thoughts by having group members report what thoughts they perceived other members to have experienced during the group and having each group member provide a self report of his or her thoughts. Another possible limitation of the method used to assess empathy may lie in how accuracy was dened in this study. Group member self-

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report on his or her emotions was judged to be accurate, as dened in this study. This is consistent with past research on empathy that has dened empathy as understanding another persons emotions, as he or she experiences them (see Duan & Hill, 1996). While empathy is usually dened as stepping into another persons shoes to understand his or her experience rather than another persons interpretation of another persons experience, empathy measures typically do not assess the targets self report of his or her experience. Thus, a strength of the approach used to measure empathy in this study is that it did not rely on ones experience or perception of empathy (Cathy may think she empathizes with Bills sadness but Bill may not feel sad at all, just bored, or Bill may think Cathy understands that he feels bored but really Cathy does not). However, the limitation of this approach is that any self-report variable may biased. Some group members may not be aware of their emotional experience and thus not able to report it in a study. Still, even if a group member is not aware of his or her true emotions in the moment, he or she can still selfreport his or her conscious emotional experience in the moment. Accordingly, intellectual empathy involves understanding another persons experience, as he or she experiences it, and not how someone else thinks another person should or really feels. Overall, while similar methods for assessing intellectual empathy have been used in emotion research and with individual counseling dyads, this was the rst study to use the SRM to assess intellectual empathy in groups. While the results of this study suggest that this method shows promise, future research is needed to evaluate the validity and utility of this method. This study had several strengths as well. Recently, there has been a plethora of calls to apply the SRM to more clinical settings and constructs (e.g., Kivlighan et al., 1994; Marcus & Holahan, 1994; Marcus & Kashy, 1995). This is the rst study known to the authors to use the SRM to assess empathy in groups. One strength of this study is the use of a new method for assessing empathy in groups that addressed many of the problems with existing empathy ratings scales, as discussed in Duan and Hill (1996). This new method built upon methods already used by emotion and psychotherapy researchers to assess intellectual empathy in dy-

ads. The type of empathy under investigation was clearly dened and measured and the method of assessment did not rely on ones perception of another persons empathy. These considerations should decrease the inuence of confounding factors that exert inuence over common empathy scales. Future research should examine the relationship between a group members experience of the groups intellectual empathy and the groups actual intellectual empathy. It is possible that in the current study, group members still felt like the group understood their feelings. Future research should also examine the relationship between intellectual empathy and group outcome. Lastly, future research should use the SRM to assess other aspects of intellectual empathy. Hopefully, this study will stimulate future group researchers to try out new ways of measuring empathy in groups that circumvent many of the problems that seriously limit the existing empathy literature. References
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