The present study investigated how empathy structures in groups affect group member's task-focus, perceived entitativity and cohesion. “Mutual empathy” is defined as cognitive understanding and affective response that are derived from valuing the ...
The present study investigated how empathy structures in groups affect group member's task-focus, perceived entitativity and cohesion. “Mutual empathy” is defined as cognitive understanding and affective response that are derived from valuing the welfare and taking the perspective of the partner at the dyadic level. In this study, it was hypothesized that group member’s level of task-focus, group entitativity, and cohesion would vary in accordance with the group’s empathy structure.
In the balanced structure(empathic-balanced/non-empathic-balanced structure), it was expected that groups would experience lower levels of tension and higher levels of task-focus than in the imbalanced structure(empathic-imbalanced structure). Also, empathic-balanced groups were expected to perceive higher levels of group entitativity and experience higher cohesion than other groups. Moreover, it was expected that non-empathic-balanced groups would perceive lower levels of group entitativity and cohesion than other groups.
In Study 1, 66 Korean college students were randomly assigned to read the scenarios(about 'member of empathic-balanced group', 'member of empathic- imbalanced group with two-person connected', 'member of empathic-imbalanced group with one-person connected', 'member of non-empathic–balanced group') and respond to the items regarding affects(including tension related affects), task-focus, perceived group entitativity, cohesion and other behaviors which could be observed in a group. Results showed that participants in the empathic-balanced group member condition reported the highest levels of perceived group entitativity and cohesion, whereas participants in the non-empathic-balanced group member condition reported the lowest level of those variables. However, empathy structure did not affect group member’s level of tension, and unexpectedly participants in empathic-balanced group member condition reported higher level of task-focus than other conditions. Group member’s positive/negative affects, coordination motivation, open communication, relation/task conflict level also differed from each experimental conditions.
Based on the Study 1, Study 2 was conducted to explore empathy structures on bona-fide groups consists of Korean college students. In addition, in Study 2 group’s mutual empathy was measured in a quantitative manner based on empathy structure and supplementing items of experiencing tension, task-related behavior within group were used. As a result, it turned out that real teams could be characterized as certain empathy structure. Also, the result of group entitativity, cohesion, and other intragroup behavior corresponded to those of Study 1. Member’s level of tension related affect(‘uncomfortable’) was highest in empathic-balanced group and lowest in non-empathic-balanced group. Therefore, the hypothesis on level of tension was not supported. On the other hand, non-empathic-balanced group reported higher level of task-related behavior within group than other groups, thus hypothesis on task-focus was partially supported. Integrating the results, it is concluded that each mutual empathy structure has its own unique group dynamics.
Implications of the study and suggestions for future studies were discussed at the end.