Empathic concern and perspective taking: a tale from middle school history

PurposeThis empirical quantitative research study aimed to test whether historical texts could activate empathic concern and perspective taking in a US History classroom with adolescent students.Design/methodology/approachEighth-grade participants (n = 227) were randomly assigned to read either a historical narrative text or a collection of primary documents, then participants self-reported a range of emotions and wrote a paragraph that was assessed for historical perspective taking.FindingsResults indicated that for students randomly assigned to read the narrative text, empathic concern or compassion, was associated with higher historical perspective taking, even after controlling for literacy ability.Research limitations/implicationsAll participants attended a single predominantly. White upper middle class middle school, and read either one narrative text or one collection of primary documents. Findings cannot be generalized to all students or all texts. The study design did not assess for a causal relationship of empathic concern and historical perspective taking.Practical implicationsThis study demonstrates that empathic concern, when activated through a certain narrative text, can be associated with greater achievement on cognitive academic tasks such as writing a paragraph assessed for historical perspective taking. Furthermore, this study provides evidence that empathic concern should be a target emotion for students rather than a similar emotional experience as the person they are empathizing with.Originality/valueAdolescents today appear to have lower levels of empathy than in the past. Empathy may be crucial for moral behavior. Research indicates that historical texts could potentially provide effective empathic interventions for adolescents. However, there are no published empirical quantitative research studies related to activating empathy for adolescents through literacy in a history classroom.