“From observing empathy to understanding empathy”
A film and activity based intervention to foster emotional and cognitive empathy in primary school children
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21282432 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Ertuğrul Talu (0000-0002-3062-6130, Ahi Evran University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 265 |
| Pages | 106621 |
| Publication date | 2026-05-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Acta Psychologica (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0001-6918 • E-ISSN: 1873-6297 |
| Publisher | Elsevier BV (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1016/j.actpsy.2026.106621 |
| PMID | 41830821 |
| OpenAlex | W7135234291 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 43 |
The present study aimed to examine the effectiveness of an integrated, short-term intervention program based on animated films and follow-up activities designed to enhance emotional and cognitive empathy among fourth-grade elementary school students. The study sample consisted of 37 fourth-grade students from a public elementary school, with 19 students, assigned to the experimental group and 18 to the control group. A quasi-experimental pretest-posttest control group design was employed. Prior to and following the intervention, both groups completed the KA-SI Empathy Tendency Scale (child form). The six-week intervention program involved weekly exposure of the experimental group to a short, empathy-themed animated film, followed by structured activities aimed at reinforcing empathic understanding, such as drama, role-playing, storytelling, and drawing. Quantitative data analysis techniques were used to evaluate the outcomes. The findings indicated that, following the intervention, students in the experimental group demonstrated statistically significant increases in both cognitive and emotional empathy scores compared to those in the control group. Additionally, analyses based on gender revealed that female students exhibited slightly higher empathy scores than male students. Overall, the results support the effectiveness of short, media- and activity-based intervention programs reported in the existing literature and provide exploratory evidence suggesting that brief, structured interventions may serve as a functional approach for fostering empathy development within educational settings
Cognition · Cognitive Intervention · Empathy · Intervention (counseling) · Perspective-taking · Poison control · Counseling, Therapy, and Family Dynamics · Empathy and Medical Education · Film in Education and Therapy
Integrating Empathy and Interpersonal Emotion Regulation
An Index of Empathy for Children and Adolescents
The complex relation between morality and empathy
The Functional Architecture of Human Empathy
Effects of teachers' emotion regulation, burnout, and life satisfaction on student well-being
Dual-Processing Accounts of Reasoning, Judgment, and Social Cognition
Social cognitive theory of gender development and differentiation.
Are women the more empathetic gender? The effects of gender role expectations
The Short-Term Impact of Animation on the Executive Function of Children Aged 4 to 7
Parental Socialization of Emotion Expression
Okul Öncesi Dönem Çocuklarında Duygu Düzenleme Becerileri ile Etkileşimli Oyun Davranışları Arasındaki İlişkinin İncelenmesi
Examining the relationship between low empathy and bullying
The Impact of Enhancing Students' Social and Emotional Learning
The relation of empathy to prosocial and related behaviors
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |