ArticlePloS one2015
Can Text Messages Increase Empathy and Prosocial Behavior? The Development and Initial Validation of Text to Connect.
Article in PloS one, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT04279483 (Geo Smoking Study and Neural and Geospatial Examination of Smokers' Exposure to Retail Environments), which is not on this map. Cited by 9 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Geo Smoking Study and Neural and Geospatial Examination of Smokers' Exposure to Retail Environments
Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- The neuroscience of social feelings: mechanisms of adaptive social functioning.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2021Pooled it
- Trial
- Influence of agent's self-disclosure on human empathy.PloS one · 2023Article
- A Randomized Placebo-Controlled Study on the Effectiveness of the "Three Good Things for Others" Intervention.Frontiers in psychology · 2021Article
- A Mobile Health Intervention for Adolescents Exposed to Secondhand Smoke: Pilot Feasibility and Efficacy Study.JMIR formative research · 2020Article
- Potentials and pitfalls of increasing prosocial behavior and self-efficacy over time using an online personalized platform.PloS one · 2020Article
- A technology-augmented intervention to prevent peer violence and depressive symptoms among at-risk emergency department adolescents: Protocol for a randomized control trial.Contemporary clinical trials · 2019Article
- Development and validation of the Single Item Trait Empathy Scale (SITES).Journal of research in personality · 2018Article
- Neuroendocrine mechanisms for parental sensitivity: overview, recent advances and future directions.Current opinion in psychology · 2017Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
Abstract
To what extent can simple mental exercises cause shifts in empathic habits? Can we use mobile technology to make people more empathic? It may depend on how empathy is measured. Scholars have identified a number of different facets and correlates of empathy. This study is among the first to take a comprehensive, multidimensional approach to empathy to determine how empathy training could affect these different facets and correlates. In doing so, we can learn more about empathy and its multifaceted nature. Participants (N = 90) were randomly assigned to receive either an empathy-building text message program (Text to Connect) or one of two control conditions (active versus passive). Respondents completed measures of dispositional empathy (i.e. self-perceptions of being an empathic person), affective empathy (i.e. motivations to help, immediate feelings of empathic concern), and prosocial behavior (i.e. self-reports and observer-reports) at baseline, and then again after the 14 day intervention period. We found that empathy-building messages increased affective indicators of empathy and prosocial behaviors, but actually decreased self-perceptions of empathy, relative to control messages. Although the brief text messaging intervention did not consistently impact empathy-related personality traits, it holds promise for the use of mobile technology for changing empathic motivations and behaviors.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.