Abstract
Clinical empathy is essential in providing quality care as a provider’s ability to empathize with patients in clinical settings produces improved patient satisfaction, treatment compliance, and reduced malpractice lawsuits. However, as healthcare workers experience more strain and exhaustion in the field, they tend to experience reduced clinical empathy to cope with emotional or traumatic circumstances. Reduced clinical empathy is extremely problematic in the healthcare industry by effecting patient-provider relationships and even causing prejudice and racism. Empathy can be established by viewing injuries or procedures but is heavily expressed through facial expression recognition. This study investigated how level of healthcare exposure impacts pain empathy of facial expression recognition of other- and same-race faces. This was evaluated using an ERP task asking participants to view White and Black faces, indicating if the face presented a neutral or pained expression. Each face was primed with a congruent or incongruent image depicting a graphic or neutral clinical scene. This was followed by an emotional Stroop task, measuring attentional abilities in an empathy-invoking task. Neural empathy measures were recorded at the P300 ERP component. Behavioral measures of accuracy and reaction time were analyzed. Results found no significant differences between high- and low- healthcare exposure. There were significant differences in facial processing of White and Black faces across priming task measures, demonstrating a significant other-race effect. The emotional Stroop task produced no significant findings. This study is pivotal in providing insight into downfalls in our healthcare infrastructure and can suggest ways to improve patient care, as physicians are bound to interact with patients of diverse races and background. Patients deserve strong patient-provider relationships and to feel empathized with, regardless of background.
Advisor
Herzmann, Grit
Department
Neuroscience
Recommended Citation
Netz, Eden, ""I’ve Seen It All!”: The Effects of Clinical Empathy on the Other-Race Effect" (2024). Senior Independent Study Theses. Paper 11129.
https://openworks.wooster.edu/independentstudy/11129
Disciplines
Applied Behavior Analysis | Medicine and Health | Other Social and Behavioral Sciences | Social Justice | Social Psychology and Interaction
Keywords
Healthcare, Clinical Empathy, Other-Race Effect, Healthcare Exposure, emotional Stroop task, ERP
Publication Date
2024
Degree Granted
Bachelor of Arts
Document Type
Senior Independent Study Thesis
© Copyright 2024 Eden Netz