Sara H. Konrath
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Using mobile technology for psychosocial interventions
Mobile phones are a common mode of connecting with people in the digital age. Every day, young Americans on average send and receive 130 text messages and spend over nine hours using their mobile phones. Parents, educators, and social critics worry that at best, this displaces our deepest social connections—and at worst, it promotes bullying, sexting, and privacy abuses. And there is reason for such concerns. Professor Sara Konrath’s research has found recent declines in empathy among young Americans since the late 1970s. Fortunately, research also ¬finds that empathy can be taught and learned. Konrath is currently working with a multidisciplinary group of collaborators to develop theoretically-based mobile interventions to help increase empathy and prosocial behavior—thereby reducing bullying, aggression, and violence. Her mobile program, Text to Connect, sends daily text reminders that encourage users to think about and care for others. The program increases participants’ prosocial motives and behaviors—compared to control messages—with effects lasting up to six months. Konrath is also developing a fun empathy-building app named Random App of Kindness, which provides games based on scientific principles of empathy development. Professor Konrath sees the larger potential of mobile-based interventions in other psychosocial interventions, including those aimed at increasing mental health and well-being. Professor Konrath’s work to create tools to address declining empathy among younger generations is another example of how IUPUI faculty are TRANSLATING RESEARCH INTO PRACTICE.
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Item Abuse-Related Post-Traumatic Stress, Coping, and Tobacco Use in Pregnancy(2011-07-01) Lopez, William D.; Konrath, Sara H.; Seng, Julia S.Objective: To examine the relationship between trauma history, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), coping, and smoking in a diverse sample of pregnant women, some of whom are active smokers. Design: Secondary analysis from a prospective study on PTSD and pregnancy outcomes. Setting: Maternity clinics at three health systems in the midwestern United States. Participants: Women age 18 or older (1,547) interviewed at gestational age fewer than 28 weeks. Methods: Participants were classified at nonsmokers, quitters (stopped smoking during pregnancy), and pregnancy smokers. Demographic, trauma, and pregnancy factors, substance use, and use of tobacco to cope were compared across groups. Logistic regression assessed the influence of these factors on being a smoker versus a nonsmoker and a quitter versus a pregnancy smoker. Results: Smokers differed from nonsmokers on all demographic risk factors (being African American, being pregnant as a teen, having lower income and less education, and living in high-crime areas), had higher rates of current and lifetime PTSD, and were more likely to report abuse as their worst trauma. Pregnancy smokers had lower levels of education, were more likely to classify their worst trauma as “extremely troubling,” and were more likely to exhibit PTSD hyperarousal symptoms. In regression models, smoking “to cope with emotions and problems” doubled the odds of continuing to smoke while pregnant even after accounting for several relevant risk factors. Conclusion: Smoking behavior in pregnancy may be influenced by the need to cope with abuse-related PTSD symptoms. Clinicians should consider using trauma-informed interventions when working with tobacco-using pregnant women.Item Big data in the new media environment(2014-02) O'Donnell, Matthew Brook; Falk, Emily B.; Konrath, Sara H.Bentley et al. argue for the social scientific contextualization of “big data” by proposing a four-quadrant model. We suggest extensions of the east–west (i.e., socially motivated versus independently motivated) decision-making dimension in light of findings from social psychology and neuroscience. We outline a method that leverages linguistic tools to connect insights across fields that address the individuals underlying big-data media streams.Item Can Text Messages Increase Empathy and Prosocial Behavior? The Development and Initial Validation of Text to Connect(PLOS, 2015-09-10) Konrath, Sara H.; Falk, Emily; Fuhrel-Forbis, Andrea; Liu, Mary; Swain, James; Tolman, Richard; Cunningham, Rebecca; Walton, Maureen; School of PhilanthropyTo 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.Item Can text messages make people kinder?(Oxford UP, 2014) Konrath, Sara H.Empathic character is a set of interrelated dispositions, skills, motivations, emotions, and behaviors that involve a habitual responsiveness to others’ needs. It is linked to higher prosocial behavior, lower aggression, and better health. There is much research demonstrating both its consistency within people over time and its malleability in response to environmental and situational cues, including face-to-face interventions. In this paper I examine whether it is possible to increase empathic character using a mobile-based program. A large body of research in public health has used text messages to improve physical health outcomes and behaviors, but no research has examined whether text messages can be used to change traits. We conducted a study (N=90) in which participants received 6 daily empathy-building text messages for a 2 week period, versus a control group. We found that those in the empathy group showed some evidence of increased empathic character compared to control participants. The chapter ends by discussing implications of this work for a deeper understanding of empathic character, and some future directions of this research.Item A Century of Nonprofit Studies: Scaling the Knowledge of the Field(Springer, 2018-12) Ma, Ji; Konrath, Sara; Lilly Family School of PhilanthropyThis empirical study examines knowledge production between 1925 and 2015 in nonprofit and philanthropic studies from quantitative and thematic perspectives. Quantitative results suggest that scholars in this field have been actively generating a considerable amount of literature and a solid intellectual base for developing this field toward a new discipline. Thematic analyses suggest that knowledge production in this field is also growing in cohesion—several main themes have been formed and actively advanced since 1980s, and the study of volunteering can be identified as a unique core theme of this field. The lack of geographic and cultural diversity is a critical challenge for advancing nonprofit studies. New paradigms are needed for developing this research field and mitigating the tension between academia and practice. Methodological and pedagogical implications, limitations, and future studies are discussed.Item A Century of Self-Esteem(2011) Konrath, Sara H.; Anderson, Paul A.Google n-grams can be used by researchers to track changes across time in the use of specific words and phrases. N-grams includes a corpus of approximately 15 million published books (in various languages). In this chapter we use google n-grams to illustrate temporal trends in the use of the word “self-esteem” in English-language books published from 1900-2000. We first review past research on temporal trends in selfesteem and related traits. Next, we discuss some limitations of this research, and how ngrams can help to address such limitations. Finally, we use the “self-esteem” n-gram data to conduct a quantitative sociohistorical analysis of three potential factors that are hypothesized to cause societal-level shifts in self-esteem. These factors are derived from ecological models of human development (e.g. Bronfenbrenner, 1979), and range from the immediate everyday social context of individuals (e.g. family, school), to a mid-level context (e.g. community), to the broader cultural context (e.g. general political and economic environment). We present evidence for these potential causes of changes in the importance of self-esteem. Based on this evidence, we make recommendations as to the best focus of efforts to quell the rising tide of unrealistic self-esteem.Item Critical Synthesis Package: Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI)(2013) Konrath, Sara H.The IRI measures four different dimensions of dispositional empathy: 1) The Empathic Concern subscale assesses emotional empathy, or feelings of compassion for others in distress (e.g. “I often have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me.”) 2) The Perspective Taking subscale assesses cognitive empathy, or the tendency to see the world from others’ viewpoints (e.g. “I sometimes try to understand my friends better by imagining how things look from their perspective.”) 3) The Personal Distress subscale assesses self-focused responses to others’ suffering (e.g. “When I see someone who badly needs help in an emergency, I go to pieces.”) 4) The Fantasy subscale assesses empathy for fictional characters (e.g. “I really get involved with the feelings of the characters in a novel.”)Item The Development and Validation of the Motives to Donate Scale(Sage, 2017) Konrath, Sara; Handy, Femida; Lilly Family School of PhilanthropyIn this article, we develop and validate a comprehensive self-report scale of why people make charitable donations, relying on a theoretical model of private versus public benefits to donors. In Study 1, we administered an initial pool of 54 items to a general adult sample online. An exploratory factor analysis supported six final factors in the Motives to Donate scale: Trust, Altruism, Social, Tax benefits, Egoism, and Constraints. We then verified this factor structure in a confirmatory factor analysis. Study 1 also examined the final 18-item scale’s demographic correlates and construct validity using the same sample. We found that the scale correlated in predictable ways with personality traits and motives to volunteer. In Study 2, we also found test–retest correlations between .67 and .80 after 2 weeks. Taken together, we provide initial evidence for the scale’s internal reliability, test–retest reliability, and validity, and we suggest future directions for research.Item Development and Validation of the Single Item Narcissism Scale (SINS)(PLOS, 2014-08-05) Konrath, Sara H.; Meier, Brian P.; Bushman, Brad J.Main Objectives The narcissistic personality is characterized by grandiosity, entitlement, and low empathy. This paper describes the development and validation of the Single Item Narcissism Scale (SINS). Although the use of longer instruments is superior in most circumstances, we recommend the SINS in some circumstances (e.g. under serious time constraints, online studies). Methods In 11 independent studies (total N = 2,250), we demonstrate the SINS' psychometric properties. Results The SINS is significantly correlated with longer narcissism scales, but uncorrelated with self-esteem. It also has high test-retest reliability. We validate the SINS in a variety of samples (e.g., undergraduates, nationally representative adults), intrapersonal correlates (e.g., positive affect, depression), and interpersonal correlates (e.g., aggression, relationship quality, prosocial behavior). The SINS taps into the more fragile and less desirable components of narcissism. Significance The SINS can be a useful tool for researchers, especially when it is important to measure narcissism with constraints preventing the use of longer measures.Item Development and validation of the Single Item Trait Empathy Scale (SITES)(Elsevier, 2018-04) Konrath, Sara; Meier, Brian P.; Bushman, Brad J.; Lilly Family School of PhilanthropyEmpathy involves feeling compassion for others and imagining how they feel. In this article, we develop and validate the Single Item Trait Empathy Scale (SITES), which contains only one item that takes seconds to complete. In seven studies (N=5,724), the SITES was found to be both reliable and valid. It correlated in expected ways with a wide variety of intrapersonal outcomes. For example, it is negatively correlated with narcissism, depression, anxiety, and alexithymia. In contrast, it is positively correlated with other measures of empathy, self-esteem, subjective well-being, and agreeableness. The SITES also correlates with a wide variety of interpersonal outcomes, especially compassion for others and helping others. The SITES is recommended in situations when time or question quantity is constrained.