Boosting Empathy in Teens: There's an App for That

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Consider for a moment the invisible web that connects us all. No, not the internet—the complex, delicate strands of empathy that allow us to share in each other's experiences and emotions. As renowned psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen poetically phrased, "Empathy is the glue of the social world, drawing us to help others and stopping us from hurting others." (Baron-Cohen, 2004, p. 163)

Empathy: The Building Block of Society

Empathy, our ability to understand and share the feelings of others, is not just a cornerstone of healthy personal relationships; it forms the foundation for a cooperative, harmonious society. In essence, empathy not only fosters prosocial behavior it also helps inhibit antisocial actions.

As technology continues to evolve and become an integral part of our lives, a critical question arises: Can we leverage the ubiquity of smartphones to encourage empathy in the digital generation?

Introducing RAKi: The Random App of Kindness

A team of multidisciplinary researchers, including myself, teamed up with Habitat Seven, an app development company, to explore this exciting frontier. We created the Random App of Kindness (RAKi), a smartphone application explicitly designed to enhance empathy. When we first released the app back in 2017, my colleague Sara Konrath wrote about it in her Psychology Today post, and since then we have continued to test how well it works.

RAKi diverges from typical gaming apps by incorporating nine mini-games, each centered on a unique empathy-building task. Users might find themselves identifying emotions, soothing a crying baby, or viewing life from the perspective of an elderly woman. These engaging activities are crafted to flex our "empathy muscles" much like physical exercise strengthens our body.

Testing RAKi's Potential

To confirm whether this novel approach could indeed foster empathy we took the scientific route, conducting a rigorous, randomized control trial with a sample of 106 adolescents. Participants were randomly assigned to use either RAKi or an unrelated control app, Two Dots.

A range of measures was collected before and after the intervention, examining the participants' prosocial tendencies, perceptions about aggression, and empathy levels. Importantly, these assessments involved self-report, parent-report, and observer-report, providing a holistic evaluation of each teen's empathic tendencies.

The Verdict: A Temporary Boost in Empathy and Reduction in Aggression

While RAKi didn't significantly alter the participants' stable, long-term empathic traits (trait empathy), it did influence temporary emotional responses (state empathy). Teens using the app reported feeling kinder and demonstrated more compassion. They also showed lower acceptance of aggressive behaviors.

Importantly, when it came to observable behaviors, the users of RAKi stood out. Observers rated them as more empathetic during social interaction tasks, and they committed to helping in a hypothetical scenario for longer durations. Perhaps most strikingly, RAKi seemed to temper aggressive behavior among those who initially had lower empathy levels.

A Step in the Right Direction

While the RAKi app might not revolutionize our empathic traits overnight, the study shows promise in nudging our behaviors and attitudes toward empathy. The findings illuminate the potential of digital interventions in guiding us towards more prosocial behaviors when it matters most.

Despite its limitations, such as small sample size and the inevitable constraints of building a prototype app, this study marks a significant leap forward in the emerging field of positive technology. This term refers to the application of technology grounded in scientific principles to enhance people's health and well-being.

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Looking Towards an Empathetic Future

The Random App of Kindness offers a tantalizing glimpse into a future where digital technologies might be used to nurture empathy and other prosocial qualities in young people.

The app is free for both Android and Apple devices.