Empathetic listening boosts nostalgia levels and positive emotions in autobiographical narrators

Writing to your past-self can make you feel better

Self-compassionate writing has been shown to be helpful for improving the mental state in some individuals. Here, we investigated how the writer's attitude toward his/her past, present and future and the focus of the writing, i.e., social experience in the past versus self-experience, modulate these effects. In Experiment 1, 150 undergraduates wrote a compassionate letter to their past-self and to their future-self and responded to the Japanese version of the Adolescent Time Inventory-Time Attitudes (ATI-TA) questionnaire. Writing to past-self decreased negative feelings more than writing to future-self. Further, participants who had negative feelings toward their past, present, and future, as assessed by the ATI-TA, were more likely to be emotionally affected by writing a letter to their past-self. In Experiment 2, 31 undergraduates wrote a letter focusing on what they had experienced together with someone, and another 31 undergraduates wrote focusing on what they had experienced alone. Focusing on a social experience was more helpful for recovering from negative feelings than focusing on a self-experience. In conclusion, writing a compassionate letter to one's past-self can improve mood, especially in individuals with a negative time attitude who focus their writing on a social connection.

Influence of empathy on work alienation among Chinese nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic: The mediating effect of ego depletion

Background

Nurses' work alienation has become increasingly serious due to the increase in workload and risk during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). However, no studies have investigated the link between empathy, ego depletion, and work alienation among Chinese nurses. The present study aimed to evaluate Chinese nurses' empathy, ego depletion, and work alienation and to examine whether nurses' ego depletion mediates the relationship between empathy and work alienation.

Methods

This was a descriptive, cross-sectional study involving 353 nurses from Shaanxi. The Jefferson Scale of Empathy-Health Professionals, Self-Regulating Fatigue Scale and Work Alienation Questionnaire were used to collect data through an online survey. Structural equation modeling was conducted to analyze the mediating model.

Results

Work alienation was negatively correlated with empathy (r = -0.305, p < 0.01) and positively correlated with ego depletion (r = 0.652, p < 0.01). Empathy was negatively correlated with ego depletion (r = -0.325, p < 0.01). Empathy can directly predict work alienation (β = -0.263, p < 0.01), while ego depletion has a mediating effect between empathy and work alienation (β = -0.309, p < 0.01), and the mediating effect accounts for 54.02% of the total effect.

Conclusion

Nurses' work alienation was at a moderate-to-high level. Improving empathy can reduce work alienation through less ego depletion. Nursing managers should discover nurses' work alienation as soon as possible. Interventions to improve empathy can help replenish nurses' psychological resources, thereby reducing ego depletion and work alienation.