What Is the Relationship Between Empathy and Mental Health in Preschool Teachers: The Role of Teaching Experience
What Is the Relationship Between Empathy and Mental Health in Preschool Teachers: The Role of Teaching Experience
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DOI：
10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01366
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发表时间：
2020-07
影响因子：
3.8
通讯作者：
Heqing Huang;Yanchun Liu;Yanjie Su
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Heqing Huang;Yanchun Liu;Yanjie Su
本研究旨在揭示幼儿教师移情与心理健康的特点，并探讨移情在幼儿教师心理健康中的作用。本研究以4348名幼儿教师为被试，按教龄分为四组(2年以下、2-5年、5-10年、10年以上)。采用中文版症状自评量表测评受试者的心理健康症状，采用中文版人际反应指数测评受试者的共情能力。结果表明，多数症状随教龄的增加而增加，与年龄无关。研究还发现，在四个教学体验组中，移情的四个维度呈现出不同的趋势：幻想保持稳定，移情关切和视角采择呈下降趋势，个人苦恼呈上升趋势。此外，本研究还发现幼儿教师的共情与心理健康之间存在较为复杂的关系：幻想和个人痛苦对幼儿教师的心理健康症状有正向预测作用，而观点采择和移情关怀与大部分症状呈负相关。移情似乎既包含对个体心理健康的风险因素，也包含对个体心理健康的保护因素，而且这些因素受到多年教学经验的影响。
The present study aimed to delineate the characteristics of empathy and mental health in preschool teachers and to examine the role of empathy in preschool teachers’ mental health. The sample in this study consisted of 4348 preschool teachers, who were divided into four groups according to their years of teaching experience (less than 2, 2–5, 5–10, and more than 10 years). The Chinese version of the Symptom Checklist 90 was used to measure the mental health symptoms of the participants, and the Chinese version of the interpersonal reactivity index was employed to assess various aspects of the participants’ empathy. The results indicated that most symptoms increased as teaching experience increased, independent of the effect of age. The study also found that the four dimensions of empathy showed different trends across the four teaching experience groups: fantasy remained stable, empathic concerns and perspective taking showed decreasing trends, and personal distress showed an increasing trend. Moreover, the present research found a relatively complex relationship between empathy and mental health in preschool teachers: whereas fantasy and personal distress positively predicted mental health symptoms in preschool teachers, perspective taking and empathic concern negatively correlated with most of the symptoms. It seems that empathy contains both risk and protective factors for individuals’ mental health, and these factors are affected by years of teaching experience.