Empathy competence of psychology students at universities in Hanoi

Abstract

The study was conducted with 355 psychology students from several universities in Hanoi, aiming to examine the current status, levels and manifestations of empathy competence among students. The results showed that, overall, the students in the sample demonstrated a moderate level of empathy competence. Among the two components of empathy, students demonstrated affective empathy effectively than cognitive empathy. Of the five component empathic skills, students were most proficient in demonstrating behaviors that show concern for others’ emotions. Possible reasons and explanations for these findings were also discussed in this paper.