Relationship between Empathy and Psychological Well-being across Indian Designers- A Pilot Study

The Design thinking is a human-centric, problem-solving approach. One of the important stages of design thinking process is empathy. Empathy is essential in forming relationships with others and also acting humanely. A psychologically healthy individual has positive feelings about themselves and is hopeful about the future. Empathic people include humanitarian relief workers, therapists, doctors, journalists, and others whose jobs need them to open up to others’ suffering. They may, however, come to experience the anguish of individuals they assist or whose experiences they chronicle. As a result of this "emotional residue", individuals may shut down, burn out, and become less eager or able to offer. This gives a clue that there is a relationship between empathy and psychological well-being. Previous researchers studied the relation between empathy and psychological well-being focusing only on nurses and medical practitioners. Hence the present study focused on the relationship between empathy and the psychological well-being of designers who are assumed to be empathetic by profession. The results of this study revealed that there is a positive correlation between empathy and the psychological well-being of the designers, the higher the empathy, and better psychological health. The results of this study also revealed that no correlation exists between empathy and the age of the designers.

Keywords:

Design Thinking , empathy , Psychological well-being , correlation coefficient , Toronto Empath Scale