Chapter 5: Discussion, Conclusions, and Recommendations

Introduction

[To be completed after the proposed study has been conducted.] [from Chapters 1-3]

Areas for Future Investigation

Too little is known about the positive outcomes from dealing with trauma, such as posttraumatic growth and vicarious resilience. Most of the studies about CF have been correlative, quantitative, based on limited populations, and focused on risk factors, rather than resiliency strengths. Little is known about what contributes to resiliency to CF ([Cameron & Brownie, 2010](/dissertation/references)). No research has yet been done on the outliers, the people who are empathic, yet resilient, and do not develop CF in situations where most others do. Although an increasing amount of research is being done studying the neural links of empathy, there are no apparent studies of the connection between chronic negative emotional contagion and the psychoneuroimmunological system. It would be interesting to know what specific immune reactions occur to any type of emotional contagion. Although Hatfield and her colleagues (1992, 1994, 2009) have studied the ―what‖ of emotional contagion, and Rothschild (2006) has presented ways to circumvent negative reactions from emotional contagion, more research is needed into the effectiveness of these interventions, and what actually happens neurologically if emotional contagion is interrupted or stopped. Other areas of research which need to be studied:  How does emotional contagion occur when a person has limited sensory input?

 Who is most vulnerable? And when?  What are the social implications if a person has more ability to ―infect‖ others with emotional contagion, or if a person has a lower or higher ability for healthy emotional contagion?  Are there other explanations of emotional contagion (e.g., morphic field theory) which are valid?  What happens if someone consciously tries to imitate (e.g. neuropsychological programming) another‘s emotion?  What are the most effective ways to teach people to be more adept in understanding others‘ emotions, and improving their own emotional intelligence, and yet retain resiliency to CF? Future biopsychological research on empathy would benefit from a neutral, integrated analysis and presentation of an atlas of specific brain areas activated, indicating correlative measures of empathy, when the research was conducted and by whom, what types of scanning or observation was done, what types of stimuli, in other words a type of concordance of all prior research. This data base would be refined and updated, again by neutral meta-analysts. Instead of two major camps who compete for research funds by replicating and refining research based on their separate philosophies of empathy, researchers in this area might be able to more thoroughly explore and understand the complex empathic system. Research on human empathy might also benefit from a re-examination of the scales (most of which are self-report scales) used to test for empathy, as well as further

study validating the earlier results done using empathy assessment tools in real-life situations. Empathy is a continuous process of development within individuals, with frequent possibilities for promoting more cohesive social behaviors. As empathy may be a critical part of resiliency breakdown or CF, more studies looking at specific elements of resiliency and empathy, such as humor, with regard to CF are needed.