Greg Depow

@gregdepow.bsky.social

Postdoc at UCSD/Harvard, PhD from University of Toronto. Studying #empathy #effort #wellbeing #socialmedia and #prosocial behaviour. #rstats #PhDad #openscience website: gregdepow.com

@lindseypowell.bsky.socialReposted by @gregdepow.bsky.social

One week left to apply for this job! Two notes: 1) We’re open to a really broad range of research programs. If you’re wondering “is my topic ‘high-level’ enough?” it probably is and you should apply. 2️⃣⬇️

@gregdepow.bsky.social

These results suggest individuals can learn to regulate their empathy wisely on social media to improve their well-being. Interventions like this aimed at changing psychological experiences online to change how it impacts us offer an alternative to banning social media. #empathy #socialmedia

@gregdepow.bsky.social

Improvements in well-being were mediated by changes in empathy online: greater wise empathy (positive sharing, appreciative joy, and compassion), reduced unwise empathy (negative sharing, and personal distress), and greater self-acceptance (higher self compassion, lower upward social comparison).

The effect of condition travels through wise empathy, unwise empathy, and self-acceptance latent constructs.
@gregdepow.bsky.social

Participants completed a baseline survey -> 2 days of experience sampling -> intervention/control instructions -> 3 days of experience sampling. Participants who learned to regulate empathy wisely on Instagram had higher well-being when they had recently browsed. They also showed changes in empathy

Wise empathy participants had higher positive emotion sharing, appreciative joy, and compassion for negative emotions than control participants.Wise empathy participants also showed less negative emotion sharing and personal distress, as well as fewer upward social comparisons.
@gregdepow.bsky.social

My paper with @chrisoveis.bsky.social, Emily Zohar, and @minzlicht.bsky.social about regulating empathy on social media is now out in SM+S doi.org/10.1177/2056....
We show that training individuals to 'share not compare' for + emotions and 'care not share' for - emotions improves their well-being.