Learning empathy: deliberate practice vs. didactic teaching

The study: A randomized study with 36 novice students from psychology, medicine, social work and nursing, over two training sessions. Expressed empathy was rated before, between and after the sessions.

What they found: Expressed empathy improved in the deliberate practice group but not in the didactic group.

Why it matters for practice: Empathy can be trained as a behavior, and practice seems to do what explanation alone does not.

Larsson, J., Werthén, D., Carlsson, J., Salim, O., Davidsson, E., Vaz, A., Sousa, D., & Norberg, J. (2025). Does deliberate practice surpass didactic training in learning empathy skills? A randomized controlled study. Nordic Psychology, 77(1), 39–52. https://doi.org/10.1080/19012276.2023.2247572