Social Guidance for Developing Adolescents Empathy
Herny Novianti
1
, Mamat Supriatna
2
and Nani M. Sugandhi
2
1
Institut Agama Islam Negeri (IAIN) Syekh Nurjati Cirebon
2
Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia
Keywords: social guidance, adolescent, and empathy.
Abstract: This research aimed to produce effectiveness of social guidance for developing adolescent’s empathy. The
method of research used quasi-experimental research design with non-equivalent pretest-posttest control
group design. The sample in this study were adolescents of Child Social Welfare Institution (LKSA) Bandung,
aged 15-17 years, totaling 28 adolescents (15 adolescents in the experimental class and 13 adolescents in
control class). Data was collected by empathy instrument, arranged on the aspects of cognitive, and affection.
The results showed social guidance effective to develop adolescent’s empathy, increased of indicators of
perspective taking, fantasy, and emphatic concern, while indicator was not significant for personal distress.
That was because the various changes psychological and social in adolescents influenced the way to show
empathy. The ability to empathize needs to be sharpened and maintained in every adolescent in order to adapt
well, so as to feel the same feelings. Recommendations showed for guidance and counseling study program,
child social welfare institution (LKSA) and further research.
1 INTRODUCTION
Adolescents in carrying out their lives can not be
separated from peer interactions that have diverse
characteristics. The process of social interaction does
not always run smoothly, adolescents are often
exposed to situations of inability to understand the
condition (feelings) of others and provide appropriate
treatment in accordance with the expectations of the
person. In reality, not all adolescents can live with
their families, there are also adolescents who must
live in the Child Welfare Institution (LKSA). The
situation of the inability to understand the condition
(feelings) of others was also experienced by LKSA
adolescents. Therefore, empathy is very important.
Einsberg and Mussen (2001) said people who has
empathy can adapt, speed up relationship with others,
increase self-esteem, and improve self-
understanding. Furthermore, adolescents who have
empathy, can response to the emotions of others in an
attempt to support or console the other person (Rieffe
and Camodeca, 2016). In line with that, Atkinson
(2007) states to improve the ability of empathy can
modify the experience of others.
The results of Bıçakçı (2011) show that 53.21%
of adolescents who live in LKSA have low empathy.
They have difficulty understanding the condition
(feelings) of others. This can be understood, because
aspects of adolescent personality in social interaction
are social cognition and conformity. Joseph (2009, p.
13) states that social cognition is the ability to
understand others. This ability encourage adolescents
to establish social relationships with peers, whereas
conformity is a tendency to imitate, follow opinions,
values, habits, passions. The development of
conformity can have both positive and negative
effects, depending on who or which group the
adolescents conforms. Meanwhile, Sherif (Efendi,
2013, p.2) said adolescents when faced with an
ambiguous and unstructured stimulus, they rarely
build their own stable viewpoints, and their views
often change when confronted with the views of
others.
Based on the results of the Bıçakçı (2011),
Einsenberg and Mussen (2001, p.20), adolescents
empathy in LKSA needs to be developed. The
development of empathy is aimed to increase the
ability of adaptation, accelerating relationships,
improving self-esteem, and improving self-
Novianti, H., Supriatna, M. and Sugandhi, N.
Social Guidance for Developing Adolescents Empathy.
In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Educational Sciences (ICES 2017) - Volume 1, pages 87-92
ISBN: 978-989-758-314-8
Copyright © 2018 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved
87

understanding. The statement emphasizes that the
individual can be accepted by others if able to
understand the condition (feelings) of others and
provide appropriate treatment in accordance with the
expectations of the person. The ability to empathize
needs to be sharpened and maintained in every
adolescent in order to adapt well, so as to feel the
same feelings, as by Gribble (1973). The high
sensitivity of empathy will affect to social interaction.
While Einsenberg, and Miller said that the most basic
thing in the process of empathy is the understanding
of the differences between individuals and others
(Einsenberg, N., and Miller, P. A., 1987).
Some researchers (Tohirin, 2007, Sukardi and
Kusmawati, 2008, Joseph, 2009) define social
guidance as a service that given to individuals in order
to solve social problems such as intercourse, conflict
resolution and adjustment, so individual can adapt
well in environment. The purpose of social guidance
for adolescents (Joice, Weil, and Calhoun) are
develop understanding and social skills, so they can:
(1) prevent the existence of social conflict is
deconstructive, (2) develop communication skills in
social interaction and solving social problems, (3)
build productive relationships, increase respect for
self and others, and (4) increase capacity for
productive cooperation. The service is designed based
on aspects of thoughts, feelings to develop adolescent
empathy. Thus social guidance is exactly given to
develop adolescent’s empathy.
2 METHOD
The purpose of the research is to produce
effectiveness social guidance in developing
adolescent’s empathy, so that the research method
used experimental research. The experimental
research used quasi experiment research, where the
research still has control group, but it can not fully
function to control the external variables that
influence the experiment implementation (Sugiyono,
2010).
In addition, according to (Cresswell, 2008;
Heppner, Wampold, and Kivlinghan, 2008) quasi
experimental methods were used in experimental
studies when two groups were not selected at random.
Given that research on social guidance to develop
adolescent’s empathy’re done in daily learning rather
than under laboratory conditions, it is not possible to
control other variables other than social guidance
variables and empathy variables closely. Thus, a
suitable research method in this study is quasi
experiments with non-equivalent (pretest and
posttest) control group design, as well as
experimental and control groups were not randomly
selected. The experimental process in this research
are: (1) experimental class and control class given
pretest, (2) treatment in the form of social guidance
implementation given to experiment class, while
control class is not given treatment, (3) experiment
class and control class is given posttest.
3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The results of the research included: (a) adolescent
empathy profile; (b) hypothetical formulation of
social guidance to develop adolescent’s empathy; (c)
Description the effectiveness of social guidance in
developing adolescent’s empathy.
3.1 Adolescents Empathy Profile
Profile adolescents in five LKSA Bandung, both in
general and specifically based on indicators of
empathy. To answer research questions related to
adolescent’s empathy profile, researcher used the
percentage technique or statistical analysis of
quantitative data that has been obtained. The results
showed that the profile of adolescent’s empathy in
five LKSA Bandung as general: 50% in high empathy
category and 50% are in low empathy category.
While, profile adolescents empathy based on
indicator perspective taking: 53,85% in category high
empathy, and 46,15% in category low empathy.
Indicator Fantasy: 36,54% in category high empathy,
and 63,46 % in category low empathy. Emphatic
concern: 42,31% in category high empathy, and 57,69
% in category low empathy. Personal distress:
34,62% in category high empathy, and 65, 38 % in
category low empathy.
3.2 Hypothetical Formulation of Social
Guidance to Develop Adolescents
Empathy
The hypothetical formulation of social guidance to
develop adolescent’s empathy’re described in two
sub-discussions, namely: (1) social guidance
feasibility tests by experts and practitioners; and (2)
description of social guidance to develop empathy
per-session.
ICES 2017 - 1st International Conference on Educational Sciences
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3.2.1 Social Assessment Feasibility Test
This social guidance was developed based on the
outcome of the initial condition of LKSA
adolescent’s empathy profile. The social guidance
structure in this research refers to the social model of
Joyce, Weil, and Calhoun. Social guidance is
intended to develop understanding and social skills
to: (a) prevent the existence of social conflict that is
deconstructive; (b) develop communication skills in
social interaction and solving social problems; (c)
build productive relationships; (d) increase self-
respect and respect for others; (e) increase capacity
for productive cooperation. The service is designed
based on aspects of cognitive, and affection to
develop adolescents empathy.
In order to produce social guidance effectively,
the first step is test the program's feasibility rationally.
The feasibility test of this program is done through
expert judgment.
3.2.2 Social Guidance Description
The mechanism of organizing social guidance is
given to LKSA adolescents who are in low empathy
category. Stages of social guidance to develop
adolescent’s empathy are conducted on an agreement
between the researcher, the LKSA, and the
participants, either on time or place. Activities are
held in 8 meetings, within a period of 1 month and
held twice a week. For the pre-test and post-test of
empathy are given 45 minutes, while social
counseling is given 60 minutes divided into several
sessions (5 minutes for start-up, 45 minutes for core
activities and 10 minutes for cover).
The implementation of social guidance is divided
into three stages:
 Initial Phase (Orientation)
At this stage, the researcher opens the meeting,
then explains the purpose of the activity, the role
of the researcher and the participant in social
guidance activities. This stage consists of two
session sessions, namely the initial disclosure
session and general understanding.
 Core Stage
This stage is an intervention consisting of 7 sub-
stages referring to the role playing model
(Shaftel, 1967: 74-84), namely: (1) heating; (2)
the selection of roles; (3) setting the scene; (4)
assignment; (5) characterization; (6) re-roleplay
; (7) sharing experiences and decision making.
The nine sub-stages are grouped into 5 sessions.
 Final Stage (Reflection)
This stage is a reflection, the activity begins by
giving a questionnaire of empathy. It is intended
to know the final condition of adolescent’s
empathy in LKSA after being given treatment.
3.3 Description the Effectiveness of
Social Guidance in Developing
Adolescents Empathy
Testing of The effectiveness social guidance to
develop adolescent’s empathy in LKSA Nugraha
Year 2015 with non-parametrical statistical analysis:
(1) Man Whitney's test of gain score to compare
experiment and control group, and (2) Wilcoxon
Signed Rank test in experimental group to compare
before and after being given social guidance.
The hypothesis of this study is: "Social guidance
effective to develop adolescent empathy with, as the
statistical hypothesis is as follows:
Ho: µ experiment = µ control
H1: µ experiment > µ control
3.3.1 Man Whitney Test to Gain Score
Questionnaires obtained from the experimental and
control group were analyzed using Mann Whitney's
non parametric statistical analysis of gain score
between the experimental and control groups. The
research data of the total scores of the experimental
and control groups can be seen in Table 1.
Table 1: Research data score total experiment group.
Research
subject
Empathy
Pretest
Posttest
Gain
Score
1.
113
119
6
2.
100
103
3
3.
90
98
8
4.
89
95
6
5.
96
106
10
6.
87
98
11
7.
121
124
3
8.
87
110
23
9.
103
112
9
10.
93
99
6
11.
78
117
39
12.
75
127
52
13.
71
106
35
14.
74
96
22
15.
80
118
38
Total
271
Average
18,07
Social Guidance for Developing Adolescents Empathy
89

Based on Mann Whitney U test results data on
gain score, sig value is 0.01, then Ho is rejected. This
indicates that the null hypothesis (H0) is rejected,
which means there is a significant difference in the
empathy of adolescents treated with those not given
social counseling treatment. Thus, it can be concluded
that social counseling is effective for developing
adolescent empathy.
3.3.2 Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test
To find out the effectiveness of social guidance to
develop adolescent empathy in the experimental
group was a one-sided Wilcoxon test. The test
statistic used for hypothesis testing H0: μposttest -
μpretest = 0, H1: μposttest - μpretest> 0 is the test
statistic w + which expresses the number of ranges
from the positive difference. In the statistical test of
one right-hand side, the null hypothesis is rejected if
w +> wtabel. Wilcoxon test calculation results shows
w + of 120 and wtabel of 30. The level of confidence
(α) used as the basic criteria of decision-making
hypothesis is at a significance level of 5% or α = 0.05.
By using the criterion reject the null hypothesis if w
+> wtabel 120> 30, then the null hypothesis H0 is
rejected. It shows the effective social guidance to
develop youth empathy LKSA Nugraha Year 2015.
In this section is described the discussion of
research results that include: (a) adolescents empathy
profile; (b) description effectiveness of social
guidance to develop adolescent’s empathy.
3.4 Adolescents Empathy Profile
The results showed the profile of adolescent empathy
in five LKSA Bandung in general that is 50% are in
high category and 50% are in low category. This can
be understood given the outstanding aspects
adolescent personality in social interaction are social
cognition and conformity. Yusuf (2009) state that
social cognition is the ability to understand others.
This ability encourages adolescents to establish social
relationships with peers, whereas conformity is a
tendency to imitate, follow opinions, opinions,
values, habits, passions or desires of others. The
development of conformity can have both positive
and negative effects, depending on who or which
group the teenager conforms to.
Meanwhile, Sherif (Efendi, 2013) states that
teenagers who have a high conformity, he will follow
whatever is desired by the peer group. According to
research results Hartini (Gandaputra, 2009: 53)
adolescent LKSA tend to have inferior personality,
passive, apathy, withdrawal, easy to despair, full of
fear and anxiety making it difficult to establish
relationships with others. This if not handled properly
will hamper the stages of adolescent development
LKSA.
Empathy flourishes throughout human life.
Increasingly aging, one's experience will also
continue to grow, so that with the complexity of the
experience, one will be able to learn about the
positive for himself. Efforts to grow and develop
empathy should be sought as early as possible, as
Eisenberg (2002) puts it, through:
 Telling the situations and conditions of other
people's feelings both from the reasons for the
occurrence of these situations and conditions.
Empathy can be grown by telling about the
circumstances that a person is experiencing.
Someone will more easily come to feel and
understand the feelings of others when having
information about the person felt. The most
effective information to generate empathy is
information about something that the person is
fighting for to achieve his goal.
 State about fun, praise, and appreciation.
Adolescents who are able to show empathy have
full awareness of emerging emotions, so able to
understand the condition of others.
3.5 The Effectiveness of Social
Guidance to Develop Adolescents
Empathy
The effectiveness of social guidance in terms of
aspects and effective and ineffective indicators and
analysis of factors that are not effective in the
implementation process in the field. Both aspects are
given to adolescents in the process of implementation
of social guidance are: (1) cognitive aspects that
include perspective taking, and fantasy (2) affective
aspects that include empathic concern, and personal
distress.
The Effectiveness of social guidance was also
perfomed based on indicator perspective taking.
Davis, and Oathout, 1987; Wied, Branje, Meus, 2007,
said that adolescents must increase skills of conflict
resolution in order to have good perspective taking.
Adolescents who have a good perspective taking can
get meaningful social relationship. Furthermore,
Joireman et al. 2002, states that perspective taking
were associated with the attachment dimensions of
trust and of comfort with interpersonal closeness.
While an ineffective indicator, namely personal
distress. Self-oriented personal anxiety and anxiety in
the face of an unpleasant interpersonal setting.
Personal distress can be referred to as negative
empathy, Hodges and Klein (Davis, 1980) express
empathy as the ability of different definitions
ICES 2017 - 1st International Conference on Educational Sciences
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covering a wide spectrum, revolving around others
that create a desire to help, experience emotions
similar to those of others, knowing what is felt and
thinking other people, blurring the line between
himself and others. While Mikulincer et al. (2001)
states that there’s relation between attachments,
strengthened emphatics reactions, and inhibited
personal distress.
The facts found during the implementation of
social guidance on indicators of empathy are indeed
lower. This is indicated by some LKSA Nugaraha
adolescents who tend to be unable to feel the
discomfort and anxiety when seeing the suffering of
others. Efforts can be done to grow the empathy of
LKSA adolescents is lead to awareness of care for
others around him. Sharon express that awareness of
the existence of others is an important factor for
developing empathy in adolescents. In addition,
cognitive maturity factors affect the ability of
empathy. To understand the condition of others is
necessary maturity of cognition is not just a process
of thinking, so it can understand the suffering of
others without having to actually experience it.
Facts found during the implementation of social
guidance on indicators of empathy concern, there are
adolescents who separate themselves in groups, but
his friends ignore it. Hurlock (1974) states
adolescents in association with peers required three
socialization processes, namely: (a) learning to
behave socially acceptable; (b) learning to play an
acceptable role, and (c) social development.
According to Sharon (1999: 208), there are two
factors that affect empathy, namely cognitive
maturity and awareness whereabouts of others.
Cognitive maturity factors affect the ability of
empathy. Because to understand the suffering of
others is necessary maturity of cognition is not just a
process of thinking, so as to understand the suffering
of others without having to actually experience it. By
realizing that others are different, one can not live
without those around them, it is hoped that there will
be an attitude toward others.
Based on the description of the initial condition of
the study sample, adolescents who entered into low
empathy category have not shown empathy ability.
Indicators that appear in this category are 1) learners
are indifferent to the feelings or conditions of others;
2) adolescents are unable to sense and adapt
themselves to the feelings or conditions of others; 3)
adolescents are unable to communicate their feelings
both verbally and non verbally, 4) adolescents are
incapable of understanding and thinking about the
experiences of others and not yet able to provide
solutions to the problems of others.
4 CONCLUSIONS
This research produces social guidance to develop
adolescent empathy, which has been developed
theoretically and empirically. To produce such
guidance, a research procedure that includes
preliminary studies, social guidance development,
social counseling feasibility tests, and social guidance
trials are conducted. The results of the study show
that social guidance has proven to be effective for
developing almost all empathy indicators, except for
personal distress indicator (affective aspect).
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