To Understand Is to Forgive: Learning a Simple Model of Appraisal Leads to Emotion Knowledge Transfer and Enhances Emotional Acceptance and Empathy

Abstract

Social emotional learning (SEL) is an increasingly important area of study that aims to develop skills critical for healthy social functioning. Despite SEL’s growing ubiquity, little attention has been paid to how to achieve SEL knowledge transfer. One promising approach is to teach a model of the emotion system. A randomized control study was conducted with a sample of U.S. high school graduates (n = 303) to test this SEL methodology. The impact of a 1-hour online intervention involving learning a simple model of appraisal was tested. As predicted, the experimental groups rated their own and others’ emotional reactions as significantly less blameworthy than the control group did, signaling emotion knowledge transfer and greater empathy and emotion acceptance. These results are discussed.