Psychology Research and Behavior Management (Feb 2023)
Changing Kindergarten Teachers’ Mindsets Toward Children to Overcome Compassion Fatigue
Abstract
Fangyan Chen,1 Yabo Ge,1,2 Wenjun Xu,1 Junshuai Yu,1 Yiwen Zhang,1 Xingjian Xu,1 Shuqiong Zhang1 1Institute of Child Development, Jinhua Polytechnic, Jinhua, People’s Republic of China; 2College of Teacher Education, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Shuqiong Zhang, Institute of Child Development, Jinhua Polytechnic, 1188 Wuzhou Road, Jinhua, Zhejiang Province, 321007, People’s Republic of China, Email [email protected]: Kindergarten teachers who empathize with toddlers experience a great risk of burnout and emotional disturbance. This is referred to as compassion fatigue, in which teachers’ empathy experience is reduced. This study proposed a moderated mediation model to identify the risks of compassion fatigue and its protective factors for developing evidence-based clinical interventions.Methods: In this cross-sectional study, self-report measures were administered to 1049 kindergarten teachers to observe their mindsets toward children, motivation for teacher empathy, job stress, social support, and compassion fatigue. The PROCESS macro (SPSS 23.0) was used to assess the moderated mediation model.Results: The results demonstrated that motivation for teacher empathy mediated the negative relationship between kindergarten teachers’ mindsets toward children and compassion fatigue. Moreover, job stress and social support moderated the relationship between kindergarten teachers’ mindsets toward children and motivation for teacher empathy. However, this effect was not observed in the negative relationship between kindergarten teachers’ mindsets toward children and compassion fatigue.Conclusion: The proposed moderated mediation model was found to be valid. Furthermore, the study findings have practical implications for developing evidence-based interventions for addressing kindergarten teachers’ compassion fatigue.Keywords: compassion fatigue, mindsets toward children, empathic motivation, kindergarten teachers
