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A Thematic Synthesis on Empathy in Software Engineering based on the Practitioners' Perspective

Published: 25 September 2023 Publication History

Abstract

Context: Empathy is the ability to understand and share the emotions of others. Despite its relevance for research and practice in software engineering, it is still an under-researched topic. Aims: To investigate the meaning, importance, practices, and effects of empathy from the perspective of software practitioners. Method: We apply a thematic synthesis of grey literature. We analyzed 22 articles from DEV, an online community used by software developers. Results: We found that empathy has different meanings for software practitioners. The word is used to express understanding, compassion, and perspective-taking, among other meanings. Practitioners consider empathy important, undervalued, needed, and wanted. The study points out 19 empathetic practices in SE, such as adopting good programming practices, understanding others, being compassionate, and being mindful. It also lists 28 effects of these practices, including quality improvement, better products, and build trust. Conclusion: We organize this body of knowledge in a framework supporting new research efforts. The framework may also support software professionals to develop empathetic skills in SE.

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  • (2024)Eliciting Public Discourse of SE Tool Providers in a Study on Requirements Process Debt - A Different Shade of GrayProceedings of the XXIII Brazilian Symposium on Software Quality10.1145/3701625.3701658(189-198)Online publication date: 5-Nov-2024
  • (2024)Empathy and Its Effects on Software Practitioners’ Well-Being and Mental HealthIEEE Software10.1109/MS.2024.337789741:4(95-104)Online publication date: 19-Mar-2024

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cover image ACM Other conferences
SBES '23: Proceedings of the XXXVII Brazilian Symposium on Software Engineering
September 2023
570 pages
ISBN:9798400707872
DOI:10.1145/3613372
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 25 September 2023

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Author Tags

  1. Empathy
  2. Grey literature
  3. Human aspects
  4. Software Engineering

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  • Research-article
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  • Refereed limited

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SBES 2023
SBES 2023: XXXVII Brazilian Symposium on Software Engineering
September 25 - 29, 2023
Campo Grande, Brazil

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Overall Acceptance Rate 147 of 427 submissions, 34%

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View all
  • (2024)Eliciting Public Discourse of SE Tool Providers in a Study on Requirements Process Debt - A Different Shade of GrayProceedings of the XXIII Brazilian Symposium on Software Quality10.1145/3701625.3701658(189-198)Online publication date: 5-Nov-2024
  • (2024)Empathy and Its Effects on Software Practitioners’ Well-Being and Mental HealthIEEE Software10.1109/MS.2024.337789741:4(95-104)Online publication date: 19-Mar-2024

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