Ulrike, Courtney Glazer's dissertation, "Looking Closely at Emotional Expression in an Online Course: A Case Study of Distributed Emotion," (2003, The University of Texas at Austin) might be of interest to you. Her data was coded and analyzed qualitatively, and the theory she developed, distributed emotion (based on distributed cognition), might be an interesting way to think about empathy in your online group. Her dissertation and contact information is available on her website: http://www.scholarlypursuits.com/about.htm . Good luck! -Kris -- ********** ********** ********** ********** Kris M. Markman, Ph.D. Email: krism@alumni.utexas.net http://kris3198.home.comcast.net ********** ********** ********** **********