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The purpose of this study was to find the constituents of empathizers' and targets' experiences of empathy. We analyzed 28 empathizers' and 28 targets' narrative accounts of situations when they had experienced empathy. From both perspectives, the constituents of empathy included that (1) the empathizer understands the target's situation and emotions, (2) the target experiences one or more emotions, (3) the empathizer perceives a similarity between what the target is experiencing and something the empathizer has experienced previously, and (4) the empathizer is concerned for the target's well-being. The data suggested that actions associated with the fourth constituent -concern -make empathy an interpersonal phenomenon.KEY WORDS: concern • empathy • interpersonal concern • narratives Empathy is the phenomenon that connects two otherwise isolated individuals to each other: the empathizer, who empathizes with another person, the target (Davis, 1996). Even though empathy is a central concept in modern psychology, knowledge concerning the essential constituents in experiences of empathy is scarce. Moreover, in prior research the emphasis has been on the empathizer's experiences without considering the target's viewpoint. Based on the belief that empathy is something that happens both within and between two individuals, the objective of this study was to Journal of Social and Personal Relationships

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Abstract.— It is suggested that a decision in a complex situation can be described as a sequential process in which different decision rules and information processing strategies can be used at different points in time. Examples of possible decision rules are presented in an approximate order of complexity. Two ways for processing the information in a decision situation, viz., breadth‐first or depth‐first strategies, are discussed and suggestions are made about their relationship to particular decision rules. Finally, it is proposed that the order of application of particular rules in a decision process is guided by a tendency to minimize cognitive effort.