Are empathy and concern psychologically distinct?

Jordan, Matthew; Amir, Dorsa; Bloom, Paul

doi:10.1037/emo0000228

Cited by 156 publications

(209 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…We focused on EC subscale based on prior work showing that higher EC is associated with more severe assessment of accidental harms 27,29 . In Study 2, we replicated this effect using another measure of trait empathy (Empathy index 43 ) and found a positive association between higher self-report scores of empathy and condemnation of accidents (r = 0.133, 95% CI [0.072, 0.193], t(1002) = 4.234, p < 0.001). In Study 3, we borrowed a recently developed measure designed to dissociate empathy from compassion 30 In summary, these studies supported the empathic blame hypothesis: individuals that either self-reported to have more empathic predisposition or reported to have stronger situational empathic engagement gave more Scientific RepoRts | 7: 5200 | DOI:10.1038/s41598-017-05299-9…”

Section: Studies (1-4): Empathy Predicts the Condemnation Of Accidentssupporting

confidence: 58%

The behavioral and neural basis of empathic blame

Patil¹,

Calo²,

fFornasier³

et al. 2017

Preprint

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Mature moral judgments rely both on a perpetrator's intent to cause harm, and also on the actual harm caused-even when unintended. Much prior research asks how intent information is represented neurally, but little asks how even unintended harms influence judgment. We interrogate the psychological and neural basis of this process, focusing especially on the role of empathy for the victim of a harmful act. Using fMRI, we found that the 'empathy for pain' network was involved in encoding harmful outcomes and integrating harmfulness information for different types of moral judgments, and individual differences in the extent to which this network was active during encoding and integration of harmfulness information determined severity of moral judgments. Additionally, activity in the network was down-regulated for acceptability, but not blame, judgments for accidental harm condition, suggesting that these two types of moral evaluations are neurobiologically dissociable. These results support a model of "empathic blame", whereby the perceived suffering of a victim colors moral judgment of an accidental harmdoer.

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Section: Studies (1-4): Empathy Predicts the Condemnation Of Accidentssupporting

confidence: 58%

The behavioral and neural basis of empathic blame

Patil¹,

Calo²,

fFornasier³

et al. 2017

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…This differentiates it from empathy, which always involves sharing another's emotional state but does not always result in concern for that other (Eisenberg, Spinrad, & Knafo, 2015). As pointed out by several scholars (e.g., Eisenberg et al, 2014;Jordan, Dorsa, & Bloom, 2016), sympathy, in comparison to empathy, is likely to be more strongly associated with prosocial and aggressive behaviors across development. The mere vicarious experience of another's emotional state (i.e., empathy) "may be too remote from the behavior to predict it" (Vachon, Lynam, & Johnson, 2014, p. 766) and may result in aversive, personally distressing emotional reactions that often impede otheroriented behaviors (Eisenberg et al, 2014).…”

Section: Co-development Of Sympathy and Aggressionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The codevelopment of sympathy and overt aggression from middle childhood to early adolescence.

Zuffianò

Colasante

Buchmann

et al. 2018

Developmental Psychology

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We assessed the extent to which feelings of sympathy and aggressive behaviors co-developed from 6 to 12 years of age in a representative sample of Swiss children (N = 1,273). Caregivers and teachers reported children's sympathy and overt aggression in three-year intervals. Secondorder latent curve models indicated general mean-level declines in sympathy and overt aggression over time, although the decline in sympathy was relatively small. Importantly, both trajectories were characterized by significant inter-individual variability. A bivariate secondorder latent curve model revealed a small-moderate negative correlation between the latent slopes of sympathy and overt aggression, suggesting an inverse co-developmental relationship between the constructs from middle childhood to early adolescence. In terms of predictive effects, an autoregressive cross-lagged model indicated a lack of bidirectional relations between sympathy and overt aggression, underscoring the primacy of the variables' rank-order stability.We discuss the co-development and developmental relations of sympathy and aggression, their potential conjoint social-emotional mechanisms, and the practical implications thereof.Keywords: sympathy, overt aggression, co-development, childhood, adolescence, secondorder latent curve model CO-DEVELOPMENT OF SYMPATHY AND AGGRESSION 3The Co-Development of Sympathy and Overt Aggression from Middle Childhood to Early Adolescence The role of sympathy in children's aggressive behavior has received considerable attention from developmental scientists over the past three decades (Joliffe & Farrington, 2006;MacEvoy & Leff, 2012;Miller & Eisenberg, 1988). The ability to sympathize, which often includes encoding and experiencing others' emotional states, is thought to help children anticipate and recognize the negative consequences of aggressive acts (for a review, see Eisenberg, Spinrad, & Morris, 2014). Children with high levels of sympathy engage in less frequent and less severe aggression (Lovett & Sheffield, 2007;van Noorden, Haselager, Cillessen, & Bukowski, 2014). Such findings yield some support for social-emotional interventions to prevent and reduce aggressive behavior, which operate under the conceptual premise that fostering sympathy and related capacities in children will result in corresponding decreases in their aggression (Durlak, Weissberg, Dymnicki, Taylor, & Schellinger, 2011;Malti, Chaparro, Zuffianò, & Colasante, 2016). However, the extent to which a child's mean-level growth in sympathy is related to a parallel, mean-level decrease in his or her aggression has not been empirically detailed within a longitudinal framework. We aimed to bridge this theoryevidence gap by investigating the co-development of sympathy and aggression from age 6 to 12 in a large, representative sample of Swiss children. In addition, given the scarcity of past longitudinal studies analyzing predictive relations between sympathy and aggression, we aimed to investigate their possible reciprocal effects and thereby offer a...

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“…Others have suggested that more reliable foundations are anger (Prinz, 2011) and compassion (Bloom, 2016(Bloom, , 2017aJordan et al, 2016;Klimecki et al, 2014). Yet anger and compassion can be impacted by the same factors that influence empathy: for instance, people are less likely to punish transgressors who harm more victims (Nordgren & McDonnell, 2011).…”

Section: Ends Of Empathy 49mentioning

confidence: 99%

The ends of empathy: Constructing empathy from value-based choice

Cameron¹,

Cunningham²,

Saunders³

et al. 2017

Preprint

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Empathy, or the ability to understand and resonate with the experiences of others, has long been considered by philosophers and scientists to be an important part of human morality. We present a new framework that explains empathy as resulting from motivated decisions. Drawing on models of cybernetic control, value-based choice, and constructionism, we suggest that empathy shifts depending on how people value and prioritize conflicting goals. We generate novel predictions about the nature of empathy from the science of goal pursuit, and address its apparent limitations. Empathy appears less sensitive to suffering of large numbers and out-groups, leading some to suggest that empathy is an unreliable ethical guide. Whereas these arguments assume that empathy is a limited-capacity resource, we suggest that apparent limits of empathy reflect byproducts of domain-general goal pursuit. Arguments against empathy reflect a misguided essentialism: they mistake our own choices to avoid empathy for intrinsic features of empathy, treating empathy as a capricious emotion in conflict with reason. We suggest that empathy results from a rational decision, even if its rationality is bounded, as in many decisions in everyday life. Empathy may only be limited if we choose to avoid pursuing empathic goals.Ends of empathy 3 "Empathy isn't just something that happens to us-a meteor shower of synapses firing across the brain-it's also a choice we make: to pay attention, to extend ourselves. It's made of exertion, the dowdier cousin of impulse." -Leslie Jamison (2014), The Empathy ExamsIn the summer of 2016, empathy went viral. The world learned about Harambe, a silverback gorilla in the Cincinnati Zoo who was shot and killed by zookeepers in an attempt to save the life of a child who had fallen into his enclosure. In the aftermath of the incident, people around the world expressed support for Harambe in a variety of ways, ranging from social media posts to charitable donations to Harambe tattoos. Empathy for Harambe became a meme in its own right. On the other hand, many people appeared to lack empathy for the zookeepers, the child, and the child's mother, to the point that some even issued death threats. This example reveals a broader point about empathy (and the lack thereof): it can feel effortless, contagious, a passion to which we are subject, rather than something we choose or control.Empathy-our ability to understand and resonate with the experiences of others-is typically considered an emotion, which can entail the conceptual baggage that many people associate with emotion. People often see emotions as passions that are out of our control, as something that happen to us. This idea has much precedent. The term derives from the Greek empatheia, which takes feeling or passion (pathos) and directs it at or into (em) someone else;this was adapted to the German Einfühlung ("feeling into"), and translated into English as empathy (Wispe, 1987). These traditions emphasize continuity of empathy with emotions, and in so doing, ca...

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Are empathy and concern psychologically distinct?

Cited by 156 publications

References 35 publications

The behavioral and neural basis of empathic blame

The behavioral and neural basis of empathic blame

The codevelopment of sympathy and overt aggression from middle childhood to early adolescence.

The ends of empathy: Constructing empathy from value-based choice

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