Decoding the Charitable Brain: Empathy, Perspective Taking, and Attention Shifts Differentially Predict Altruistic Giving

Tusche, Anita; Böckler, Anne; Kanske, Philipp; Trautwein, Fynn‐Mathis; Singer, Tania

doi:10.1523/jneurosci.3392-15.2016

Cited by 237 publications

(261 citation statements)

References 85 publications

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“…We suggest, first, that affect is a critical component of empathy for pain (Tusche et al, 2016): Because experience sharing involves vicarious resonance with the affective states of others, it will be difficult to distinguish empathy priming from affective priming in practice. We stipulate that people unintentionally share the experience of the prime stimuli, and the resulting experience influences target judgment; if the prime depicts pain, then this is likely to involve vicarious negative affect, because pain tends to be experienced as negative.…”

Section: Experiments 3: the Effect Is Not Reducible To Affective Or Sementioning

confidence: 99%

The empathy impulse: A multinomial model of intentional and unintentional empathy for pain.

Cameron¹,

Spring²,

Todd³

2017

Emotion

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Empathy for pain is often described as automatic. Here, we used implicit measurement and multinomial modeling to formally quantify unintentional empathy for pain: empathy that occurs despite intentions to the contrary. We developed the Pain Identification Task (PIT), a sequential priming task wherein participants judge painfulness of target experiences while trying to avoid influence of prime experiences. Using multinomial modeling, we distinguished three component processes underlying PIT performance: empathy toward target stimuli (Intentional Empathy), empathy toward prime stimuli (Unintentional Empathy), and bias to judge target stimuli as painful (Response Bias). In Experiment 1, imposing a fast (vs. slow) response deadline uniquely reduced Intentional Empathy. In Experiment 2, inducing imagine-self (vs. imagine-other) perspective-taking uniquely increased Unintentional Empathy. In Experiment 3, Intentional and Unintentional Empathy were stronger toward targets with typical (vs. atypical) pain outcomes, suggesting that outcome information matters and that effects on the PIT are not reducible to affective priming. Typicality of pain outcomes more weakly affected performance on an Object Identification Task-wherein target stimuli were merely categorized rather than judged for painfulness-than on the PIT, suggesting that effects on the latter are not reducible to semantic priming. In Experiment 4, Unintentional Empathy was stronger for participants who engaged in costly donation to cancer charities; but this parameter was also high for those who donated to an objectively worse but socially more popular charity, suggesting that overly high empathy may facilitate maladaptive altruism. Theoretical and practical applications of our modeling approach for understanding variation in empathy are discussed.

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Section: Experiments 3: the Effect Is Not Reducible To Affective Or Sementioning

confidence: 99%

The empathy impulse: A multinomial model of intentional and unintentional empathy for pain.

Cameron¹,

Spring²,

Todd³

2017

Emotion

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…"if empathy can be evoked for the victims of injustice, then these two motives can be made to work together rather than at odds" (Batson et al, 1995, p. 1053). Indeed, many prominent perspectives suggest that empathy grounds moral behavior (Decety et al, 2016;de Waal & Preston, 2017;Tusche et al, 2016). Empathy can facilitate moral goals by helping people understand which actions are morally appropriate, particularly in the Ends of empathy 47 ambiguous situations that characterize everyday life (Masto, 2015).…”

Section: Does Empathy Erode Ethics?mentioning

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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“…For instance, prominent lines of research often assumed rather deliberative models (e.g., Latané & Darley, 1970), involving several cognitive steps until an individual decides to provide help in certain situations to anonymous others. Other research suggested empathic concern, perspective taking or elevation as drivers of prosocial behavior (e.g., Batson, 1981;Tusche et al, 2016;Haidt, 2003;see also Michael & Székely, 2017). And even other research highlighted group norms and explained helping by Contagion of Prosocial Behavior 31 the motivation to avoid punishment (Fehr & Gächter, 2002;Silk & House, 2016;Schwartz & Howard, 1981; see also Nook et al, 2016).…”

Section: From Present To Future Researchmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Furthermore, everyday helping is less influenced by the helper's empathic concern regarding the person in need for help, which is crucial for altruism (Batson et al 1981(Batson et al , 2007Tusche et al, 2016;Leiberg, Klimecki & Singer, 2011) and which increases with the severity of the situation (Darley & Batson, 1973; see also Warneken & Tomasello, 2009;Tomasello, 2014;Tomasello, 2016;Murphy, Ackermann & Handgraaf, 2011). Altruism could also result into prosocial behavior that involves sacrificially large costs for the helper, which is not the case for everyday helping.…”

Section: Contagion Of Prosocial Behaviormentioning

confidence: 99%

PREPRINT Inspired to lend a hand? Attempts to elicit prosocial behavior through goal contagion

Brohmer¹,

Corcoran²,

Kedia³

et al. 2018

Preprint

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Helping often occurs in a broader social context. Every day, people observe others who require help, but also others who provide help. Research on goal contagion (Aarts, Gollwitzer & Hassin, 2004) suggests that observing other people's goal-directed behavior (like helping) activates the same goal in the observer. Thus, merely observing a prosocial act could inspire people to act on the same goal. This effect should be even stronger, the more the observer's disposition makes him or her value the goal. In the case of prosocial goals, we looked at the observer's Social Value Orientation (SVO; van Lange et al., 1999) as a moderator of the process. In three studies (N = 126, N = 162 and N = 371), we tested the hypothesis that prosocial observations (vs. control) will trigger more subsequent prosocial behavior the more the observer is prosocially oriented. In line with the original research, we used texts as stimulus material in Study 1 and short video clips in Study 2 and 3. In Study 1 and 2, SVO was measured directly before the manipulation was induced and in Study 3 even a week prior to the actual experiment. Additionally, we included a second control condition video clip in Study 3, which did not depict human beings. Despite thoroughly developed stimulus material and methods, we found no support for an effect of the interaction, nor of the prosocial observation, but some support of SVO in Study 1 and 2. A mini meta-analysis revealed an effect equivalent to zero for goal contagion and a small, but robust SVO effect across studies.One implication for the theory of goal contagion is that prosocial goals might not be as contagious as other goals addressed in the literature. However, because SVO might not have been an optimal trait, other moderators for prosocial dispositions should be tested.

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Decoding the Charitable Brain: Empathy, Perspective Taking, and Attention Shifts Differentially Predict Altruistic Giving

Cited by 237 publications

References 85 publications

The empathy impulse: A multinomial model of intentional and unintentional empathy for pain.

The empathy impulse: A multinomial model of intentional and unintentional empathy for pain.

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

PREPRINT Inspired to lend a hand? Attempts to elicit prosocial behavior through goal contagion

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