Sometimes we want vicious friends: People have nuanced preferences for how they want their friends to behave toward them versus others

Krems, Jaimie Arona; Hahnel-Peeters, Rebecka K.; Merrie, Laureon A.; Williams, Keelah E. G.; Sznycer, Daniel

doi:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2023.02.008

Cited by 12 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 80 publications

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“…However, counter-empathy may also be a sign of a potential social partner if the counter-empathy is directed toward someone the child does not like. Recent work found that adults do prefer those who are kind and trustworthy over those who are not, but also that adults want friends who will be more positive to them than others and even be less prosocial to their enemies (Krems et al, 2023 ). Future work may explore how children evaluate empathizers and counter-empathizers as potential social partners and the nuances of such evaluations.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Three- to five-year-old children similarly find empathy for others’ suffering to be normative, which indicates that young children recognize and reason about others’ empathic concern (Paulus et al, 2020 ). When directed toward morally repugnant or disliked targets, however, adults may prefer those who are indifferent rather than empathic (Krems et al, 2023 ; Wang & Todd, 2021 ). This could reflect a dispreference for those who positively appraise outcomes one considers to be either morally wrong or disadvantageous, as well as a desire for partiality in friendships.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Children’s Reasoning About Empathy and Social Relationships

Smith-Flores,

Bonamy,

Powell

2023

Open Mind

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Across the lifespan, empathic and counter-empathic emotions are shaped by social relationships. Here we test the hypothesis that this connection is encoded in children’s intuitive theory of psychology, allowing them to predict when others will feel empathy versus counter-empathy and to use vicarious emotion information to infer relationships. We asked 4- to 7-year-old children (N = 79) to make emotion predictions or relationship inferences in response to stories featuring two characters, an experiencer and an observer, and either a positive or negative outcome for the experiencer. In the context of positive outcomes, we found that children engaged in robust joint reasoning about relationships and vicarious emotions. When given information about the characters’ relationship, children predicted empathy from a friendly observer and counter-empathy from a rival observer. When given information about the observer’s response to the experiencer, children inferred positive and negative relationships from empathic and counter-empathic responses, respectively. In the context of negative outcomes, children predicted that both friendly and rival observers would feel empathy toward the experiencer, but they still used information about empathic versus counter-empathic responses to infer relationship status. Our results suggest that young children in the US have a blanket expectation of empathic concern in response to negative outcomes, but otherwise expect and infer that vicarious emotions are connected to social relationships. Future research should investigate if children use this understanding to select social partners, evaluate their own relationships, or decide when to express empathy toward others.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Children’s Reasoning About Empathy and Social Relationships

Smith-Flores,

Bonamy,

Powell

2023

Open Mind

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…However, counter-empathy may also be a sign of a potential social partner if the counter-empathy is directed toward someone the child does not like. Recent work found that adults do prefer those who are kind and trustworthy over those who are not, but also that adults want friends who will be more positive to them than others and even be less prosocial to their enemies (Krems et al, 2023). Future work may explore how children evaluate empathizers and counter-empathizers as potential social partners and the nuances of such evaluations.…”

Section: Open Mind: Discoveries In Cognitive Sciencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Three-to five-year-old children similarly find empathy for others' suffering to be normative, which indicates that young children recognize and reason about others' empathic concern (Paulus et al, 2020). When directed toward morally repugnant or disliked targets, however, adults may prefer those who are indifferent rather than empathic (Krems et al, 2023;Wang & Todd, 2021). This could reflect a dispreference for those who positively appraise outcomes one considers to be either morally wrong or disadvantageous, as well as a desire for partiality in friendships.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Children’s reasoning about empathy and social relationships

Smith-Flores,

Bonamy,

Powell

2023

Preprint

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Across the lifespan empathic and counter-empathic emotions are shaped by social relationships. Here we test the hypothesis that this connection is encoded in children’s intuitive theory of psychology, allowing them to predict when others will feel empathy versus counter-empathy and to use vicarious emotion information to infer relationships. We asked 4- to 7-year-old children (N = 77) to make emotion predictions or relationship inferences in response to stories featuring two characters, an experiencer and an observer, and either a positive or negative outcome for the experiencer. In the context of positive outcomes, we found that children engaged in robust joint reasoning about relationships and vicarious emotions. When given information about the characters’ relationship, children predicted empathy from a friendly observer and counter-empathy from a rival observer. When given information about the observer’s response to the experiencer, children inferred positive and negative relationships from empathic and counter-empathic responses, respectively. In the context of negative outcomes, children predicted that both friendly and rival observers would feel empathy toward the experiencer, but they still used information about empathic versus counter-empathic responses to infer relationship status. Our results suggest that young children in the US have a blanket expectation of empathic concern in response to negative outcomes, but otherwise expect and infer that vicarious emotions are connected to social relationships. Future research should investigate if children use this understanding to select social partners, evaluate their own relationships, or decide when to express empathy toward others.

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“…Due to the changing nature of the costs and benefits afforded by different kinds of relationships, people are also incentivized to keep close track of their outcome interdependence with various partners (Balliet et al., 2017; Krems et al., 2023; Tooby & Cosmides, 1996). The act of sharing food might allow people to both communicate that they value the welfare of their commensal partner, while at the same time distinguishing greedy or stingy partners from cooperative ones.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Food scarcity and disease concern reduce interdependence when people eat together

Beltrán

Whisner

Krems

et al. 2023

Euro J Social Psych

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Food sharing is central to the human experience, serving biological and sociocultural functions. Historically, food sharing has allowed people to manage food shortages, creating positive interdependence among those who pool calories and other sources of risk. However, sharing food may lead to negative outcomes when food is scarce, or when there is a threat of disease. We found that sharing food (compared with sharing pencils) led to reduced cooperation with an experiment partner (Study 1) and that perceived scarcity partially mediated a negative association between zero‐sum orientation and perceived interdependence with people involved in a recently shared meal (Studies 2–3). Disgust was also associated with lower perceived interdependence toward people involved in a shared meal (Study 3; NTotal = 1126). Our results suggest that scarcity and disgust can interfere with the positive feelings people might otherwise experience when eating together, warning against lay beliefs that ‘breaking bread’ necessarily brings people together.

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Sometimes we want vicious friends: People have nuanced preferences for how they want their friends to behave toward them versus others

Cited by 12 publications

References 80 publications

Children’s Reasoning About Empathy and Social Relationships

Children’s Reasoning About Empathy and Social Relationships

Children’s reasoning about empathy and social relationships

Food scarcity and disease concern reduce interdependence when people eat together

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