Exploring Actual and Presumed Links between Accurately Inferring Contents of Other People's Minds and Prosocial Outcomes

The term "empathic accuracy" has been applied to people's ability to infer the contents of other people's minds-that is, other people's varying feelings and/or thoughts over the course of a social interaction. However, despite the ease of intuitively linking this skill to competence in helping professions such as counseling, the "empathic" prefix in its name may have contributed to overestimating its association with prosocial traits and behaviors. Accuracy in reading others' thoughts and feelings, like many other skills, can be used toward prosocial-but also malevolent or morally neutral-ends. Prosocial intentions can direct attention towards other people's thoughts and feelings, which may, in turn, increase accuracy in inferring those thoughts and feelings, but attention to others' thoughts and feelings does not necessarily heighten prosocial intentions, let alone outcomes.

Perspective-taking with affected others to promote climate change mitigation

Prior evidence suggests that perspective-taking may promote pro-environmental behavior, at least for low-cost behaviors or local environmental problems. Climate change, however, requires costly mitigation efforts and is a global problem. Thus, in this study, we examine whether perspective-taking in the context of climate change is effective in promoting mitigation behaviors, including actual and/or costly behaviors, the mechanisms through which perspective-taking works, and if the distance to the person adversely affected by climate change matters for the effect. We conducted an online experiment with a non-student sample from Germany (n = 557), utilizing a 2 × 2 factorial design, to investigate the impact of perspective-taking and distance on three outcome measures: a climate donation, signing a petition, and approval of mitigation policies. We find that perspective-taking does not promote these mitigation behaviors, yet it raises the degree perspective-takers value and - for close others - feel connected with the affected person. Exploratory analysis shows that dispositional perspective-taking and empathic concern are correlated with mitigation behaviors.

Designing a neuroclinical assessment of empathy deficits in psychopathy based on the Zipper Model of Empathy

Ho, M.H., Kemp, B.T., Eisenbarth, H. & Rijnders, R.J.P. Designing a neuroclinical assessment of empathy deficits in psychopathy based on the Zipper Model of Empathy. NEUROSCI BIOBEHAV REV YY(Y) XXX-XXX, 2023. The heterogeneity of the literature on empathy highlights its multidimensional and dynamic nature and affects unclear descriptions of empathy in the context of psychopathology. The Zipper Model of Empathy integrates current theories of empathy and proposes that empathy maturity is dependent on whether contextual and personal factors push affective and cognitive processes together or apart. This concept paper therefore proposes a comprehensive battery of physiological and behavioral measures to empirically assess empathy processing according to this model with an application for psychopathic personality. We propose using the following measures to assess each component of this model: (1) facial electromyography; (2) the Emotion Recognition Task; (3) the Empathy Accuracy task and physiological measures (e.g., heart rate); (4) a selection of Theory of Mind tasks and an adapted Dot Perspective Task, and; (5) an adjusted Charity Task. Ultimately, we hope this paper serves as a starting point for discussion and debate on defining and assessing empathy processing, to encourage research to falsify and update this model to improve our understanding of empathy.

How We Understand Others: A Theory of How Social Perspective Taking Unfolds

Social perspective taking—the process through which perceivers discern the thoughts, feelings, and motivations of a target—is foundational for navigating social interactions, building relationships, maintaining mental health, promoting well-being, and a wide array of other desired outcomes. Despite its importance, little is known about how discrete social perspective taking attempts unfold. We propose a theory that the social perspective taking process consists of up to four distinguishable phases: perception of the target, motivation to engage in social perspective taking, strategy selection, and evaluation of the attempt. Scholars have emphasized two proximal outcomes of this process—social perspective taking effort and accuracy. We review the literature in support of these phases, noting the relative maturity of each area of research. In doing so, we hope this theory provides a framework for contextualizing how existing studies relate to one another across different subfields of psychology, facilitates testable predictions, prioritizes future investigations, and guides applied research designed to improve real-world social perspective taking.

Challenging the clinically-situated emotion-deficient version of empathy within medicine and medical education research

In this paper, we argue that the notion of a clinically-situated empathy (e.g. physician empathy), is potentially problematic as it perpetuates an emotion-deficient version of empathy within medicine and medicine education research. Utilizing classic and contemporary empathy theory from various social science disciplines, we discuss how empathy in the general sense differs conceptually from clinically-situated empathy-paying particular attention to the role of emotional contagion. To highlight this contrast, we draw upon Hojat et al.'s model of physician empathy and how this body of work reflects broader medical-cultural norms that problematize the role and impact of emotions within the clinical encounter. Alternatively, we present a more encompassing model of empathy drawing upon the fields of social-psychology and social-neuroscience in order to bring the notion of "feeling with" and emotional contagion more specifically, into medical education, medical education research, and medicine more generally.

The relationship between empathic concern and perceived personal costs for helping and how it is affected by similarity perceptions

One explanation for the positive effect of state empathic concern on helping is that such other-focused feelings reduce helpers' perceptions of their personal costs for helping. Results from an experiment (N = 186) supported these assumptions and showed further that self-focused feelings of personal distress, another form of affective empathy, were a positive predictor of perceived costs. Moreover, I examined whether the strength of the negative relationship between empathic concern and personal costs depends on two forms of perceived similarity between the helper and the target, person similarity and experience similarity. For this purpose, I manipulated person similarity by portraying the target as either similar or dissimilar with regard to essential characteristics, and assessed experience similarity by asking whether or not participants share the target's negative experience. As predicted, the negative relationship between empathic concern and perceived personal costs was strongest when person similarity was high and experience similarity low.

No need to take what you already have: perspective taking's effect on empathic concern for low-need targets

Recent studies have (quite persuasively) challenged a previous body of work suggesting that taking the perspective of targets described as experiencing highly distressing plights would increase empathic concern for those targets. In the current study, we test whether perspective-taking might still increase empathic concern for targets in less negative predicaments. College participants (N = 303) were given either perspective-taking instructions, or no instructions, before reading posts from targets describing negative, but not terrible, experiences. Consistent with recent results challenging the effects of perspective taking, even for these low-need targets, perspective-taking instructions had no effect on empathic concern (nor on other empathic emotions). However, participants in the perspective-taking condition were more likely to reach out to the targets by writing them a note in response to the negative experience. Results are discussed in terms of perspective-taking instructions having little effect on what perspective takers feel but possibly some effect on what they do.

The link between perspective-taking and prosociality - Not as universal as you might think

The path from perspective-taking to prosocial behavior is not as straightforward or robust as it is often assumed to be. In some contexts, imagining the viewpoint of other person leads the perspective taker to thoughts about how that person might have negative thoughts or intentions toward them. It can also prompt other kinds of counter-productive egocentric projection. In this review, we consider how prosocial processes potentially stimulated by perspective-taking can be derailed in such contexts. We also identify methodological limitations in current (social-) psychological evidence for a causal link between perspective-taking and prosocial outcomes. Increased appreciation of factors moderating the path from perspective-taking to prosocial behavior can enhance the explanatory power of perspective-taking as social cognitive process.

Nuancing Perspective

Abstract. Two experiments manipulated participants’ familiarity with another person and examined their performance in future understanding of that person’s emotions. To gain familiarity, participants watched several videos of the target sharing experiences and rated her emotions. In the Feedback condition, perceivers learned about the actual emotions the target felt. In the Control condition, perceivers completed identical recognition tasks but did not know the target’s own emotion ratings. Studies ( Ntotal = 398; one preregistered) found that the Feedback group was more accurate than the Control in future understanding of the target’s emotions. Results provide a proof-of-concept demonstration that brief preliminary learning about past emotional experiences of another person can give one a more accurate understanding of the person in the future.

Perspective taking reduces intergroup bias in visual representations of faces

Intergroup biases shape most aspects of person construal, including lower-level visual representations of group members' faces. Specifically, ingroup members' faces tend to be represented more positively than outgroup members' faces. Here, we used a reverse-correlation paradigm to test whether engaging in perspective taking (i.e., actively imagining another person's mental states) can reduce these biased visual representations. In an initial image-generation experiment, participants were randomly assigned to a minimal group and then composed a narrative essay about an ingroup or an outgroup target person, either while adopting the person's perspective or while following control instructions. Afterward, they generated an image of the person's face in a reverse-correlation image-classification task. Subsequent image-assessment experiments using an explicit rating task, a sequential priming task, and an economic trust game with separate samples of participants revealed that ingroup faces elicited more likability and trustworthiness than did outgroup faces. Importantly, this pattern of intergroup bias was consistently weaker in faces created by perspective takers. Additional image-assessment experiments identified the mouth (i.e., smiling cues) as a critical facial region wherein the interactive effects of group membership and perspective taking emerged. These findings provide initial evidence that perspective taking may be an effective strategy for attenuating, though not for eliminating, intergroup biases in visual representations of what group members look like.

When Polarization Triggers Out-Group "Counter-Projection" Across the Political Divide

Although projecting one's own characteristics onto another person is pervasive, "counter-projection," or seeing the opposite of oneself in others is also sometimes found, with implications for intergroup conflict. After a focused review of previous studies finding counter-projection (often unexpectedly), we map conditions for counter-projection to an individual out-group member. Counter-projection requires identified antagonistic groups, is moderated by in-group identity, and is moderated by which information is assessed in the target person. Using political groups defined by support for former U.S. President Trump, across our Initial Experiment (N = 725) and Confirmatory Experiment (N = 618), we found counter-projection to individual political out-group targets for moral beliefs, personality traits, and everyday likes (e.g., preference for dogs vs. cats). Counter-projection was increased by in-group identification and overlapped considerably with "oppositional" out-group stereotypes, but we also found counter-projection independent of out-group stereotypes (degree of overlap with stereotyping depended on the information being projected).

Is vicarious stress functionally adaptive? Perspective-taking modulates the effects of vicarious stress on future firsthand stress

Mere observation of others experiencing stress is often sufficient to evoke stress vicariously, especially when people try to understand the situation from the viewpoint of others. Here, we tested whether and how the experience of vicarious stress, facilitated by perspective-taking, would influence individuals' affective and motivational reactions to an upcoming experience of firsthand stress-when they themselves encounter the same stressor in the future. Participants viewed a video clip of another participant undergoing a stressful task (a speech task), after being randomly assigned to take either a first-person perspective of the person (perspective-taking condition; n = 45) or maintain a detached, third-person, observer perspective (objective condition; n = 46). Subsequently, participants were given a surprise speech task and asked to prepare for their own speech for 2 minutes, during which their cardiovascular responses were assessed to differentiate motivational states of challenge or threat. Compared to participants in the objective condition, those in the perspective-taking condition perceived higher levels of stress in anticipation of giving a speech. The heightened stress appraisals, in turn, were associated with a more adaptive pattern of cardiovascular reactivity to the firsthand (relative to vicarious) stressor, characterized as challenge responses (an increase in cardiac output and a decrease in total peripheral resistance). These results suggest that perspective-taking enhances sensitivity to vicarious stress, which in turn, may facilitate preparedness for future stressors. Discussion centers on the functional adaptiveness of vicarious stress. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Doctors inhibit social threat empathy in the later stage of cognitive processing: Electrophysiological evidence

Previous studies have found that repeatedly exposed to a threatening situation may reduce doctors' level of empathy, reducing psychological stress and avoiding burnout and compassion fatigue. However, many essential studies found that it does not seem universal but rather modulated by group membership. In this study, we recorded event-related potentials (ERP) when doctors and controls watched visual stimuli describing patients attacking doctors (Threat events) or shaking hands with doctors (Neutral events). The present study showed an early N190 and a later centro-parietal P3 differential amplitude between threat stimuli and neutral stimuli were observed in the controls. For the doctors, there was such ERP differentiation in early N190. However, later stage P3 differential amplitude was not observed. The current research suggests that doctors could regulate empathy and avoid allocating more attention resources when processing social threats to ensure treatment efficiency and avoid burnout.

Do Values Relate to Personality Traits and if so, in What Way? - Analysis of Relationships

Introduction

The research presents empirical data concerning the relations between personal traits and value system. The study focuses on empathy, agreeableness, directiveness, Machiavellism as personality traits. Theoretical assumptions and empirical findings are analyzed and interpreted in the context of cognitive framework, including the idea of regulative function self-concept. A content compatibility hypothesis between personality traits and one’s system of value was accepted as preliminary assumption for this research: empathy and agreeableness positively correlate with allocentric values, whereas directiveness and Machiavellism positively correlate with idiocentric values. The study group consisted of 325 students.

Methods

The Empathic Understanding of Others Questionnaire (Węgliński), Personality Inventory NEO-FFI (Costa and McCrae) Directiveness Scale (Ray) and Mach V Scale (Christie and Geis) were used.

Results

The value system of empathic and agreeable people reveals an allocentric orientation (tendency to abandon one’s own perspective), while the value system of directive and Machiavellian people reveals an idiocentric orientation (focused on oneself).

Discussion

The data analysis revealed that subjects tend to organize their self-knowledge in such a way that there is a content consistency between the information included in the appropriate schemas of personality traits and value preference.

Strategic Regulation of Empathy

Empathy is an integral part of socioemotional well-being, but recent research has highlighted some of its downsides. Here we examine literature that establishes when, how much, and what aspects of empathy promote specific outcomes. After reviewing a theoretical framework that characterizes empathy as a suite of separable components, we examine evidence showing how dissociations of these components affect important socioemotional outcomes and describe emerging evidence suggesting that these components can be independently and deliberately regulated. Finally, we advocate for an approach to a multicomponent view of empathy that accounts for the interrelations among components. This perspective advances scientific conceptualization of empathy and offers suggestions for tailoring empathy to help people realize their social, emotional, and occupational goals.

The Emotional Path to Action: Empathy Promotes Physical Distancing and Wearing of Face Masks During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic presents a major challenge to societies all over the globe. Two measures implemented in many countries to curb the spread of the disease are (a) minimizing close contact between people ("physical distancing") and (b) wearing of face masks. In the present research, we tested the idea that physical distancing and wearing of face masks can be the result of a prosocial emotional process-empathy for people most vulnerable to the virus. In four preregistered studies (N = 3,718, Western population), we found that (a) empathy indeed relates to the motivation to adhere to physical distancing and to wearing face masks and (b) inducing empathy for people most vulnerable to the virus promotes the motivation to adhere to these measures (whereas merely providing information about the importance of the measures does not). In sum, the present research provides a better understanding of the factors underlying the willingness to follow two important measures during the COVID-19 pandemic.