Empathy

Other

-Imagine-other perspective -Empathetic concern

Self

-Imagine-self perspective -Emotion matching

Perspective taking conclusions

-Perspective Taking leads to self-other overlap. -To the extent one has a positive view of oneself, perspective taking will lead to a positive view of the other.

Emotion matching

Feelings as another person feels

Perspective taking & stereotyping

-ingroup favoritism results from ingroup's association with the self -so, associating an outgroup member with the self through PT should reduce bias because self-concept will be used to capture stimuli rather than the stereotype

Suppression

-requires monitoring which is a form of repetitive priming (Macrae et al., 1994) and depletes cognitive resources (Wegner et al., 1993) -requires abundance of cognitive resources can impose cognitive load, reducing capacity for individuation -suppression can lead to rebound effects

Personal distress

Assesses people's feelings of anxiety and discomfort as a result of another's negative experience. -When I see someone who badly needs help in an emergency, I go to pieces. -In emergency situations, I feel apprehensive and ill-at-ease. -I sometimes feel helpless when I am in the middle of a very emotional situation.

Empathic concern

Assesses people's feelings of warmth, compassion, and concern for others. -I often have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me. -I am often quite touched by things that I see happen. -I would describe myself as a pretty soft-hearted person. Feeling for another person who is in need

Perspective taking

Assesses the extent to which individuals adopt others' points of view. -I sometimes find it difficult to see things from the "other guy's" point of view. -I try to look at everybody's side of a disagreement before I make a decision. -Before criticizing somebody, I try to imagine how I would feel if I were in their place

Affective empathy

Experiencing emotion in response to another person's emotion Emotion matching and Empathetic concern

Perspective taking exp 3

Experiment 3: Minimal group; 40 participants 4(control vs. PT vs. behavioral recall vs. perceived similarity) x 2(ingroup vs outgroup ratings) -dot estimation task - all told they overestimated the number of dots -write about day in the life of an underestimator PT manipulation - go through the day as if you were an underestimator, walking through the world in their shoes and looking at the world through their eyes Recall - recall a time in the past two weeks when you underestimated . . . Similarity - write about similarities of over and underestimators Control - no essay -Rate both groups on 10 positive dimensions (and rate valence of each dimension) also indicated percentage of each group to which the trait applied Results: Ingroup bias found in control and similarity conditions (marginal in recall condition), but not in the PT condition. All experimental conditions reduced ingroup favorability, but only the PT condition seemed to improve ratings of outgroup. Similar effects found for assignment of trait-valence (significant bias in control, marginal in similarity and recall, no effect in PT)

Perspective taking study 1

HYPOTHESIS: Perspective Taking can reduce our reliance on stereotypes and improve our attitudes towards out-group members. METHOD: -Participants were exposed to a photograph of an elderly man and asked to write an essay describing a day in his life. -One third were given no explicit instructions -One third were asked to suppress any stereotypic ideas. -One third were told to take the perspective of the individual in the photograph. -Lexical decision task to measure accessibility of 'Elderly' stereotype. -Narrative essay about a different elderly man. -Narrative essay about a young African American man. RESULTS: -Suppressors were faster to respond to stereotype consistent words than perspective takers or controls. -Stereotypical content of "old man" essay was lower in the suppression and PT conditions than the control condition. -Stereotypical content of the "black man" essay did not differ across conditions.

Perspective taking study 2

HYPOTHESIS: The mechanism by which perspective taking exerts its positive effects is through increased self-other overlap. METHOD: -Participants were asked to rate themselves on 90 traits. -Participants were exposed to a photograph of an elderly man and asked to write an essay describing a day in his life. -One third were given no explicit instructions -One third were asked to suppress any stereotypic ideas. -One third were told to take the perspective of the individual in the photograph. -Participants were asked to rate the elderly on the same 90 traits as they rated themselves upon earlier. RESULTS: Perspective takers showed greater self-other overlap than controls or suppressors.

Imagine-other perspective

Imagining how ANOTHER is thinking or feeling

Imagine-self perspective

Imagining how YOU would feel in another's situation

Reducing implicit bias with perspective taking study

METHOD: -Participants watched a 5-min video clip depicting a Black man (Glen) and a White man (John) engaging in a variety of everyday activities. -Participants watched as the two men received differential treatment while browsing in a department store, attempting to purchase an automobile at a car dealership, and interacting with local police. It was clear from the content of the video that Glen was treated unfairly because of his race. -Before watching the video clip, participants were instructed to take Glen's perspective (self vs other) or to remain objective and emotionally detached. -Participants then completed an IAT measure of racial bias. RESULTS: -Compared with objective-focus participants, perspective-takers showed more positive implicit racial evaluations

Racial bias in empathy study 2

METHOD: -Researchers conducted the same study but also included a violet hand. -Participants were asked how similar and how familiar they are with violet hands. RESEARCH: -The violet hand was rated less similar and less familiar but was treated more like an in-group member than an out-group member.

Racial bias in empathy study 1

METHOD: -White and black Italians were shown images of black and white hands being pricked by a needle or a Q-tip. -There neural responses to each image were recorded. -The neural response to a Q-tip was subtracted from the neural response to a needle. RESULTS: -The neural activation was greater for in-group members than out-group members. -Greater emotional resonance with members of your own group.

Empathy

Mulitdimensional, four different parts

Egocentrism & perspective taking

Perspective-taking uses the self to anchor perceptions of the other, a process that is unconscious (Davis et al., 1996) -difference between imagining how other feels and how you would feel if you were in the other's situation (Batson et al., 1997) - only latter yields egoistic motivation -self-other overlap occurs in both forms of PT

Perspective taking exp 1

Ps asked to write essay about day in the life of elderly man with experimental manipulation encoded in instructions (5 min.) Lexical Decision Task (after a filler math test): 5 consistent, 5 irrelevant words -lonely, dependent, traditional, stubborn, forgetful Second essay about elderly man + young African American man -Essays: PT and Suppression led to less stereotypic essays about elderly men, but only PT led to more positive essays (PT led to more positive essays about young African American man, as well). -LDT: Suppression led to hyperaccessibility of elderly stereotype (faster responses to consistent than irrelevant words)

Perspective taking exp 2

Role of the self-concept; 82 participants (control, suppression, PT) -First rated self on 90 traits -Then wrote essay about elderly (control vs. suppression vs. perspective-taking) after 15 min. of filler tasks, rated the elderly on same 90 traits (5 stereotypic) -Essays: Suppressors and PTers wrote less stereotypic essays, but only PTers wrote more positive essays. -Trait ascription: PTers rated elderly as less stereotypic. PTers displayed more overlap in ratings than did participants in the control or suppression conditions, and this effect did not differ for positive and negative traits. Overlap mediated the effect of condition on ratings of stereotypicality.

Cognitive empathy

Understanding what another person is experiencing (e.g. psychopaths have very high levels of this) Imagine-self perspective and Imagine-other perspective taking

Racial bias in empathy studies

When people witness another person in pain their brain responds as if they themselves were in pain. -Mirror neurons Conclusion of studies: -Empathy is our default reaction, and that curtailing it towards others requires us to first place them firmly in the "other" category.

Imagine-self and Imagine-other perspective

leads to empathic concern

Racial bias reduces sensorimotor resonance exp

sensorimotor contagion - indexed by automatic reduction of the corticospinal excitability of onlookers who observe painful stimuli delivered to a target -used transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to measure changes in corticospinal body representations -watching painful stimuli administered to ingroup targets (but not outgroup targets) reduced motor-evoked potential (MEP) amplitude specific to stimulated muscle -discrepancy in sensitivity to ingroup and outgroup targets predicted by IAT scores (r = -.47!) Adding the violet hand -Violet hand showing sensorimotor contagion more similar to ingroup than outgroup.