1. COMM: 107S
ENGENDERING
COMPASSION
LECTURE 2, JUNE 26TH, 2013
STANFORD UNIVERSITY, SUMMER QUARTER
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2. EMPATHY IS....
AN ABILITY
A MOTIVATION
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3. READING EMOTIONS
EMOTIONS ARE EXPRESSED VERBALLY AND NON-
VERBALLY
FACIAL EXPRESSIONS ARE KEY TO EMPATHY
WHAT OTHER WAYS DO WE EXPRESS EMOTION?
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4. EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
WHAT IS THIS FACE IS EXPRESSING?
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5. ONLINE RAMIFICATIONS
COMPUTER-MEDIATED COMMUNICATION ELIMINATES
SOME REAL-WORLD CONTEXT CLUES FOR SHARING
EMOTION
HOWEVER, IT CAN ALSO BE HYPERPERSONAL
(WALTHER)
Hian, Chuan, Trevor, and Detenber's 2006 study
found that “relational intimacy” increased at a
faster rate in CMC than in Face-to-Face
interactions
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6. WHY DO WE HAVE EMPATHY?
BIOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS - TOM, MIRROR NEURONS
(PROXIMATE BASES OF EMPATHY)
MOTIVATIONS - EGO-CENTERED OR ALTRUISTIC
COGNITION - IN-GROUP/OUT-GROUP PREFERENCE
(EXAMPLE OF ULTIMATE BASE OF EMPATHY)
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7. Empathy: Its ultimate and proximate bases
Preston, de Waal (Optional Reading)
ULTIMATE BASES: “Empathy increases with:
Familiarity
(subject's previous experience with object)
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8. SIMILARITY
Similarity can be
manipulated (red team vs.
blue team)
(perceived overlap between subject and object e.g. species,
personality, age, gender),
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9. LEARNING
Learning
(explicit or implicit teaching)
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10. PAST EXPERIENCE
Past experience
(with situation of distress)
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11. SALIENCE
(strength of perceptual signal e.g. louder, closer, more realistic
etc.)
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12. BATSON ET AL.’S ABSTRACT
Three experiments tested whether empathy evokes egoistic motivation to share
vicariously in the victim's joy at improvement (the empathic-joy hypothesis)
instead of altruistic motivation to increase the victim's welfare (the empathy-
altruism hypothesis). In Experiment 1, Ss induced to feel either low or high
empathy for a young woman in need were given a chance to help her. Some
believed that if they helped they would receive feedback about her improvement;
others did not. In Experiments 2 and 3, Ss induced to feel either low or high
empathy were given a choice of getting update information about a needy person's
condition. Before choosing, they were told the likelihood of the person's condition
having improved—and of their experiencing empathic joy—was 20%, was 50%, or
was 80%. Results of none of the experiments patterned as predicted by the
empathic-joy hypothesis; instead, results of each were consistent with the
empathy-altruism hypothesis.
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13. STUDY DESIGN (1)
2 X 3 DESIGN
INDEPENDENT
VARIABLES
low
empathy/
no info
low
empathy/
no
feedback
low
empathy/
feedback
high
empathy/
no info
high
empathy/
no
feedback
high
empathy/
feedback
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14. PERSPECTIVE-TAKING
“To manipulate empathy, some
subjects were asked to adopt an
objective perspective while
watching (low-empathy
condition), and others were asked
to imagine how the young
woman felt (high-empathy
condition).”
Perspective-taking as a
method for increasing
empathy
IMAGE FROM PRESTON, DE WAAL HTTP://COGPRINTS.ORG/1042/1/PRESTON_DE_WAAL.HTML
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15. EMPATHIC-JOY HYPOTHESIS
“We reasoned that if empathically aroused individuals are
egoistically motivated to gain empathic joy, then their desire to
hear from the needy person again should be a direct function of
the likelihood of obtaining empathic joy, which should in turn be
a direct function of the likelihood that the needy person would be
better.”
Empathic-altruism: “altruistically motivated individuals should
want to hear how the needy person is doing even when the chances
of improvement are not great.”
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16. DEPENDENT MEASURES
Dependent measure: Volunteering to help KatieON, BATSON, SLINGSBY, HARRELL, PEEKNA, TODD
uded that the empathy
thy, distress, and sadness.
s raised earlier and the
stinguishability ofself-
onse to the need situa-
9; Batson et al, 1988), a
nses to the six empathy
rmed, grieved, troubled,
, and perturbed), and four
ng low, heavyhearted, and
perturbed, all of these
nt. Omitting perturbed
t solution (eigenvalue =
gher on this component.
that in response to the
pathy, distress, and sad-
gle underlying dimen-
Table 1
Proportion ofSubjects Agreeing to Help Katie
in Each Cell ofExperiment 1
Empathy
condition
Low
Proportion
M
High
Proportion
M
No information
about feedback
.42
0.67
.75
1.00
Information about feedback
No feedback
.33
0.33
.83
1.17
Feedback
.67
0.92
.58
0.75
Note, n = 12 per cell. The means are those for the scaled measure of
helping, ranging from no help (0), 3-5 hr (1), 6-8 hr (2), to 9-10 hr (3).
by the empathy-altruism hypothesis in both the no-informa-
tion (replication) condition (z = 1.69, p < .05, one-tailed) and the16
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17. ANALYSIS
An analysis of variance on the proportion of subjects volunteering to help Katie in
each cell revealed a reliable empathy main effect, x2(l, N=12) = 5.04, p < .025.
This main effect was, however, qualified by a marginally significant interaction,
x2(2, N= 72) = 4.87, p <. 10.
x2 - Chi-squared, ANOVA
degrees of freedom, (d-1)
p - significance, importance of .05
N - number of participants
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18. SYMHEDONIA
Sympathy for another’s good fortune
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19. WHY THIS PAPER?
7 STUDIES
WHY ARE WE COVERING THIS PAPER: “sympathy is a
concept capable of dual affective tone, its dominant meaning
remains that of a negative emotional state anchored in and
tending toward the alleviation of another’s misfortune.”
However, it can also be involved in positive affect.
METHODS: QUESTIONNAIRES ABOUT ATTACHMENT,
SYMPATHY, AND “FEELING GOOD FOR ANOTHER”
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20. IVS, DVS, AND FINDINGS
IVS?
DVS?
FINDINGS?
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21. FINDINGS, STUDY 7
Not an
experiment,
“none of them
manipulated
attachment
directly”
FINDINGS:
WHAT IS Y-
AXIS?
relationship between sympathy, symhedonia, and attachment level
within the casual-acquaintance category. There were significant
correlations between attachment and symhedonia, r(78) ϭ .63, p Ͻ
.001, one-tailed; attachment and sympathy, r(78) ϭ .34, p ϭ .002,
one-tailed; and sympathy and symhedonia, r(78) ϭ .55, p Ͻ .001,
one-tailed. Applying a test of significance for nonindependent
correlations (Howell, 1997, p. 265), the difference between the
first two correlations proved statistically significant, t(75) ϭ 3.42,
p Ͻ .01, one-tailed. Sympathy, though somewhat more intense
than symhedonia, appears to be more independent of prior
attachment.
intense than sympathy.
Consistent with the equal contingency hypothesis, the reported
intensity of both sympathy and symhedonia was significantly
higher when the target person was the best friend rather than a
casual acquaintance (Study 7). Also, consistent with the equal
contingency hypothesis, the likelihood of experiencing symhedo-
nia seems biased toward high-attachment targets (Studies 1–3, 5).
On the other hand, contrary to this hypothesis, the likelihood of
experiencing sympathy did not seem to vary consistently as a
function of prior attachment (Studies 1–3, 5). Moreover, the equal
contingency hypothesis is not equipped to account for the findings
of sympathy’s greater range, robustness, or the relatively weak tie
Figure 2. Sympathy and symhedonia intensity as a function of relationship type.
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22. QUICK GROUP WORK (3~PPL)
WE’VE LOOKED AT BATSON’S WORK, ROYZMAN AND
ROZIN, PRESTON AND DE WAAL....
USING SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES AS A FRAME AND
CONTEXT, COME UP WITH A GENERAL EXAMPLE OF
WHERE/WHEN EMPATHY OR SYMHEDONIA ARE
POSITIVELY OR NEGATIVELY AFFECTED AND WHY
SPECULATE ON WAYS TO ENHANCE THE POSITIVE OR
MITIGATE THE NEGATIVE
SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES INCLUDE: TWITTER,
FACEBOOK, RENREN, GAIA ONLINE, LINKEDIN, ETC.
YOU CAN APPROACH THIS FROM A PROXIMATE POSITION
OR AN ULTIMATE BASE POSITION
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23. 7-10 MINUTES
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24. SHARE
POSITIVE INSTANCES:
MORE PEOPLE TO FEEL
SYMHEDONIA WITH,
NEGATIVE INSTANCES:
NOT CENSORING SELF,
VARIANCE OF SYMPATHY
AND THEY MIGHT FEEL
BAD THAT THEY CAN’T
HELP
FACEBOOK DEATH
MINIMIZES IMPORTANCE
EASIER TO SHARE (POS
AND NEG)
EXTERNAL VALIDATION
(POS AND NEG)
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25. PROMPT FOR ONE-PAGER
FROM A PERSONAL PERSPECTIVE,
BUT UNDERPINNED BY WHAT WE
LEARNED ABOUT EMPATHY THIS
WEEK, HAVE YOU WITNESSED
SPECIFIC INSTANCES WHERE
EMPATHY WAS UNDERMINED BY
TECHNOLOGY OTHER THAN
SOCIAL NETWORKING? PLEASE
DESCRIBE TO THE BEST OF YOUR
ABILITY AND USE NEW
TERMINOLOGY WHERE
APPROPRIATE.
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26. QUESTIONS?
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