Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208, USA.
Psychol Sci. 2011 May;22(5):689-94. doi: 10.1177/0956797611405679. Epub 2011 Apr 11.
Torture is prohibited by statutes worldwide, yet the legal definition of torture is almost invariably based on an inherently subjective judgment involving pain severity. In four experiments, we demonstrate that judgments of whether specific interrogation tactics constitute torture are subject to an empathy gap: People who are experiencing even a mild version of the specific pain produced by an interrogation tactic are more likely to classify that tactic as torture or as unethical than are those who are not experiencing pain. This discrepancy could result from an overestimation of the pain of torture by people in pain, an underestimation of the pain of torture by those not in pain, or both. The fourth experiment shows that the discrepancy results from an underestimation of pain by people who are not experiencing it. Given that legal standards guiding torture are typically established by people who are not in pain, this research suggests that practices that do constitute torture are likely to not be classified as such.
酷刑在全球范围内都被法律所禁止，但酷刑的法律定义几乎总是基于一种内在的主观判断，涉及到疼痛的严重程度。在四项实验中，我们证明了对特定审讯策略是否构成酷刑的判断受到同理心差距的影响：经历特定审讯策略所产生的轻微疼痛的人比没有经历疼痛的人更有可能将该策略归类为酷刑或不道德。这种差异可能是由于疼痛中的人对酷刑的疼痛估计过高，而没有疼痛的人对酷刑的疼痛估计过低，或者两者兼而有之。第四项实验表明，这种差异是由于没有经历疼痛的人对疼痛的低估造成的。鉴于指导酷刑的法律标准通常是由没有经历疼痛的人制定的，这项研究表明，确实构成酷刑的做法可能不会被归类为酷刑。
