Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of California, Santa Barbara
Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of California, Santa Barbara.
Psychol Sci. 2016 Mar;27(3):394-404. doi: 10.1177/0956797615624491. Epub 2016 Feb 4.
Growing evidence suggests that interpersonal responsiveness-feeling understood, validated, and cared for by other people-plays a key role in shaping the quality of one's social interactions and relationships. But what enables people to be interpersonally responsive to others? In the current study, we argued that responsiveness requires not only accurate understanding but also compassionate motivation. Specifically, we hypothesized that understanding another person's thoughts and feelings (empathic accuracy) would foster responsive behavior only when paired with benevolent motivation (empathic concern). To test this idea, we asked couples (N = 91) to discuss a personal or relationship stressor; we then assessed empathic accuracy, empathic concern, and responsive behavior. As predicted, when listeners' empathic concern was high, empathic accuracy facilitated responsiveness; but when empathic concern was low, empathic accuracy was unhelpful (and possibly harmful) for responsiveness. These findings provide the first evidence that cognitive and affective forms of empathy work together to facilitate responsive behavior.
越来越多的证据表明，人际反应能力——即被他人理解、认可和关心的感觉——在塑造一个人社交互动和关系的质量方面起着关键作用。但是，是什么使人们能够对他人做出人际反应呢？在当前的研究中，我们认为，反应能力不仅需要准确的理解，还需要富有同情心的动机。具体来说，我们假设对他人的思想和感受的理解（同理心准确性）只有在与善良的动机（同理心关怀）相结合时，才会促进反应行为。为了验证这一观点，我们要求夫妻（N=91）讨论个人或关系压力源；然后评估同理心准确性、同理心关怀和反应行为。正如预测的那样，当听众的同理心关怀程度较高时，同理心准确性有助于反应；但当同理心关怀程度较低时，同理心准确性对反应没有帮助（甚至可能有害）。这些发现首次提供了证据，证明认知和情感形式的同理心共同促进了反应行为。
