Department of Psychology.
Emotion. 2018 Jun;18(4):493-506. doi: 10.1037/emo0000375. Epub 2017 Nov 20.
Researchers have identified the capacity to take the perspective of others as a precursor to empathy-induced altruistic motivation. Consequently, investigators frequently use so-called perspective-taking instructions to manipulate empathic concern. However, most experiments using perspective-taking instructions have had modest sample sizes, undermining confidence in the replicability of results. In addition, it is unknown whether perspective-taking instructions work because they increase empathic concern or because comparison conditions reduce empathic concern (or both). Finally, some researchers have found that egoistic factors that do not involve empathic concern, including self-oriented emotions and self-other overlap, mediate the relationship between perspective-taking instructions and helping. The present investigation was a high-powered, preregistered effort that addressed methodological shortcomings of previous experiments to clarify how and when perspective-taking manipulations affect emotional arousal and prosocial motivation in a prototypical experimental paradigm administered over the Internet. Perspective-taking instructions did not clearly increase empathic concern; this null finding was not due to ceiling effects. Instructions to remain objective, on the other hand, unequivocally reduced empathic concern relative to a no-instructions control condition. Empathic concern was the most strongly felt emotion in all conditions, suggesting that distressed targets primarily elicit other-oriented concern. Empathic concern uniquely predicted the quality of social support provided to the target, which supports the empathy-altruism hypothesis and contradicts the role of self-oriented emotions and self-other overlap in explaining helping behavior. Empathy-induced altruism may be responsible for many prosocial acts that occur in everyday settings, including the increasing number of prosocial acts that occur online. (PsycINFO Database Record
研究人员已经确定了从他人的角度看待问题的能力是同理心引发利他动机的前兆。因此，研究人员经常使用所谓的换位思考指令来操纵同理心的关注。然而，大多数使用换位思考指令的实验样本量都较小，这降低了对结果可复制性的信心。此外，尚不清楚换位思考指令是否有效，是因为它们增加了同理心的关注，还是因为比较条件减少了同理心的关注（或者两者兼而有之）。最后，一些研究人员发现，不涉及同理心的利己因素，包括自我导向的情绪和自我与他人的重叠，会影响换位思考指令和帮助之间的关系。本研究是一项高影响力、预先注册的努力，旨在解决以前实验中的方法学缺陷，以澄清换位思考操作如何以及何时在典型的互联网实验范式中影响情绪唤醒和亲社会动机。换位思考指令并没有明显增加同理心的关注；这种零结果不是由于天花板效应造成的。相比之下，保持客观的指令明确减少了同理心的关注，与无指令控制条件相比。同理心是所有条件下最强烈的情绪，这表明痛苦的目标主要引起他人导向的关注。同理心的关注是对目标提供的社会支持的质量的唯一预测因素，这支持了同理心利他主义假说，并反驳了自我导向的情绪和自我与他人重叠在解释助人行为中的作用。同理心引发的利他主义可能是许多在日常环境中发生的亲社会行为的原因，包括越来越多的亲社会行为发生在网上。
