Santa Clara University, CA, USA.
Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2020 Sep;46(9):1363-1377. doi: 10.1177/0146167220903905. Epub 2020 Feb 11.
Noticing someone's pain is the first step to a compassionate response. While past research suggests that the degree to which people want to avoid feeling negative ("avoided negative affect"; ANA) shapes how people respond to someone's suffering, the present research investigates whether ANA also predicts how people process others' suffering. In two studies, using complex photographs containing negative aspects (i.e., suffering), we found that the higher people's ANA, the fewer details of negative aspects they correctly recognized, and the fewer negative words they used in their image descriptions. However, when asked to process negative content, the higher people's ANA, the more negatively they rated that content. In Study 3, we report cultural differences in people's sensitivity to notice suffering in an ambiguous image. ANA mediated these cultural differences. Implications for research on compassion are discussed.
察觉到他人的痛苦是产生同情反应的第一步。虽然以往的研究表明，人们想要避免感受消极情绪（“回避消极情感”；ANA）的程度会影响他们对他人痛苦的反应方式，但目前的研究则探讨了 ANA 是否也能预测人们对他人痛苦的处理方式。在两项研究中，我们使用了包含消极方面（即痛苦）的复杂照片，发现人们的 ANA 越高，他们正确识别消极方面细节的能力越差，在描述图像时使用的消极词汇也越少。然而，当被要求处理消极内容时，他们的 ANA 越高，对该内容的评价就越消极。在研究 3 中，我们报告了人们对模棱两可的图像中痛苦的察觉能力的文化差异，ANA 对这些文化差异起到了中介作用。对同情研究的启示进行了讨论。
