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Empathy

Empathy. Davis (1994) multidimensional approach: Perspective taking (PT): adopt the viewpoint of others (“I sometimes attempt to understand my friends by imagining how things look from their perspective”)

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Empathy

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  1. Empathy Davis (1994) multidimensional approach: • Perspective taking (PT): adopt the viewpoint of others (“I sometimes attempt to understand my friends by imagining how things look from their perspective”) • Emotional concern (EC): experience compassion for unfortunate others (“I have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me”) • Personal distress (PD): experience distress in response to distress in others (“Being in a tense emotional situation scares me”) • Fantasy (F): imaginatively transpose oneself into fictional situations (“When reading an interesting story, I imagine how Iwould feel if the events were happening to me”)

  2. Empathy and Values • (Perspective taking): +UN (BEN), - POW, SEC (Riska, 2003,Finnish adults (Red Cross volunteers), SVS, IRI; the same for both sexes) • (Emotional:)+ BEN (UN), - POW, (ACH), (SEC), HED, SD (above sample; Myyry & Helkama, Educ. Psychol. 2001, SVS, QMEE (university students); Kallionpää (13-16-year-olds): strong for men, weak for fem.)

  3. Guilt , Shame and Values • Guilt: negative evaluation of specific behaviour + tendency to take reparative actions • Shame: negative evaluation of global self + desire to escape or hide • Tangney TOSCA (1992): scenarios, e.g. ”You make a big mistake on an important project at work. People were depending on you and your boss criticizes you” Rate the likelihood of reacting with: • -”I want to hide” (shame) • - ”I should have done a better job” (guilt)

  4. guilt, shame and values (cntd) • TOSCA guilt : consistently correlated with perspective taking and empathic concern (Tangney & Dearing, 2002; Silfver, submitted, Finnish university and high school students) • TOSCA shame: + personal distress, - other oriented empathy • TOSCA guilt and values: + BEN, UN, CONF, - POW (???) (Silfver, submitted, Finnish high school students, PVQ, adolescent TOSCA) • Problem with TOSCA guilt: most scenarios involve consequences for human beings. How about norm violations without such (immediate) consequences?

  5. Norm-related guilt • Add scenarios with actions having no immediate consequences to others (crossing against red, not paying TV licence)

  6. Hypotheses • Perspective-taking is related: + UN (BEN), - others • Empathic concern is related: + BEN (UN), - others • TOSCA guilt is related: + UN, BEN, CONF, - others • Norm guilt is related: + CONF, TRAD, SEC, - ST, HED • Connections are weaker in countries where conformity is more important (high hierarchy, power distance)

  7. Cross-cultural variation • Countries: Finland, Bulgaria, Portugal • Schwartz Hierarchy: • High: Bulgaria (2.7), Low: Finland (1.8), Portugal (2.1) (M= 2.3) • Hofstede Power Distance: • High: Bulgaria (70), Portugal (63), Low: Finland (33)

  8. METHOD • Samples Social science/psychology students, women Helsinki, n=131, Sofia, n=111, Coimbra n= 176 • Measures Schwartz PVQ Davis IRI Tangney TOSCA -plus norm guilt:

  9. Means and standard deviations in values

  10. Means and standard deviations in guilt, shame and empathy

  11. Correlations between TOSCA-guilt and values

  12. Correlations between norm-related guilt and values

  13. Correlations between shame and values

  14. Correlations between empathic concern and values

  15. Correlations between perspective-taking and values

  16. Correlations between personal distress and values

  17. Conclusions • Support for two motivational systems: • (1) UN, BEN associated with empathy (perspective-taking & empathic concern), However, not so clearly with guilt (empathy-based guilt in particular; problems with measure) • (2) CONF, TRAD associated with guilt over norm violations, and also with shame (in Finland only) • Unexpected: TRAD predicted personal distress (TRAD as a means of coping with distress?)

  18. Conclusions continued • Contrary to hypotheses, associations stronger in a high hierarchy country (Bulgaria) and weaker in low hierarchy countries (Finland, Portugal). However, the 3 countries showed no differences on conformity. Possible (speculative) explanations: Bulgaria the most ”individualistic” sample (high ACH), where UN & BEN non-normative); Portugal highest scoring on Hofstede’s uncertainty avoidance -> traditional gender roles, not value priorities, regulate reports on empathy and guilt

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