Meet an unsettled problem, but not a shattered mind: Logical analysis turned off an empathic mind

Chiu, C.-D. (Chui-De)¹, Lo, P. K. (Pak Kwan)¹, Ng, H. C. (Hau Ching)^1
1The Chinese University of Hong Kong, New Territories, Hongkong

 

Submission type

Oral only

Scheduled

Parallel Session VI: Keurzaal, 09-06-2018, 13:00 - 14:30

Kernwoorden

Empathy, perspective-taking, Vicarious Emotion

Onderzoeksgebied

Therapeutic relationship

Introductie

One frustrating moment in social sharing is that listeners cannot understand the emotion of disclosers. This failure to feel disclosers’ distress is common for junior therapists. In an earlier study, we demonstrated that resuming self-perspective for simulation after mental alignment to other-perspective is crucial to generate vicarious emotion. In the current experiment, we investigated whether this empathic propensity would be turned off if a listener engaged in solving the problem for a distressed person rather than experiencing the feeling of the person.

Materiaal en methodes

College students were recruited to join a social sharing experiment. An audio-taped narrative pertinent to the daily hassles of another person was played. While listening, participants were prompted to experience the person’s sensorimotoric responses (i.e., experiential), to infer the person’s problems and formulate solutions (i.e., analytical), or to memorize the narrative (i.e., control).

Resultaten

Consistent with the previous study, participants with the dispositional ability to switch back quickly to self-perspective after taking a conflicting other-perspective reported heightened vicarious distress. Of note, this heightened vicarious distress was merely found in the experiential and control conditions but not the analytical condition.

Conclusie

Through an analytical lens, people meet an unsettled problem, but miss a shattered mind.

Auteurs