College 8 Flashcards
sympathy
refers to the heightened awareness of the suffering of another person as something to be alleviated
empathy
refers to the attempt to be one self-aware self to comprehend unjudgementally the positive and negative experiences of another self
empathy concept 1
knowing another person’s internal state
empathic accuracy
refers to how accurately one person can infer the thoughts and feelings of another person
the dyadic interaction paradigm
measures empathic accuracy as the extent to which a perceiver accurately infers a target person’s thoughts or feelings from a video recording of their spontaneous interaction together
empathic accuracy depends on
- verbal and non-verbal cues, relational/ target information, and social-cognitive abilities
predicted by: female gender role identification
not predicted by: IQ, dispositional empathy, biological gender
empathy concept 2
adopting the posture or matching the neural responses of an observed other
facial empathy/ motor micmicry
The copying of the facial expressions, posture or vocal tone of someone feeling distressed by another person, resulting in the observer experiencing the same.
perception action model
Perceiving
another’s mental state activates the same neural state in us, which then leads to the imitation of that action (perception-action link)
empathy concept 3
coming to feel as another person feels
emotional contagion
a form of social contagion that involves the spontaneous spread of emotions and related behaviors. Such emotional convergence can happen from one person to another, or in a larger group. Emotions can be shared across individuals in many ways, both implicitly or explicitly.
empathy concept 4
intuiting or projecting oneself into another’s situation
empathy concept 5
imagining how another is thinking and feeling
> referred to as imagine-other perspective taking
Theoretical projection of the self onto another person’s situation: “how do I usually feel in this situation?”
* Based on one’s knowledge about the world, and egocentric in that sense
> theoretical analysis of the target > leads to less distress
empathy concept 6
imagining how one would think and feel in the other’s place
> referred to imagine-self perspective-taking
mental simulation of another person’s situation, using this experience as basis of an empathic judgement: “how did this feel for me?”
> ‘merging of the self and the other’ > leads to more distress
empathy concept 7
feeling distress at witnessing another person’s suffering
> referred to as empathic distress
Important: means being distressed not FOR the other person, but BY the other person
empathy concept 7
feeling for another person who is suffering
> referred to as empathic concern
Other-oriented emotional responses elicited by and congruent with the perceived welfare of someone else
The interpersonal Reactivity Index
four subscales
1. empathic concern
2. personal distress
3. fantasy
4. perspective taking
empathic concern
“other-oriented” feelings of sympathy and concern for unfortunate others
Personal distress
“self-oriented” feelings of personal anxiety and unease in tense interpersonal settings
fantasy
tendencies to transpose themselves imaginatively into the feelings and actions of fictitious characters in books, movies and plays
perspective-taking
the tendency to spontaneously adopt the psychological point of view of others
Theory of mind (ToM)
is the ability to understand and take into account another person’s mental state
Affective ToM
understanding others based on emotional knowledge
cognitive ToM
understanding others based on belief knowledge
the resource project
Huge longitudinal study
investigating the effects of various meditation techniques on relevant abilities
self-efficacy
confidence in one’s ability
Perspective-taking and feedback-seeking
- In the absence of perspective-taking, self-efficacy will relate negatively to feedback seeking (“I already know how to do my job”)
- In the presence of perspective-taking, the relationship between self-efficacy and feedback seeking is positive
