Being Empathic: The Role of Motivation to Empathize and the Nature of Target Emotions
Division of Counseling Psychology, School of Education, 215 Education University of Missouri Kansas City
Motivation and Emotion: March 2000, Volume 24, Issue 1, pp 29–49
Cite
Duan, C. Motivation and Emotion (2000) 24: 29. doi:10.1023/A:1005587525609
Abstract
"The effect of the observer's motivation to empathize and the nature of the target person's emotions on empathy was examined. The study distinguished intellectual empathy, the extent to which the observer takes the target person's perspective, and empathic emotion, the extent to which the observer feels the target emotions. Intellectual empathy was measured via attribution errors that the observer made in attributing the target person's situation, and empathic emotion by the congruence between the emotions of the target person and the observer.
The first experiment showed that pleasant emotions and sadness elicited more empathic emotion than did shame and anger.
The second experiment revealed that motivation increased intellectual empathy when the target person was sad, and empathic emotion when the target person was happy.
Intellectual empathy and empathic emotion appeared to be distinguishable constructs and could correlate under certain conditions."
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