The effects of dispositional empathy on emotional reactions and helping: A multidimensional approach
1983/06/01 by Mark H. Davis · 791 citations
Medicine · Psychology · #Clinical psychology #Cognition #Developmental psychology #Distress #Emotional Intelligence and Performance #Emotions and Moral Behavior #Empathic concern #Empathy #Empathy and Medical Education #Feeling #Helping behavior #Personal distress #Perspective-taking #Psychology #Situational ethics #Social psychology #Sympathy
paper · doi:10.1111/j.1467-6494.1983.tb00860.x
published in Journal of Personality 51(2), 167-184 (Wiley)
openalex publication_date 1983/06/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/25
Abstract
Abstract Recent research indicates that an affective state termed empathic emotion , and characterized by feelings of sympathy and compassion for another, is associated with altruistic responding. That is, persons experiencing high levels of empathic emotion offer help to another even when escape from the situation is easy. Persons experiencing high levels of another emotional state—personal distress—help much less when escape from the situation is easy. A study was conducted to test two related hypotheses. The first was that individual differences in empathy can influence empathic emotion and personal distress, above and beyond the influence of situational factors. The second hypothesis was that this effect of individual differences is due to variation in emotional and not cognitive empathy. The results provide support for both hypotheses. Regarding hypothesis 1, a significantly greater proportion of the variance in emotional reactions was accounted for when individual difference factors were included as predictors. Hypothesis 2 was also supported: It was found that a dispositional measure of emotional empathy was clearly related, and a dispositional measure of cognitive empathy was clearly unrelated, to these emotional reactions. The results provide support for a multidimensional view of empathy.
Citations
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