Seeing the Whole Picture? Avoided Negative Affect and Processing of Others’ Suffering

Bibliographic Data

ID21453751
AuthorsBirgit Koopmann-Holm (0000-0002-0819-8862, Santa Clara University, CA, USA, corresponding author), Kathryn Bartel (Santa Clara University, CA, USA), Maryam Bin Meshar (0000-0002-3220-4249, Santa Clara University, CA, USA), Huiru Evangeline Yang (Santa Clara University, CA, USA), Huici Yang (0000-0001-7179-3261, Santa Clara University)
Year2020
Volume46
Issue9
Pages1363-1377
Publication date2020-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePersonality and Social Psychology Bulletin (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0146-1672 • E-ISSN: 1552-7433
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/0146167220903905
PMID32043925
OpenAlexW3005986124
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited35

Noticing someone’s pain is the first step to a compassionate response. While past research suggests that the degree to which people want to avoid feeling negative (“avoided negative affect”; ANA) shapes how people respond to someone’s suffering, the present research investigates whether ANA also predicts how people process others’ suffering. In two studies, using complex photographs containing negative aspects (i.e., suffering), we found that the higher people’s ANA, the fewer details of negative aspects they correctly recognized, and the fewer negative words they used in their image descriptions. However, when asked to process negative content, the higher people’s ANA, the more negatively they rated that content. In Study 3, we report cultural differences in people’s sensitivity to notice suffering in an ambiguous image. ANA mediated these cultural differences. Implications for research on compassion are discussed

Affect (linguistics) · Art · Cognitive psychology · Picture books · Visual arts · Aging and Gerontology Research · Communication · Computer Science · Emotions and Moral Behavior · Face Recognition and Perception · Psychology

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