Empathy avoidance
Forestalling feeling for another in order to escape the motivational consequences
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6200432 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Laura L Shaw (0000-0002-8274-5190, University of Kansas), Christie D Batson (0000-0002-3433-854X), R Matthew Todd, Roxanne Todd (0000-0001-5651-6549) |
| Year | 1994 |
| Volume | 67 |
| Issue | 5 |
| Pages | 879-887 |
| Publication date | 1994-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0022-3514 • E-ISSN: 1939-1315 |
| Publisher | American Psychological Association (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1037//0022-3514.67.5.879 |
| OpenAlex | W4255997379 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 47 |
| References cited | 25 |
Often people fail to respond to these in need. Why? In addition to cognitive and perceptual processes such as oversight and diffusion of responsibility, a motivational process may lead people, at times, to actively avoid feeling empathy for those in need, lest they be motivated to help them. It is predicted that empathy avoidance will occur when, before exposure to a person in need, people are aware that:(a) they will be asked to help this person and (b) helping will be costly. To test this prediction, Ss were given the choice of hearing 1 of 2 versions of an appeal by a homeless man for help: an empathyinducing version or a non-empathy-inducing version. As predicted, those aware that they soon would be given a high-cost opportunity to help the man chose to hear the empathy-inducing version less often than did those either unaware of the upcoming opportunity or aware but led to believe that helping involved low cost
Cognitive psychology · Empathy · Feeling · Order (exchange · Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics · Emotional Intelligence and Performance · Media Influence and Health · Psychology · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment · Social Psychology
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Are Liberals and Conservatives Equally Motivated to Feel Empathy Toward Others?
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Cost, dependency, and helping
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Five studies testing two new egoistic alternatives to the empathy^altruism hypothesis
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Influence of self-reported distress and empathy on egoistic versus altruistic motivation to help
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Where is the apathetic bystander? Situational characteristics of the emergency
More evidence that empathy is a source of altruistic motivation
Why don't bystanders help? Because of ambiguity
Costs, diffusion, and the stigmatized victim
Empathic mediation of helping
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Stimulus characteristics of a sufferer and difficulty of escape as determinants of helping
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| Unique citing works | 46 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,52 |
| Citation span | 1995 - 2025 (31) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 43 |