文章基本信息

标题：The Influence of Emotion and Empathy on Decisions to Help Others
本地全文：下载
作者：Weilong Xiao ; Xue Lin ; Xinwei Li 等
期刊名称：SAGE Open
印刷版ISSN：2158-2440
电子版ISSN：2158-2440
出版年度：2021
卷号：11
期号：2
页码：1
DOI：10.1177/21582440211014513
出版社：SAGE Publications
摘要：Many decisions to help others are made in emotionally associated circumstances. Empathy is known to motivate prosocial behavior. However, no studies have investigated the interaction between empathy and emotion in deciding to help others. In total, 151 students scoring either high or low in empathy viewed three types of emotional clips (anger vs. sadness vs. neutrality) and completed the “Help for Another Study” task. Analysis of variance showed that participants chose to invest more time in helping others when they felt sadness than anger. Participants with high empathy chose to spend more time helping others than those with low empathy. Pearson’s correlation revealed a significant positive correlation between perspective-taking, empathic concern, and willingness to invest time in assistance under anger state; perspective-taking and fantasy were significantly correlated with willingness to invest time under sadness state. The results suggest that both emotion (i.e., sadness) and empathy (i.e., high trait empathy) are vital motivators that exert impact on prosocial helping decisions.
其他关键词：anger ; sadness ; trait empathy ; helping behavior ; decision-making