Empathy and attitudes: Can feeling for a member of a stigmatized group improve feelings toward the group?

“Given that empathy induction has been demonstrated to be an effective strategy for promoting positive attitudes toward other stigmatized groups (186), it may be that certain forms of bias, such as obesity, are resistant to these strategies.”

“Contact eases the initial anxiety that often accompanies the initiation of cross-group interaction (Blascovich et al., 2001), and this reduction in anxiety allows a concomitant reduction in prejudice.”

“These negative effects of power on perspective‐taking and individuation are important because perspective‐taking reduces stereotyping and derogation (Batson et al, 1997 ; Galinsky & Moskowitz, 2000 ), and the possession of power has been associated with an increased reliance on stereotypes and the derogation of subord…”

“Research indicates that empathy has been linked, theoretically or empirically, to a number of attributes, such as dutifulness (21), prosocial behavior (22), moral reasoning (23), good attitudes toward elderly patients (24), a reduction in malpractice litigation (25), competence in history taking and performance of phy…”

“Batson et al. (1997) induced empathy toward a woman with HIV–AIDS and decreased prejudice toward all people with AIDS.”

“Empathy induced in this way has been used to improve attitudes toward people with AIDS, toward the homeless, and toward racial and ethnic minorities (Batson et al., 1997; Dovidio, Gaertner, & Johnson, 1999; Finlay & Stephan, 2000; Stephan & Finlay, 1999).”

“We used the common perspective-taking manipulation (Batson et al., 1997; see also Vescio et al., 2003) of having participants imagine how the person in the tape was feeling and thinking (perspective-taking other condition) or imagine how they themselves would feel and think if they were that person…”

“…have recently been identified in the intergroup relations literature as having significant roles in the contact–prejudice relationship (e.g., Aron & McLaughlinVolpe, 2001; Batson et al., 1997; Hewstone et al., 2006; Paolini et al., 2004; Pettigrew & Tropp, 2008; Wright, Aron, & Tropp, 2002).”

“Batson et al. (1997) found that asking participants to imagine how the other person was feeling, compared to attending primarily to the information presented, increased liking for a specific member of another group, which generalized to more positive attitudes toward the group as a whole.”

“4 promoting empathy and motivating prosocial behaviors [2-5, 10-12].”

“…were consistent with our previous research (e.g. Hewstone et al., 2000; Islam & Hewstone, 1993) and suggest that more attention has to be paid to techniques that can be applied before or during contact to reduce intergroup anxiety (e.g. empathy; see Batson et al., 1997; Finlay & Stephan, 2000).”

“After the condition manipulations, participants responded to three items assessing state empathy, as in previous research (Batson et al., 1997; Pfattheicher et al., 2019).”

“Once again, it suggests that contact can have an impact on affect as much as on cognition (Batson et al., 1997; Pettigrew, 1998) and that affect-based strategies of generalization (e.g., empathy), besides cognitive strategies of generalization (e.g., typicality), have the potential to enrich the…”

“…of empathy generally fall into one of two categories: those that view empathy as a cognitive, perspective-taking act (for inferring another's thoughts/feelings) (Ickes, 1993) and those that view empathy as an affective phenomenon (i.e. feeling with or feeling for another) (Batson et al., 1997).”

“Given that previous research (e.g., Batson et al., 1997) has demonstrated that the induction of empathy is effective in changing individuals’ attitudes toward stigmatized groups, pre-and postmeasures of ethnocultural empathy may be an excellent tool for the evaluation of future programming.”

“…the likelihood that positive attitude change would be generalized outside the cooperative environment (Gaertner, Dovidio, Anastasio, Bachman, & Rust, 1993; see also Batson et al., 1997; Brown, 1996; Hewstone, 1996; Hewstone & Brown, 1986; Pettigrew, 1997; Rothbart & John, 1985; Wilder, 1993).”

“Different studies have proved the effectiveness of inducing empathy toward people with AIDS, toward the homeless and toward racial and ethnic minorities (Batson et al., 1997; Finlay & Stephan, 2000; Stephan & Pinlay, 1999).”

“Machiavellianism is expected to predict prejudice considering that SDO and Machiavellianism are positively related (Carnahan & McFarland, 2007), and low empathy (expressed by such individuals) predicts elevated prejudice (Batson et al., 1997).”

“Empathy was evoked by having participants read a first-person account of the troubles experienced by a member of a stigmatized group (an approach well established in previous research; e.g., Batson, Klein, Highberger, & Shaw, 1995; Batson et al., 1997) and then having them think about the feelings of that individual a…”

“Inspired partially by Batson et al.’s experiments (Batson et al. 1997), which were performed to assess peoples responses towards a member of a stigmatized group, and using a similar instrument to assess situational empathy, participants in this study witnessed a scripted “sad” situation about the…”

“In intergroup confl ict situations, empathy is typically considered as a pro-social emotional response whose aim is the restoration of social relations with an outgroup (Batson et al., 1997).”

“Experiment 2 demonstrated that, consistent with findings by Batson et al. (1997) and Galinsky and Moskowitz (2000), perspective-takers tended to evaluate a stereotyped and stigmatized group more positively.”

“emphasize affective dimensions, such as asking people to imagine how outgroup members feel, have been particularly effective in reducing intergroup prejudice (Batson et al., 1997; Finlay & Stephan, 2000) and in predicting intergroup behavior (Dovidio et al.”

“One of these is empathy (Ensari & Miller, 2002; Harwood et al., 2005; Tam, Hewstone, Harwood, & Voci, 2004), which has also been shown to improve outgroup attitudes (Batson et al., 1997).”

“More recent work by Batson and colleagues (Batson, Chang, Orr, & Rowland, 2002; Batson et al., 1997) increasingly blurs the interpersonal-intergroup boundaries by exploring the effect of group memberships on sympathy and willingness to help.”

“Amir’s (1976) claim that intimacy is an important ingredient for contact to reduce prejudice has received substantial support in subsequent research (Batson et al., 1997; Pettigrew, 1997a,b; Pettigrew & Meertens, 1995).”

“That is, contact is thought to reduce prejudice when it generates positive affect, empathy, and/or friendship among participating individuals (e.g., Batson et al., 1997; Herek & Capitanio, 1996; Pettigrew, 1997, 1998).”

“, 1993), as well as reducing negative behaviour such as prejudice (Galinsky, Ku, & Wang, 2005) and enhancing tolerance of stigmatised groups (Batson et al., 1997).”

“Psychologists have discovered that perspective taking encourages a host of favorable outcomes, such as stereotype reduction (Batson et al., 1997) learning (Siegler, 1995), and improved interpersonal communication (Fussell & Krauss, 1989).”

“However, empathy for an individual who belongs to an oppressed group (eg, Latino immigrants) can carry over to the group as a whole ( Batson et. al, 1997 ).”

“Intergroup empathy Empathy can be defined as the emotional response to the emotions felt by outgroup members (Batson et al., 1997).”

“Eliciting empathy by taking the perspective of one outgroup member can generalize into more positive feelings for the entire outgroup (Batson et al., 1997; Clore & Jeffery, 1972).1 For instance, Batson et al. (1997) found that inducing empathy for an AIDS victim, a homeless individual and a…”

“It may also be interesting to explore the opposite direction of influence, namely whether the induction of empathy (such as through perspective taking manipulations, Batson et al., 1997) can reduce competitive victimhood.”

“Batson and collaborators have shown that taking the perspective of a member of a stigmatised out-group is an important basis of sympathetic feelings (e.g., Batson et al., 1997).”

“Mediation analyses. Each of the potential mediators meets the prerequisites for mediation to be examined ( Baron & Kenny, 1986; Wegener & Fabrigar, 2000).”

“Third, social attitudes towards a loved-one are usually more positive than to a stranger, which may also influence empathic responses (Batson et al., 1997b; Decety et al., 2009a).”

“Being aware of the negative impact can be stimulated by imagining in which ways the target may be affected by her or his plight, that is, by inducing empathy (Batson & Ahmad, 2009; Batson et al., 1997).”

“, self-oriented feelings of unease) (17, 28).”

“Empathy Empathy was assessed using the Batson et al. (1997) six-item empathy scale on which participants rated being sympathetic/compassionate/ soft-hearted/warm/tender/moved by immigrants (1 = not at all, to 7 = very much).”

“Research has shown that empathy and perspective taking can be induced by listening to or reading stories of individuals belonging to stigmatized groups, such as ethnic groups, homeless,and older people (e.g.,Batson et al., 1997; Galinsky & Ku, 2004; Galinsky, Ku, & Wang, 2005).”

“In line with this premise, self-disclosure during intergroup friendships should promote empathy (Miller, 2002 ) which, in line with previous research (Batson et al, 1997 ), should be associated with more positive outgroup attitudes.”

“For example, the development of more positive emotional bonds with others such as empathy has been shown to reduce racial bias for at least two reasons (Batson et al., 1997).”

“Indeed, it is consistently the most immediate driver of reductions of group prejudice (Batson et al. 1997; Pettigrew and Tropp 2008).”

“…previous research that showed that inducing perspective taking was effective in improving attitudes towards stigmatized groups such as the homeless (Batson et al., 1997) and ethnic and racial minoritized groups (Finlay & Stephan, 2000), our results also showed that teacherswho had better…”

“Compared with those in a control condition in which the instruction was to remain objective, participants who were asked to empathize with the suffering targets had more favorable attitudes toward the target group as a whole, whether it was for people with AIDS, homeless people, or (albeit to a different degree) murde…”

“For instance, instructing people to imagine a stigmatized target’s feelings can increase empathic concern and reduce antipathy toward that target and even toward other members of the target’s group (e.g., Batson et al., 1997).”

“and imagining how that person is affected by his or her plight would stimulate emotions of sympathy, compassion, and tenderness, improving attitudes toward different objects and groups, such as AIDS victims, the homeless and racial and ethnic minorities (Batson et al., 1997; Finlay & Stephan, 2000; Stephan & Finlay, 1…”

“Batson et al. (1997) already showed that the induction of empathy toward outgroup members can improve outgroup attitudes and it has also been suggested that intergroup contact reduces prejudice by increasing the levels of empathy.”

“…group enables individuals to use the organizational rhetoric of majority powerholders to help majority group members engage in perspective taking (Batson et al., 1997), to build coalitions (Meyerson&Scully, 1995), and to buildmomentum toward change on behalf of lower-status members (Bell,…”

“A series of studies demonstrated that participants who empathized with members of stigmatized groups such as people with AIDS, the homeless, and murderers, demonstrated improved attitudes toward members of the group (Batson et al., 1997).”

“These manipulations can have important behavioral consequences, changing perceivers’ willingness to engage in helping behavior (Batson et al, 1997 , 2003 ).”

“In this study, we combined empathy, sympathy, and compassion because they all represent prosocial emotions and involve caring for others (e.g., Batson et al., 1997).”

“First, existing research suggests that taking the perspective of an outgroup member increases positive evaluations of that individual and the group more generally (Batson et al., 1997; Dovidio et al., 2004; Galinsky & Moskowitz, 2000; Vescio, Sechrist, & Paolucci, 2003).”

“…it appears that considering a stigmatized target's perspective arouses a group-specific mindset wherein only the targeted group benefits (see also Batson et al., 1997; Todd et al., 2011; Vescio et al., 2003), which accords with the notion that perspective-taking is geared toward securing…”

“Furthermore, perspective taking is an important factor in producing positive contact effects, and empathy improves intergroup relationships (Batson et al., 1997).”