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

“Judging from the findings outlined above on the emotional and cognitive benefits of intergroup contact (Batson, 1991; Batson et al., 1997; Dovidio et al., 2003; Miller, 2002), in addition to studies by Killen and associates (Killen et al.”

“In the high-compassion conditions, before viewing the pictures, participants read compassion promoting instructions for how they should view the pictures (cf. Batson et al., 1997, Study 3; Batson, Chang, Orr, & Rowland, 2002).”

“42 Batson et al. 1997; Shechter and Salomon 2005.”

“These comments are consistent with the increased feelings of sympathy inherent in perspective taking (Batson et al., 1997), and typify the sympathy that informants expressed for the plight of nonnative speakers having to learn a new language.”

“Moral Emotions & Unethical Bargaining 1”

“, 2011; Tropp & Pettigrew, 2005), and because perspective-taking can promote affective empathy, which in turn improves intergroup attitudes (Batson et al., 1997; Vescio, Sechrist, & Paolucci, 2003).”

“A four-item measure of empathy was adapted from work by Batson and colleagues (e.g., Batson et al., 1997).”

“Furthermore feeling other people’s suffering triggers pro-social behavior (Batson et al., 2002), promotes helping and encourages cooperation (Batson et al., 1997a).”

“Yet, the vast majority of contemporary theories explaining intergroup attitudes and behaviour specify little or no theoretical role for cognitive abilities, instead focusing on factors such as intergroup contact (Hodson & Hewstone, 2013; Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006), anxiety and threat (Onraet, Van Hiel, Dhont & Pattyn, 2…”

“Perspective-taking increases helping behavior through the cognitive process of imagining oneself in the shoes of another (including outgroup members; Galinksy & Moskowitz, 2000); while this triggers a consonant affective process - increased empathy (Batson et al., 1997).”

“First, the case has already been made that mediated contact can induce empathy,which is a known predictor of positive attitude change (Batson et al., 1997).”

“² Studies show that perspective-taking is associated with lower social aggression, higher trust, and more social cooperation (e.g. see Batson et al., 1997; Galinsky and Moskowitz, 2000; Galinsky and Ku, 2004).”

“These studies have generally shown that when participants adopt such a perspective, they tend to display greater empathy and understanding toward a typical patient, and tend to offer less stigmatizing responses (Batson, 1991; Batson et al., 1997).”

“Building on other research that has illustrated an increased concern for and valuing of the outgroup after outgroup perspectivetaking (e.g. Batson et al., 1997, 2002; Galinsky & Moskowitz, 2000; Vescio et al., 2003), the present studies demonstrated how perspectivetaking increases feelings of guilt…”

“This awareness and empathy-based understanding encourages and empowers social action to counter perceived injustices (Batson et al., 1997).”

“Batson et al. (1997), for instance, found support for a mediational model in which changes in empathic concern underlie changes in deliberate intergroup evaluations following perspective taking (see also Vescio et al.”

“Studies demonstrate that taking the perspective of another leads to increased empathy and decreased stereotyping of out-group members [4, 16].”

“, 2010) using the Attitudes Toward People with Schizophrenia scale adapted from Batson et al. (1997). Results were contradictory.”

“For example, when empathy is experimentally induced, it can continue to propel prosocial action even after revealing victim responsibility (Batson et al., 1997).”

“Multiple studies, for instance, have documented that perspective taking decreases intergroup prejudice (Batson et al., 1997; Dovidio et al., 2004; Galinsky & Ku, 2004; Todd, Bodenhausen, Richeson, & Galinsky, 2011).”

“Perspective taking increases both positivity towards an out-group, as well as self-other overlap with an out-group interaction partner (Batson et al. 1997).”

“…may be that EC is cultivated in the four immeasurables through activating the “valuing the other path” via PT (Batson 2011) which thus may exhibit a “delay effect” (as observed in Batson et al. 1997)—from enhanced tendency to adopt the perspective of others to the increased tendency to feel EC.”

“This has led to an increased focus on emotions among political psychologists who study intergroup conflicts (e.g., Bar-Tal, 2001; Batson et al., 1997; Čehajić et al., 2009; Cohen-Chen, Halperin, Crisp, et al., 2014; Halperin, 2008, 2011; Halperin & Gross, 2011; Huddy et al., 2005; Lerner et al.,…”

“However, some studies have noted significant denominational variation in the level of (secular) volunteering and have attributed this variation to differences in attitudes toward religious others.”

“Other research has shown that empathy for a member of a stigmatised group can improve attitudes towards the group as a whole (Batson et al, 1997).”

“Intergroup empathy can be defined as the emotional response to the emotion(s) experienced by members of the outgroup (Batson et al, 1997 ).”

“…characteristic tendency to empathize with others (e.g., Eisenberg et al., 2002) or manipulated by encouraging people to connect with the emotional experience of others (e.g., Batson et al., 1997)—is (causally) related, both concurrently and longitudinally, to a whole host of prosocial behaviors.”

“A second group of participants was therefore instructed to just ‘try to imagine how the main character feels’ (Batson et al., 1997).”

“Studies showed the relation between empathy and attitude towards a stigmatized group, where participants who were induced to feel empathy reported more positive attitudes towards the group as a whole [7] and even increased action on their behalf, e.”

“For example, one study found that when people took the perspective of an individual from a stigmatized group, they tended to express more positive attitudes toward that group overall (Batson et al. 1997).”

“Building on the idea that empathy and compassion can increase moral concern (Graham et al., 2017; Pinker, 2011), research has shown that inducing empathic states can reduce negative attitudes toward stigmatized out-groups (Batson et al., 1997).”

“Empathy can interrupt these negative reactions by leading to more positive evaluations of stigmatized groups (Batson et al., 1997), and it may increase the perceived need to address the problem.”

“Contact between separate groups can also enhance empathy toward outgroups, thereby positively influencing intergroup relations (Batson et al. 1997; Stephan and Finlay 1999).”

“Previous research in social psychology has suggested that perspective taking is likely to motivate empathy arousal (Batson et al., 1997; Pettigrew, 1997).”

“Though category priming usually increases intergroup prejudice (Dovidio, Brigham, Johnson, Gaertner, 1996), it is possible that thinking about members of an outgroup described as ill or suffering could lead to an increase in empathy and thus more positive attitudes (see Batson et al., 1997).”

“…an individual group member (e.g., someone with AIDS or who is homeless) subsequently leads to more positive reactions toward the entire group—that is, AIDS victims and the homeless overall (Batson et al., 1997), but only if the individual target is not personally responsible for his or her plight.”

“Specifically, perspective taking is related to reduced stereotyping and prejudice (e.g., Batson et al., 1997; Todd & Burgmer, 2013), successful negotiations (e.g., Galinsky, Maddux, Gilin, & White, 2008), and satisfying relationships (e.g., Blatt, LeLacheur, Galinsky, Simmens, & Greenberg, 2010).”

“Social developmental psychology contributed to the conceptualization of empathy by highlighting the possibility that empathy encompasses multiple dimensions (Cliffordson, 2002; Davis, 1996), including components such as awareness of self and others (Batson et al., 1997) and emotional regulation (Eisenberg at al.”

“Personal distress is posited to refl ect empathic over-arousal (Eisenberg et al., 1994) and to be associated with self-regulatory effort to alleviate the aversiveness of this state (Batson et al., 1987, 1997).”

“Suggestive evidence comes from studies that find empathy is positively correlated with attitudes toward individuals from stigmatized groups (e.g., Batson et al. 1997).”

“These results are in line with prior research that has shown empathy to be a crucial process for reducing prejudice and increasing helping behavior (Batson et al., 1997).”

“In particular, we examined the role played by intergroup anxiety (Stephan & Stephan, 1985) and intergroup empathy (Batson et al., 1997).”

“Rationalization of this key finding may be facilitated through an exploration of the forces governing the process of stigma reduction engendered by contact [53–56].”

“7 Bertrand et al. (2010) test the effectiveness of a of number of non-informative advertising cues and prices on loan uptake from a credit card lender using a direct mailer based randomized field experiment. Our work is similar in its focus on understanding relative magnitudes of different advertising content effects.…”

“Research shows that individuals are more likely to ‘truly’ forgive offenders if they have made amends for their offensive behavior (Batson et al., 1997; Prashaw, 2001; Macaskill et al., 2002; Zechmeister and Romero, 2002; Schaefer, 2003).”

“Using a standard induction from psychological studies of empathy (e.g., Batson et al., 1997, p. 108), participants randomly assigned to the high empathy condition were instructed as follows: ‘‘You are about to watch an episode of the program Law & Order.”

“For example, when empathy was stimulated in adults, this positively influenced how they valued the person in need, also when he or she was no longer in need (Batson, Turk, Shaw, & Klein, 1995).”

“The most successful approaches to humanizing members of an outgroup have been largely tested in contexts devoid of deep intergroup conflict (Batson et al. 1997; Cortes et al. 2005; Leyens et al. 2000; Vaes et al. 2003), and when tested within contexts of conflict, yield inconsistent”

“As the Empathy-Attitude Model posits (Batson et al., 1997), when asked to take the empathetic perspective, people may find it easy to imagine how the protagonist is affected by his or her plight, to focus on the person’s welfare, and to generalize the more positive attitudes to the out-group…”

“While personal distress may counteract mature forms of empathy (Batson et al., 1997; Lamm et al., 2007; Avenanti et al., 2009a), studies have reported that participants who score high on the PD scale show enhanced reactivity of the insula when seeing negative facial expressions (i.e. pain or…”

“Compared to controls, participants who took the perspective of a stigmatized person, by imagining what that person felt, showed reduced explicit negative attitudes towards the entire stigmatized group (Batson et al., 1997; Dovidio et al., 2004), as well as reduced stereotype activation (Galinsky & Moskowitz, 2000).”

“Moreover, minority under-representation on capital cases is often exacerbated by the selective, racially targeted use of peremptory challenges (e.g., Baldus, Woodworth, Zuckerman, Weiner, & Broffitt, 2001 ).”

“For instance, instructions to imagine how an outgroup member feels improves attitudes toward the group through elevated empathy (Batson et al., 1997; Vescio, Sechrist, & Paolucci, 2003).”

“The next section of the experimental booklet assessed participants’ self-reported feelings of empathic concern (see Batson, 1991; Batson et al., 1997).”

“…groups depicted in the show mediated the effect of theatre on socio-political attitudes and pro-social behavior, building on the Empathy-Altruism hypothesis, which suggests that empathy can lead to attitude change (Batson et al., 1997) and pro-social behavior (Batson, Chang, Orr, & Rowland, 2002).”