Put Yourself in Their Boots: Effects of Empathy on Emotion and Aggression

2012 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 208-222 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Stanger ◽  
Maria Kavussanu ◽  
Christopher Ring

Aggression has been linked to empathy and emotions (e.g., guilt) in cross-sectional studies. The purpose of this experiment was to examine the effects of empathy on emotional reactions to aggression and the role of guilt in the empathy–aggression relationship. Seventy-one undergraduate sport and exercise science students with a mean age of 19.56 (SD = 1.94) years were randomly assigned to either a high- or a low-empathy group. We experimentally manipulated empathy using perspective taking instructions and examined the following: (a) participants’ emotional reactions to images of aggressive acts; (b) their reported likelihood to aggress in a hypothetical sport situation; and (c) the extent to which they anticipated feeling guilt if they were to engage in an aggressive act. Participants in the high-empathy group experienced stronger negative emotional reactions to images of aggressive acts and reported lower likelihood to aggress than did those in the low-empathy group. Anticipated guilt partially mediated the effects of empathy on reported likelihood to aggress. Our findings suggest that empathy may help reduce aggressive behavior and highlight the potential mediating role of guilt.

2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (S1) ◽  
pp. 64-64
Author(s):  
T.J. Holwerda ◽  
D. Rhebergen ◽  
H.C. Comijs ◽  
J.J.M. Dekker ◽  
M.L. Stek

Background:The prevalence of loneliness increases with age. The presence of loneliness in older adults has been found to be associated with health problems such as depression, decreased cognitive functioning, increases in systolic blood pressure and increased mortality. The underlying mechanisms of the higher mortality risk are largely unknown.Methods:Meta-analysis to investigate the present evidence for the associations between loneliness and mortality. Cross-sectional studies investigating the associations between loneliness and cardiovascular disease and between loneliness and cortisol in 378 depressed and 132 non-depressed older adults.Results:Loneliness appears to be associated with increased mortality, although when only studies are included that consider depression as a covariate, the association is not significant. Therefore it seems likely that depression plays a mediating role in the higher mortality risk.We did not find a significant association between loneliness and cardiovascular disease. In contrast, loneliness was significantly associated with lower cortisol output and decreased dexamethasone suppression.Discussion:The results and their implications for prevention and treatment will be discussed from a clinical perspective as well as a general health perspective. Is loneliness as potentially dangerous as depression?


SAGE Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 215824402110305
Author(s):  
Majid Ghasemy ◽  
Farhah Muhammad ◽  
Jamshid Jamali ◽  
José Luis Roldán

Guided by affective events theory (AET), our inquiry aims at examining the relationships among affective work events, affective states, affect-driven behaviors, and attitudes of international faculty working in the Malaysian institutions of higher learning. Specifically, the impacts of interpersonal conflict, as a work event, on international faculty’s affective states were in focus. In addition, the mediating role of job performance, as an affect-driven behavior, on the relationship between affective states and job satisfaction, as an attitude, was examined. Data were collected from 152 respondents and partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was applied to estimate the proposed theoretical model. Our model was examined from an explanatory-predictive perspective and exhibited a high level of out-of-sample predictive power. In addition, the results of the analysis highlighted the role of interpersonal conflict in causing affective states and affective states in causing job satisfaction. However, empirical evidence was not provided for the mediating role of job performance within the proposed model. Finally, given the fluctuating nature of the affective states, a robustness check verified the nonlinear relationship between positive affect and job performance. Implications of the findings, limitations, and recommendations were elaborated.


Author(s):  
Daniela Di Santo ◽  
Calogero Lo Destro ◽  
Conrad Baldner ◽  
Alessandra Talamo ◽  
Cristina Cabras ◽  
...  

AbstractPositivity (i.e., the individual tendency to positively approach life experiences) has proven to be an effective construct applied in positive psychology. However, individuals’ self-regulation may have contrasting effects on positivity. We specifically examined whether positivity could be partially explained through two aspects of motivation concerned with self-regulation: locomotion (i.e., a motivational orientation concerned with movement) and assessment (i.e., a motivational orientation concerned with comparison and evaluation). Furthermore, based on previous literature that found a link between these aspects and narcissism, we examined whether “adaptive” and “maladaptive” dimensions of narcissism could mediate the effects of locomotion and assessment on increased or decreased positivity. Narcissism was defined by previous research as adaptive or maladaptive insofar as it leads or does not lead to increased psychological well-being. We estimated a mediation model with multiple independent variables and multiple mediators in a cross-sectional study with self-reported data from 190 university students. We found that both locomotion and assessment were associated with adaptive narcissism, which in turn was positively associated with positivity. However, assessment was also associated with maladaptive narcissism, which in turn was negatively associated with positivity. Relationships between aspects of self-regulation, narcissism, and positivity can have significant implications which will be discussed.


2021 ◽  
pp. 173-189

The current study was designed to find out relationship between psychological skills and performance efficacy and mediating role of sportsmanship in domestic, national and international hockey players. It was a correlational research employing cross sectional research design in which the sample of 261 hockey players was recruited via purposive sampling. The assessment measures included Psychological Skills Scale for Hockey Players and Cricketers (Solomon, Malik & Kausar, 2019), Youth Sports Value Questionnaire-2 (Lee, Whitehead, & Ntoumanis, 2007) and Collective Efficacy for Sports Questionnaire (Short, Sullivan, & Feltz, 2009). Results showed a significant relationship between psychological skills, sportsmanship and performance efficacy in hockey players, however, perceivedpsychologicalsupport was found to be significant positive predictor of sportsmanship and sportsmanship coined as a significant positive predictor of performance efficacy. Furthermore, sportsmanship was found to be significant mediator between perceived psychological support and performance efficacy. This research will work as an empirical proof for Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) to conduct psychological skills training for hockey players for the enhancement of their performance efficacy by signifying theimportance of sportsmanship.


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