Does it matter how you ask? Self-reported emotions to depictions of need-of-help and social context.

Aenne A Brielmann,Margarita Stolarova

doi:10.1186/s40359-015-0066-3

Abstract

BackgroundWhen humans observe other people’s emotions they not only can relate but also experience similar affective states. This capability is seen as a precondition for helping and other prosocial behaviors. Our study aims to quantify the influence of help-related picture content on subjectively experienced affect. It also assesses the impact of different scales on the way people rate their emotional state.MethodsThe participants (N=242) of this study were shown stimuli with help-related content. In the first subset, half the drawings depicted a child or a bird needing help to reach a simple goal. The other drawings depicted situations where the goal was achieved. The second subset showed adults either actively helping a child or as passive bystanders. We created control conditions by including pictures of the adults on their own. Participants were asked to report their affective responses to the stimuli using two types of 9-point scales. For one half of the pictures, scales of arousal (calm to excited) and of bipolar valence (unhappy to happy) were employed; for the other half, unipolar scales of pleasantness and unpleasantness (strong to absent) were used.ResultsEven non-dramatic depictions of simple need-of-help situations were rated systematically lower in valence, higher in arousal, less pleasant and more unpleasant than corresponding pictures with the child or bird not needing help. The presence of a child and adult together increased pleasantness ratings compared to pictures in which they were depicted alone. Arousal was lower for pictures showing only an adult than for those including a child. Depictions of active helping were rated similarly to pictures showing a passive adult bystander, when the need-of-help was resolved. Aggregated unipolar pleasantness and unpleasantness ratings accounted well for arousal and even better for bipolar valence ratings and for content effects on them.ConclusionThis is the first study to report upon the meaningful impact of harmless need-of-help content on self-reported emotional experience. It provides the basis for further investigating the links between subjective emotional experience and active prosocial behavior. It also builds upon recent findings on the correspondence between emotional ratings on bipolar and unipolar scales.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s40359-015-0066-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Highlights

When humans observe other people’s emotions they can relate and experience similar affective states
Aggregated unipolar pleasantness and unpleasantness ratings can replicate effects on bipolar valence and arousal scales So far, we have demonstrated that there is a close relation between aggregated unipolar pleasantness and unpleasantness ratings and ratings of arousal and bipolar valence
When we considered picture content, the same pattern of effects emerged for the sum of pleasantness and unpleasantness ratings and for arousal ratings, as well as for the difference between pleasantness and unpleasantness ratings and bipolar valence ratings

Summary

Introduction

When humans observe other people’s emotions they can relate and experience similar affective states. Previous studies have told us relatively little about what people feel when they witness others in need because they have tended to examine the general disposition of humans for empathy (e.g. Carlo et al 1993; Fabes et al 1999; Prot et al 2014), inferred further emotional involvement from brain activity (Masten et al 2011; Rameson et al 2012), or measured current empathic responses on scales encompassing a variety of adjectives or statements (e.g. Cao 1993; Fabes et al 2006; Fischer et al 2010; Sze et al 2012) The problem with the latter approach is that it makes arbitrary assumptions about which emotions can be considered distinct. This approach cannot make any precise claims about the basic affective processes underlying the perception of need-of-help (see Barret 2006 for discussion)

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