Abstract
The goal of this research was to determine whether individual differences in empathy and personal distress were robust predictors of compassionate emotions and whether compassionate emotions mediated the effect of attribution of responsibility on intention to help. Four hypotheses about direct and indirect associations between these variables were tested. We manipulated normative attribution of responsibility in an experimental scenario in which the participant is asked to help an individual catch up on missed lectures. Participants (N=627), were randomly assigned to one of the two attribution conditions. The results showed that empathy was a robust predictor of compassionate emotions and that compassionate emotions mediated the effect of attribution of responsibility on intention to help. Importantly, we found that empathy was a stronger predictor of compassionate emotions than attribution of responsibility. The results confirmed our hypothesis that prosocial dispositional variables predict whether an individual will experience compassionate emotions in certain situations. We conclude that models of prosocial decision-making and attributions in social situations should consider prosocial traits, such as empathy, as antecedents of compassionate emotions.
Highlights
The goal of the present research was to investigate if individual differences in empathy and personal distress were stable predictors of compassionate emotions and whether these emotions, in turn, mediate the effect of attribution on prosocial propensity
We manipulated the attribution of responsibility and we consider that the two experimental conditions represent different situations eliciting different evaluations that can provide a basic test of the robustness with which personality variables predict compassionate emotions
We did not expect to observe any effect of condition on the personality variables as we assumed that the instruments we used assess empathy and personal distress as stable, dispositional personality variables, rather than transient, context-dependent state variables
Summary
The goal of the present research was to investigate if individual differences in empathy and personal distress were stable predictors of compassionate emotions and whether these emotions, in turn, mediate the effect of attribution on prosocial propensity. On the other hand, the observer attributes the need for help externally, seeing it as a consequence of situational factors, he or she will be more likely to feel compassionate emotions for the person and more likely to offer help In this model, cognitive processing of information is seen as the critical determinant of affective states related to prosocial responses, and these affective states are assumed to mediate the impact of attribution of responsibility on prosocial behavior. The goal of the present research was to investigate if individual differences in empathy and personal distress were robust predictors of compassionate emotions and whether these emotions in turn mediate the effect of attribution on intention to help. We manipulated the attribution of responsibility and we consider that the two experimental conditions (seeker responsible, SR; seeker not responsible, SNR) represent different situations eliciting different evaluations that can provide a basic test of the robustness with which personality variables predict compassionate emotions
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