"Implications of emotion regulation strategies for empathic concern, social attitudes, and helping behavior": Correction to Lebowitz and Dovidio (2015).

Abstract

Reports an error in "Implications of emotion regulation strategies for empathic concern, social attitudes, and helping behavior" by Matthew S. Lebowitz and John F. Dovidio (Emotion, 2015[Apr], Vol 15[2], 187-194). In the article, minor errors, which do not change the interpretation of the findings, were detected in the reports of the statistical analyses. In the third paragraph of the "Results and Discussion" section for Study 1, containing the findings of the regression analysis predicting empathic concern as the dependent variable, the standardized regression coefficients and p values reported for the effect of the suppress condition and for the effect of habitual reliance upon suppression (as measured by the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire) were erroneously reversed. Additionally, due to a rounding error, the mean empathic concern value for participants in the suppress condition was reported as 3.83 instead of 3.84. The text should read, "participants in the suppress condition (M=3.84) reported less empathic concern (β=-.18, p=.02)," and "use of suppression, as measured by the ERQ, was negatively associated with empathic concern (β=-.13, p=.04)." Because both regression coefficients were negative and significant, this error does not alter the overall pattern of findings or its interpretation. (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 2015-07292-001.) Empathic concern-a sense of caring and compassion in response to the needs of others-is a type of emotional response to the plights and misfortunes of others that predicts positive social attitudes and altruistic interpersonal behaviors. One psychological process that has been posited to facilitate empathic concern is the ability to regulate one's own emotions. However, existing research links some emotion-regulation approaches (e.g., suppression) to social outcomes that would appear at odds with empathic concern, such as decreased interpersonal closeness. In the present research, we tested whether relying on suppression to regulate one's emotions would lead to decreases in empathic concern-and related downstream variables, such as negative social attitudes and unwillingness to engage in altruistic behavior-when learning about another person's misfortune. In Study 1, dispositional and instructionally induced suppression was negatively associated with empathic concern, which led to increased stigmatizing attitudes. By contrast, instructing participants to use another emotion-regulation strategy examined for comparison-reappraisal-did not decrease empathic concern, and dispositional reliance on reappraisal was actually positively associated with empathic concern. In Study 2, the findings of Study 1 regarding the effects of habitual use of reappraisal and suppression were replicated, and reliance on suppression was also found to be associated with reluctance to engage in helping behaviors. These findings are situated within the existing literature and employed to shed new light on the interpersonal consequences of intrapersonal emotion-regulation strategies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).