Who brings you up when you're feeling down? Distinct implications of dispositional empathy versus situationally-prompted empathic mindsets for targets' affective experience in face-to-face interpersonal interaction

Abstract

Spending time with other people can increase happiness and well-being, particularly if the exchanges are meaningful and involve close others. Possibly, then, interactions with other people who – even if they are strangers – are oriented toward emotional connection are especially likely to be beneficial. We test this possibility by probing the implications for individuals' feelings of happiness of interacting with a stranger who is more or less empathically oriented. We further examine whether any mood boost individuals experience depends on their level of distress or whether their interaction partner's empathy is dispositional or situationally prompted. Our data consist of a post hoc mini meta-analysis of four studies from our lab and a final pre-registered study (total N = 701 dyads). All studies involved face-to-face interaction in which the “actor's” empathic mindset and “target's” distress were manipulated, the actor's dispositional empathy having been previously assessed. Although effects were small, interacting with a dispositionally empathic actor generally raised targets' spirits more, regardless of whether they were distressed to begin with – unless the actor was purposefully trying to be empathic. This “disruption” pattern suggests that the interpersonal benefits of dispositional empathy can be viewed through the same lens as other types of skilled, proceduralized behaviors that are vulnerable to disruption by conscious monitoring. Evidence for interpersonal benefits of temporary empathic mindsets was much more equivocal. At least for interpersonal outcomes in non-conflictual exchanges, our results point to potential benefits of promoting skill development or indirectly enhancing empathic motivation over approaches involving directly encouraging empathy.