Emotional callousness and vicarious emotional reactions to the misfortune of others

Failure;Humiliation;Envy;Pleasure

Steinert, Steven W.Lishner, David ;

University of Wisconsin

关键词: Failure;    Humiliation;    Envy;    Pleasure;   

Others  :  https://minds.wisconsin.edu/bitstream/handle/1793/75727/Steinert%2c%20Steven.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

瑞士|英语

来源: University of Wisconsin

【 摘 要 】

Agnello & Lishner (2013) suggests that when presented with a person inneed, psychopathy is positively related to feeling positive emotion (amusement,joy, humored) and negatively related to feeling empathic concern. Miller et al.(2015) conceptually replicated that study and again found a negative associationbetween emotional callousness and empathic concern. They also employed anoutcome manipulation and found that emotional callousness was positivelyassociated with positive affect, but only in a condition where the ostensibleperson’s need was unlikely to improve. The current study (N=179) provided adirect replication of those findings while also examining whether psychopathy ispositively associated with desire for additional exposure to the person in need,whose situation is unlikely to improve. After reading an article about anostensible person whose need situation was likely or unlikely to improve,participants rated their emotional reactions and then chose to either read moreabout that person, or about someone new. Consistent with previous studies, resultsindicated a negative association between emotional callousness and empathicconcern. However, results also indicated little association between emotionalcallousness and positive affect, regardless of need outcome. Additionally, therewas no association between emotional callousness and selection of the secondarticle when controlling for gender and other psychopathic traits. The resultssuggest that psychopathic emotional callousness reflects low care about those inneed as opposed to sadistic enjoyment at the suffering of others.