Information Function of Empathic Emotion: Learning That We Value the Other's Welfare

Empathic feelings arise when a person values another's welfare and perceives the other to be in need. As a result, level of empathic response can be used to infer how much one values the welfare of a person in need. Four experiments were conducted to test these ideas. Experiments 1 and 2 revealed that a similarity manipulation led to increased valuing of a similar person's welfare and, in turn, to increased empathy when this person was in need. Experiments 3 and 4 revealed that direct manipulations of empathy (perspective-taking instructions, or false physiological arousal feedback) led to increased empathy and, in turn, to increased valuing of the welfare of the person in need. Once induced, this valuing was a relatively stable disposition; it remained even after empathy had declined.