| Three experiments were conducted to determine whether empathy consists of two more basic affective components corresponding to tenderness and sympathy. In Experiment 1, male and female participants were randomly assigned to view a video of an infant who was crying, sitting quietly, or laughing. Self-reported sympathy was affected by the emotional display of the infant, but self-reported tenderness was high in each condition. In Experiment 2, male and female participants were randomly assigned to view either the crying or laughing infant and were told that the infant was either healthy or suffered from a painless but terminal heart condition. The infant's emotional display and health state affected both self-reported sympathy and tenderness for men. For women only self-reported sympathy was affected by these states; tenderness was high regardless of the state. In Experiment 3, male and female participants were randomly assigned to imagine either a same-sex child or adult either playing with a frisbee or struggling to walk with a cast. Information about the target's age and need situation affected self-reported sympathy for men and women as well as self-reported tenderness for women. For men, self-reported tenderness was only affected by information about the target's age. Distinctions between tenderness and sympathy are made by theoretically distinguishing between perceptions of vulnerability and perceptions of current need. |
