Accuracy, Experience and Empathy

University Of Oregon Eugene, Eugene OR

Investigators

Abstract

An important part of human social relationships is the ability to experience empathy. Although the term "empathy" has been applied to a variety of concepts, a shared element of these concepts is that they all involve people seeking to bridge the gap between their own and another person's subjective experience. One clear indication of having bridged this gap between self and other is to possess an accurate representation of the other person's experience -- to know what the other person is thinking and feeling. Achieving this kind of empathic accuracy should be easier if the experiences of the two people are similar. Indeed, shared experience has been long believed to be an important facilitator of empathy. Yet there is little evidence addressing how shared experience affects empathic accuracy and other empathic outcomes, such as the degree of concern one person expresses for another, or how understood a target of empathy feels. Having shared an experience could provide the kind of knowledge that is key to better empathic accuracy. But if the two experiences are only superficially similar, then using one's own experience to comprehend another person's experience could actually provide misleading information that could impede understanding. Shared experience may affect empathy in other ways, potentially motivating empathic perceivers to pay more attention to targets of empathy who have shared their experiences, or even affecting the behavior of the targets, who may respond more positively or reveal more when they believe they are interacting with someone who has shared their experience. The primary goal of this project is to examine the role of shared experience in understanding the thoughts and feelings of others, investigating the circumstances under which shared experience improves empathic performance (especially empathic accuracy) and the mechanisms by which it operates. A more general goal is to examine the relationship between empathic accuracy and other variables associated with empathy, including empathic concern and personal distress felt by empathic perceivers, targets' perceptions of how understood they feel, and outcomes that connect target and perceiver (such as perceived similarity or rapport). By drawing from a diverse population of people, and studying the experiences they share on a number of dimensions, it will be possible to gain a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of empathy in natural contexts. Empathy is a key part of social life, and better understanding of this important psychological construct will produce insight into how positive social relationships develop and are sustained.