Theories and Models of Empathy

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Theories and Models of Empathy

• Carsten Zoll

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Outline

• Basic terms
• A short history of empathy
• A broad definition
• Distinctions

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Basic terms

• Observer

Target
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Historical View I

• Titchener (1909) Empathy, derived from the Greek
  empatheia
• Lipps (1903) Einfühlung
• Mechanism inner imitation (motor mimicry)
• ?emotional effects, shared affects

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Historical View II

• Kohler (1929) Understanding others feelings
• viewing and interpreting
• ? cognitive effects
• Piaget (1932) decentering
• Mead (1934) role-taking

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A broad definition

• Empathy is
• any process where the attended perception of the
  objects state generates a state in the subject
  that is more applicable to the objects state or
  situation than to the subjects own prior state
  or situation
• (Preston, 2001)
• Subject Observer
• Object Target

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Distinctions

• Empathy vs. Sympathy
• Congruent vs. Contrast
• Affective vs. Cognitive vs. Ideomotoric
• Situation-mediated vs. Expression-mediated

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Empathy vs. Sympathy

• Sympathy used for shared affects between an
  observer and a target until 1950s
• Clear distinction today
• Sympathy compassion
• Empathy ? see Preston definition resp. the
  distinctions to follow

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Congruent vs. Contrast Empathy

• Congruent Empathy
• The inner state of the observer is similar to
  the inner state of the target
• Contrast Empathy
• The inner state of the observer is different to
  the targets inner state (e.g. gloat)
• Many contemporay researchers restrict their
  definitions to Congruent Empathy

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Affective vs. Cognitive vs. Ideomotoric Empathy

• Affective Empathy
• Observer feels something due to the perception of
  the Target
• Cognitive Empathy
• Observer knows about the inner state of the
  target
• Ideomotoric Empathy
• Observers motoric preactivation due to the
  perception of movements of the target

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Situation-mediated vs. Expression-mediated Empathy

• Situation mediated Empathy
• Observer concludes inner state of the Target from
  the situation the Target is dealing with
• Expression mediated Empathy
• Observer concludes inner state of Target from the
  emotional expression of the Target
• Facial expression
• Gesture, Posture
• Paraverbal Cues (e.g. voice pitch)
• Psychophysiological Cues (e.g. flush)

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Summary

• Heterogeneous and broad construct
• All changes of the Observers inner state that
  are due to the perception of the Target are
  empathic outcomes
• Main distinction Affective vs. Cognitive empathy