Hot-cold empathy gap effect in psychology

The hot-cold empathy gap effect is a finding that hot or cold empathy states influence decision-making thus, the hot-cold empathy gap is a cognitive bias.

Hot and cold refer to emotional states. Emotional states influence the ability of people to understand themselves or others in a different emotional state.

A hot emotional state includes states of anger, excitement, fear, and stress.

A cold emotional state is neutral or calm. In a neutral state, there is little or no desire or arousal.

A person's current emotional state interferes with their ability to understand their own past behavior, which occurred in a different state. And the current emotional state interferes with the ability to estimate attitudes, preferences, and behavior in a hypothetical future state.

A person's current emotional state interferes with the ability to understand someone else who is in a different emotional state. This can interfere with effective relationships such as doctor-patient care and empathy for a patient's pain.

The empathy gap is represented by the relative lack of understanding the important effects of emotions on cognition and behavior.

Learn more in Boven, Loewenstein, Dunning, and Nordgren

In the SCOPES model, hot and cold states clearly focus on Emotion (E). A hot Emotional (E) state like fear links to C (Cognition), fearful behavior (O), Physiological (P) activity (e.g., cortisol, adrenaline, increased heart rate and blood pressure, sweating, etc.), and social interactions (S) such as avoidance of people or places.

Geoffrey W. Sutton, PhD is Emeritus Professor of Psychology. He retired from a clinical practice and was credentialed in clinical neuropsychology and psychopharmacology. His website is  www.suttong.com

 

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Role play and Psychology

 

Role play is a technique to develop social relationship skills by having people act out different social roles. Role playing can help people learn attitudes and coping skills that may improve relationships and has wide applicability in industry, education, psychotherapy, parenting, and couple or marital enrichment.

Role playing may promote perspective taking, a component of empathy.

Perspective taking

 Perspective taking is a range of ability to understand an event from a different viewpoint. The different viewpoint may be that of another person or a cultural role.

  Role playing exercises may help people learn to take different perspectives. Perspective taking relates to the cognitive component of empathy.

A review of studies by Eyal and others (2018) suggests that perspective taking does not help us understand what others want. See Eyal 2018 in HBR.

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Empathy - Cognitive and Emotional

 

Empathy is the ability cognitively and emotionally to recognize and understand the experience of another. Empathy is an important component of relationships. Empathy varies from low to high.

Cognitive empathy is the range of ability to understand the perspective (perspective taking) of another person and may be present with a high to low range of emotional empathy. 

Emotional empathy is the range of ability to feel what another person feels.

Neuropsychological studies have identified brain areas related to empathy including the motor mirror system. See the APS Observer 2018.

In This Post About Empathy

Differences in definitions

Positive aspects of empathy

The downside of empathy

Examples of empathy in professions

Empathy and burnout

Empathy and psychopathy

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Differences in definitions of empathy: 

1. Some writers do not include the two components of cognitive and emotional empathy. 

2. Some write as if empathy and its components are either or--that is, a person has or does not have empathy. 

However, in psychology, many traits like empathy vary in degree such that a person may range from high to low on empathy or its components of cognitive and emotional empathy.

Empathy has also been studied in animals.

Positive Aspects of Empathy

1. Strengthened Relationships: Empathy helps build trust and fosters deeper connections by allowing individuals to understand and support one another emotionally.

2. Enhanced Communication: By listening and putting oneself in another’s shoes, empathy improves understanding and reduces conflicts.

3. Improved Social Cohesion: Societies thrive when people care for and help each other, leading to stronger, more harmonious communities.

4. Better Mental Health: Showing empathy can enhance one’s sense of purpose and belonging, which is linked to improved mental well-being.

5. Boosts Prosocial Behavior: Empathy inspires acts of kindness, generosity, and cooperation, making people more inclined to help others.

6. Emotional Intelligence: Practicing empathy can enhance emotional intelligence, improving one’s ability to navigate complex social interactions.

7. Leadership and Teamwork: Empathy is essential for effective leadership, as it helps in understanding team members’ needs and fostering a collaborative environment.

1. Conflict Resolution: Empathy plays a crucial role in resolving disputes by helping parties understand and address each other’s perspectives.

Examples

Example 1: A person high in psychopathy may have high cognitive empathy enabling the person to understand the thinking or viewpoint of another, but also be low in emotional empathy, which can lead to taking advantage of another person without an awareness of their feelings.

Example 2: A downside of high emotional empathy is that it can lead to personal distress. This has been called emotional contagion in some research reports.

The Downside of Empathy

Psychological research highlights several potential downsides of empathy:

1. Emotional Exhaustion: Empathy can be mentally and emotionally draining, especially when individuals are exposed to others' suffering for extended periods. This is often referred to as "compassion fatigue".

2. Impaired Judgment: Excessive empathy might cloud decision-making, leading to biased or less rational choices. For instance, focusing too much on one person's needs might result in neglecting others.

3. Empathy as a Finite Resource: Studies suggest that empathy is limited; the more we invest in one person or group, the less we might have for others. This can create challenges in balancing emotional resources.

4. Over-identification: Empathy can sometimes lead to over-identifying with others' emotions, making it difficult to maintain personal boundaries and objectivity.

5. Ethical Dilemmas: While empathy is often seen as a virtue, it can sometimes lead to ethical conflicts. For example, prioritizing empathy for a close friend might result in unfair treatment of others.

Empathy is a Vital Skill in Many Professions--For Example:

1. Healthcare Professionals: Doctors, nurses, therapists, and caregivers need empathy to understand and support patients emotionally, as well as provide compassionate care.

2. Teachers and Educators: Empathy helps educators connect with students, understand their challenges, and foster a supportive learning environment.

3. Social Workers: Empathy is essential for helping vulnerable populations navigate difficult situations and access necessary resources.

4. Counselors and Psychologists: These professionals rely on empathy to listen, validate feelings, and guide clients through emotional or mental health issues.

5. Customer Service Representatives: Empathy helps address customers' concerns effectively, ensuring their needs are met with understanding and patience.

6. Human Resources Professionals: HR personnel use empathy to mediate workplace conflicts, support employees, and promote a positive work environment.

7. Nonprofit and Charity Workers: Empathy drives efforts to assist those in need and advocate for social change.

8. Leaders and Managers: Empathetic leaders build trust, foster collaboration, and inspire their teams to achieve shared goals.

9. Artists and Writers: Empathy allows creative professionals to explore diverse perspectives and convey deep, relatable emotions in their work.

10. Mediators: In professions like family law or mediation, empathy aids in understanding clients' perspectives and resolving conflicts sensitively.

Empathy and Burnout- The Importance of Balance and Boundaries

Empathy and burnout share a complex relationship, particularly in professions that demand high emotional engagement, such as healthcare, education, and social work. Here's what research suggests:

1. Negative Correlation: Empathy, especially cognitive empathy (understanding others' emotions without deeply sharing them), is often negatively associated with burnout. It can enhance personal accomplishment and reduce emotional exhaustion.

2. Risk of Emotional Exhaustion: High levels of affective empathy (deeply feeling others' emotions) can lead to emotional exhaustion, a key component of burnout. This is because constantly absorbing others' distress can deplete emotional resources.

3. Balancing Act: While empathy can protect against burnout by fostering meaningful connections and a sense of purpose, excessive empathy without proper boundaries may increase vulnerability to stress and fatigue.

4. Profession-Specific Dynamics: In fields like nursing or counseling, empathy is crucial for effective care but also a significant factor in burnout due to continuous exposure to others' suffering.

Empathy and Psychopathy

Empathy Deficits: Psychopaths typically show deficits in affective empathy (the ability to feel what others feel), but their cognitive empathy (the ability to understand others' emotions) may remain intact.

Neurological Insights: Research using brain imaging has shown that when individuals with psychopathy imagine others in pain, brain regions associated with empathy, such as the anterior insula and amygdala, fail to activate. However, these regions may respond normally when imagining pain inflicted on themselves.

Potential for Intervention: Some studies propose that understanding the neural and cognitive mechanisms of empathy in psychopathy could guide personalized treatment interventions aimed at reducing harmful behaviors.

Concepts: Cognitive empathy,   Emotional Empathy Emotional contagion

Related concepts: perspective taking, social roles, role playing

References

Burton, B., & Saleh, F. M. (2020). Psychopathy and empathy: Insights from neuroscience. Psychiatric Times, 37(10). Retrieved from Psychiatric Times.

Cairns, P., Isham, A.E. & Zachariae, R. The association between empathy and burnout in medical students: a systematic review and meta-analysis. BMC Med Educ 24, 640 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-024-05625-6

DeAngelis, T. (2022, March 1). A broader view of psychopathy. Monitor on Psychology, 53(2). Retrieved from American Psychological Association.

Konrath, S., & Grynberg, D. (2013). The positive (and negative) psychology of empathy. In D. Watt & J. Panksepp (Eds.), The neurobiology and psychology of empathy . Nova Science Publishers, Inc.

van Dongen, J. D. M. (2020). The empathic brain of psychopaths: From social science to neuroscience in empathy. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, Article 695. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00695

Post Author

Geoffrey W. Sutton, Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Evangel University, holds a master’s degree in counseling and a PhD in psychology from the University of Missouri-Columbia. His postdoctoral work encompassed education and supervision in forensic and neuropsychology. As a licensed psychologist, he conducted clinical and neuropsychological evaluations and provided psychotherapy for patients in various settings, including schools, hospitals, and private offices. During his tenure as a professor, Dr. Sutton taught courses on psychotherapy, assessment, and research. He has authored over one hundred publications, including books, book chapters, and articles in peer-reviewed psychology journals. His website is https://suttong.com

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The Psychology of Capitalism

Portabello Road Market, London

Capitalism

Capitalism is an economic system dependent on a free marketplace where people buy and sell good and services. The system involves two main groups of people: owners and workers.

Capitalism is the dominant economic system in today’s world. For the most part, bartering systems have disappeared and feudal systems were upended. The beginning of modern Capitalism is often attributed to the English cloth industry in the 1500s (Britannica). Following the two world wars, the U.S. became the dominant world economy.

Features of Capitalism

Investopedia identifies five features of capitalism, four of which fit my understanding of the concept so, I’ll refer to four of their features.

1. There are generally two classes of people in capitalism systems, which are often represented by different political parties. The capitalist class are the owners of the corporations that produce and distribute goods. The working class sell their labour to the capitalist class for wages.

2. Capitalism is driven by greed (see the Psychology of Greed). The corporations (interestingly considered like persons in some laws), seek to acquire more and more resources. They buy other businesses, land, and the “best minds.” Many American corporations have budgets larger than some nations. For their part, workers, greedy for higher benefits, market their skills to the highest bidder, which can drive up wages for certain skill sets such as information technology, medicine, and management of a multinational corporation. Skill sets that many people easily acquire with little education result in cheap labour.

3. Capitalism thrives in free markets. That is, markets free from government regulations. In the 1800s, the minimally regulated American economy led to the rise of the class known as “Robber Barons” who acquired fabulous wealth, which sometimes included the houses their workers lived in. Since those days, government regulations gradually increased to protect the well-being of workers. Pure capitalism does not exist.

4. Free markets are a key to capitalism. If one major corporation acquires all the wealth in one important industrial sector then it has a monopoly and controls the pricing. Unregulated monopolies are greed gone wild. Competition is a key to successful capitalism.

Human Nature and Capitalism

Several aspects of human nature appear to fit well with capitalism. We seek to acquire resources important to survival, we form groups, we organise ourselves into hierarchies within our groups, and we have a sense of fair exchange.

1. Acquiring Survival Goods. The drive to acquire what we need to survive make sense. We obviously need food and seek shelter. We acquire territory for ourselves, our group, and our store of goods that we keep in reserve against bad times. A modern society is very much like an extension of a blend of hunter-gatherer and agrarian groups existing near each other and exchanging goods.

2. Forming Groups and Organising. Human groups grow by mating, raising children, and eventually multiplying into large groups of “us” and “them.” Within our groups we recognise leaders and followers. Skilled leaders help groups thrive and are recognised by group members as worthy of high status.

3. Territory, Storage, and Ownership. Those who first acquired a "working area" or territory passed it along to their descendants. Those without territory for various reasons work for owners in exchange for wages. 

4. Fairness. A sense of fairness results in penalties against both owners and workers who cheat when there is sufficient social pressure to insist on a culturally defined fair exchange. Of course, that does not always happen, but in many societies, revolutions have taken place to oust monarchs, royals, and dictators whose treatment of the working class was extremely exploitative.

Humans also have emotions and the capacity for perspective-taking important to empathy, and an inhibition against hurting family members. In combination, these serve as breaks on excessive greed that would destroy owners and workers. Empathy can lead to compassion for workers who lack goods because they are unable to work for wages. But compassion does not extend to those considered able but unwilling to work.

Of course, people are not perfectly rational thus, there are continual battles between owners and workers for a fair share of the wealth produced by the workers.

For related writings see chapters in Living Well on Generosity and Love.

Government and Capitalism

 Strictly speaking, government plays little to no role in a capitalist society. However, most examples of capitalist societies include some degree of government control over a nation's land and other resources. In western cultures where governments tax people to provide public education, roads, libraries, and some degree of help for those with limited resources, it is hard to think about life when workers were totally dependent on a wealthy person's charity. Consider the capitalist model for several common goods and services.

Education
In a capitalist society, education is a commodity available in the market place for those who wish to purchase it. If an enterprise owner needs skilled labor, the owner will need to teach the worker those skills, but the worker may be in debt to the owner for the cost of the education. There is no role for government in education. According to wikipedia, the Christian church in Europe mandated in 1179 that cathedrals provide free basic education to boys who could not afford the fee. Public education was provided by the Church of Scotland in 1561 and later supported by a tax in 1633.

Health Care
Owners need healthy workers. When healthy workers are plentiful, the owners need do nothing about safety and health care. When workers are too few then, owners may need to offer incentives to attract healthy workers. Healthcare may be one benefit offered to attract workers. There is no place for government in healthcare. Europeans were among the first nations to provide health care coverage for some of their citizens such as Germany in 1883 (Sickness Insurance Law) and Britain in 1911 (National Insurance Act). Gradually, Europeans and some other capitalist countries expanded coverage for all citizens.

Roads
Private companies build roads as needed. They may charge a fee for others to use their roads. There is no role for governments in building roads in a capitalist society.

Libraries
Books and reading material are available in the market place for those who can afford such things. Wealthy people may amass large holdings. There is no role for government in providing libraries for the general public in a capitalist society.

Parks and Beaches
Most of us enjoy parks and beaches, but in a capitalist society, land is in private hands and may be developed by owners wishing to charge fees for enjoying time in parks and by the seashore. In capitalist societies, there is often a mix of private and government owned parks and beaches. The first U.S. national park was Yellowstone created in 1872.

You can probably think of other examples where private ownership of resources, good, and services have changed in the last few hundred years toward an increasing role of government to provide services to the public who could not otherwise afford such luxuries. In theory, in a democracy, the people pass laws creating publicly owned lands and resources and demanding taxes to pay for good and services, which the majority of the people desire.


Related Posts

Psychology of Greed

Psychology of Altruism

Psychology of Compassion

Compassion

The behavioral science concept of compassion is similar to the common definition of the term.

Compassion is the feeling people describe when faced with another person’s 

suffering and the motivation to help reduce the impact of the suffering.

Compassion is related to the concepts of empathy and altruism but compassion is not the same as those concepts. Compassion involves emotional and cognitive empathy—the ability to take the perspective of another person and feel similar feelings. Compassion is different because it included the motivation to help improve someone’s situation.

Compassion shares with altruism the giving of oneself or resources to another. But compassion is not the only motive for altruism.

Compassion is related to love. The biology of compassion includes the presence of the hormone oxytocin, which has been called the “love drug” or the “bonding hormone.” In brain studies, the region of the brain linked to caring for others is activated in studies of empathy and caring. During sex, both men and women produce oxytocin. It’s also produced by women during childbirth and lactation.

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Read more about love and compassion in Chapter 10 of Living Well on AMAZON.

One set of items to measure compassion is the Santa Clara Brief Compassion Scale (Hwang, Plante, & Lackey, 2008), which is derived from the longer, 21-item, Compassionate Love Scale (Sprecher & Fehr, 2005).

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References

Hwang, J., Plante, T., & Lackey, K. (2008). The development of the Santa Clara Brief Compassion Scale: An abbreviation of Sprecher and Fehr's Compassionate Love Scale. Pastoral Psychology, 56, 421-428. doi:10.1007/s11089-008-0117-2

Sprecher, S., & Fehr, B. (2005). Compassionate love for close others and humanity. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 22, 629–651.

Sutton, G. W., Jordan, K., & Worthington, E.L., Jr. (2014). Spirituality, hope, compassion, and forgiveness: Contributions of Pentecostal spirituality to godly love. Journal of Psychology and Christianity, 33, 212-226. Academia Link     ResearchGate 

Photo credit: I took the photo of Convoy of Hope helping people on the site where the tornado of 2007 destroyed the Assemblies of God church in Greensburg Kansas, USA. The tornado wiped out over 90% of the city.

Related Posts

How to measure love

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