Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / This dissertation contains three essays examining empathy and its implications for
prosocial behavior and arts engagement. Empathy here refers to both compassion and
concern for others (emotional empathy) and the understanding of the feelings and needs
of others (cognitive empathy). Empathy is fundamental to our social life, and this
dissertation explores its implications for two essential components of social life:
prosocial behavior and arts engagement.
Chapter 2 examines how three dimensions of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index
(IRI; Davis, 1983)—empathic concern, perspective taking, and personal distress—are
associated with charitable giving, and whether these associations vary across charitable
causes. Using data from a nationally representative sample of American adults, the study
confirms that the three IRI dimensions are associated with charitable giving in different
ways.
Chapter 3 focuses on the interplay of trait empathy and people’s tendencies to
diversify (spread out) their prosocial behavior. By analyzing data from two samples of
American adults, this study reveals that people with higher empathic concern (emotional
empathy) versus higher perspective taking (cognitive empathy) have distinct patterns in
how they spread out their monetary gifts, but trait empathy is not associated with the
distribution of time spent in helping others.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:IUPUI/oai:scholarworks.iupui.edu:1805/17219 |
| Date | 12 February 2018 |
| Creators | Kou, Xiaonan |
| Contributors | Konrath, Sara, King, David, Ottoni-Wilhelm, Mark, Beckman, Emily, Davis, Mark |
| Source Sets | Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Dissertation |
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