The Psychology of SympathyThe origins of this book probably go back to Gordon Allport's seminar in social psychology at Harvard during the late 1940s and to the invitation from Gardner Lindzey, some years later, to contribute a section on "Sympathy and Empathy" to the International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (1968). Since those early beginnings, the book has been "in the process of becoming. " During that time I have benefited greatly from the knowledge and assistance of many colleagues, especially the following, who read and commented upon portions of the manuscript: Raymond Gastil, the late Joseph Katz, David McClelland, Jitendra Mohanty, Paul Mussen, Richard Solomon, and Bernard Weiner. To Kenneth Merrill for a close reading of the Hume material and to M. Brewster Smith for a careful reading of and suggestions on Chapters 7 and 8, I am especially indebted. Beverly Joyce withstood constant interruptions to provide much-needed library assistance, and Vivian Wheeler gave generously of her excellent editorial experience and knowledge. A fellowship at the Battelle Research Center in Seattle and an appointment as a visiting scholar at Harvard were of incalculable help, providing opportunity, stimulation, and freedom from teaching responsibilities. To all of the above I am deeply indebted. Just a few words about the organization of this book. |
Contents
Philosophers on Sympathy | 1 |
Psychology | 2 |
Sympathy | 4 |
Adam Smith 17231790 | 10 |
The Concept of Sympathy | 11 |
Sympathy and the Impartial Spectator | 16 |
Arthur Schopenhauer 17881860 | 18 |
Sympathy | 20 |
Laboratory Analogues of Sympathy | 95 |
Experimental Analogues of Sympathy | 96 |
Empathy and Helping | 97 |
Experimental Empathy | 101 |
Critique | 105 |
The Role of Faces and Places in the Arousal of Sympathy | 107 |
The Negative Faces Hypothesis | 109 |
Comparison of Negative and Positive Faces | 110 |
A Summing Up | 23 |
Sympathy in a Biological Context Charles Darwin and William Mcdougall | 31 |
On Sympathy | 33 |
The Problems of Group Selection | 39 |
The Struggle for Survival | 40 |
Adam Smith and Darwin | 42 |
William McDougall 18711938 | 43 |
McDougalls Theory of Instincts | 44 |
On Sympathy | 48 |
On Sentiments | 50 |
On Morality | 52 |
Summary | 53 |
The Nature of Sympathy | 57 |
The Paradox of Sympathy | 58 |
Phenomenological Descriptions of the Feelings of Sympathy | 61 |
Summary | 64 |
The Definition of Sympathy | 67 |
What Sympathy is | 68 |
Pseudosympathy | 70 |
Sympathy with What? | 71 |
What Sympathy Is Not | 76 |
Sympathy and Empathy | 78 |
Sympathy and Rewards | 80 |
The Provenance of Sympathy | 83 |
The Roots of Sympathy | 84 |
Historical Perspective | 86 |
The Study of Sympathy in Higher Anthropoids | 89 |
The Heritability of Sympathy | 90 |
The Next to the Last Word on the Roots of Sympathy | 91 |
Research on Negative Faces | 113 |
Processing Negative Faces | 116 |
Summary | 119 |
The Propriety Hypothsis | 120 |
Social Responsibility Norms | 121 |
What It Means to Believe in a Just World | 124 |
Group Size | 126 |
Epilogue | 131 |
The Roles of Imagery and Mimicry in Sympathy | 135 |
Imagery and Perception | 137 |
Neurophysiological Studies | 138 |
Feeling Imagining and Seeing | 140 |
Experimental Imagery | 141 |
The Function of Imagery | 143 |
The Muscle Mimicry Hypothesis | 144 |
Studies of Facial Mimicry | 145 |
Expressive Mimicry in Children and Adults | 149 |
Theories of Mimicry | 152 |
Conclusion | 154 |
A Summary of the Theory of Sympathy | 157 |
Postscript | 162 |
The Function of Sympathy | 165 |
A World without Sympathy | 166 |
Sympathy and Violence | 169 |
The Function of Sympathy | 175 |
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Common terms and phrases
actions Adam Smith aggression altruism angry faces animals Arthur Schopenhauer attribution awareness Batson Berkowitz Cacioppo capacity Chapter Charles Darwin Cialdini cognitive compassion concept of sympathy conditioned stimuli consider Darwin depends egoism Ekman electrodermal responses emotional contagion empathy experience experimental explanation face perception fear feelings function genetic hedonism helping behavior human Hume Hume's hypothesis idea of sympathy imagination important involved Journal of Personality kind Lanzetta Latané McDougall McDougall's ment mental imagery monkeys motivation muscle mimicry natural selection negative affect negative faces nonprimordial norm object observers one's oneself pain passions pathy perceiver perception Personality and Social Piliavin pleasure positive possible question reactions reason reciprocal altruism responses Samaritan laws Scheler Schopenhauer Schopenhauer's sentiments showed similar Smith social instincts Social Psychology stimuli subjects sufferer sufferer's suggest sympa sympathetic theory of sympathy tion vicarious victim visual William McDougall Wispé wrote York