1. Empathy and Perspective Taking and the Radicalism of Social Attitudes Aleksandra Jerzmanowska Warsaw School of Social Sciences and Humanities

2. The presented research deals with the relationships between the readiness to empathy and cognitive perspective taking and social radicalism.

3. Perspective taking (independent variable) lowers radicalism (dependent variable) Higher empathy causes lower radicalism

4. Perspective taking is a component of empathy Pespective taking  Centration Perspective taking → lowers radicalism Centration → raises radicalism Higher empathy → lower radicalism

5. Radicalism Radicalism is a certain cognitive style that is characterized by making more categorical, one- sided, partial or biased decisions, favoring one side or group; making decisions based on a limited amount of aspects of the considered issue. The concept is derived from the classical concept of dogmatism (Rokeach 1954)

6. Radical people aim for simple answers and solutions and do not tolerate ambiguity well (intolerance of ambiguity, Johnson, 2010). Higher levels of radicalism should also lead to higher certainty about being right (rigid certainty, ibidem) and a higher need for cognitive closure (Webster and Kruglanski,1994).

7. Radicalism was measured with a specially devised Radicalism Questionnaire; Reliability: K-R 20= 0,720

8. The Radicalism Questionnaire presented 8 controversial situations from the university life: incompetent professor plagiarism sexism favoring affair of a professor and a student inappropriate clothes a physical fight buying exams

9. Each question had 4 possible answers: A – radical B- not radical C- not radical D- radical

10. Empathy Multidimensional approach (Davis 1980): empathy is the capacity to recognize emotions, thoughts and motivations that are being experienced by another being as well as to experience emotional response to the states other people are in.

11. Interpersonal Reactivity Index Empathy was measured with the IRI (Davis, 1983). Cronbach’s α in this study = 0,84

12. IRI consists of four subscales, each of which taps a separate aspect of empathy: - Perspective taking - Fantasy - Empathetic concern - Personal distress

13. Perspective taking Perspective taking also called decentration, is a cognitive aspect of empathy and refers to the ability to imagine and simulate the thought and motivation process of another person. Its opposite is centration- focusing strongly on one’s own perspective.

14. Experiment scheme Perspective taking manipulation Radicalism Questionnaire Empathy questionnaire Extinguishing task

15. Manipulation Condition 2 Centration Condition 1 Perspective taking Condition 3 Control Radicalism

16. Perspective taking priming A short story written in third person in which there are 2 persons and a conflict between them. E.g. Anna suddenly feels a really strong stomach ache while walking down the street. She walks into the pharmacy, sees a long line and asks the people to let her go first because she feels really sick. Barbara is tired after work and has been standing in the line for 20 minutes already. Her hip hurts after the last injury she had and she really wishes she could go home already.

17. Task 1: How might have the situation seem from Anna’s perspective, and how might it seem from Barbara’s perspective? Task 2: What do you feel towards Anna and what did you feel towards Barbara- assuming they are real people?

18. Centration priming A short story written in second person in which there are 2 people and a conflict between them. E.g. You are walking down the street and suddenly feel a very strong stomach ache and nausea. You walk into the pharmacy but there is a very long line. You ask the people to let you through because you feel sick. A woman protests – I am tired too, young lady, you don’t look like your dying, I have been standing here for over 20 minutes and so can you.

19. Task 1: How would you react in this situation? Task 2: Imagine how would you feel in this situation?

20. Control group read the same story as in the perspective taking condition and was asked to assess it’s style and say what genre of film/book could it be in (comedy, detective, soap, etc)

21. Results Anova analysis showed a main effect of the perspective taking manipulation on the level of radicalism. F(2,57) = 22,62; p < 0,001 Perspective taking M = 1,85 Control M= 3,95 Centration M= 5,10

22. Radicalism in the experimental groups

23. Empathy and radicalism We also found a negative correlation between empathy and radicalism (r = -0,226; p< 0,05).

24. Interaction Additionally a regression analysis led to discovery of an interaction effect between the level of empathy and activated centration, showing that the effect of activated centration on the level of radicalism was stronger among persons with low empathetic disposition Beta = 0,791, adjusted R-squared =0,607.

25. Summary As predicted, the results indicate that after induced perspective taking persons exhibited less radical social attitudes than in the neutral condition and less radical than in the centration condition. In the centration condition attitudes were the most radical. The results also show a weak negative correlation between the readiness to empathy as and the strength of social radicalism.

26. The explanation can be found in the attribution theory- we are generally more aware of the situational factors affecting our own behavior than we are aware of situational factors affecting the behavior of others. Cognitive perspective taking may reduce this error and therefore lead to more multidimensional, less one-sided – that is less radical - judgment of other peoples’ behavior.

27. REFERENCES Davis, M. H. (1980). A multidimensional approach to individual differences in empathy. JSAS Catalog of Selected Documents in Psychology, 10 (4), 85. Davis, M.H. (1983). Measuring individual differences in empathy: Evidence for a multidimensional approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 44, 113-126. Jerzmanowska, A. (2013). Empatia oraz decentracja interpersonalna a radykalność postaw społecznych, Psychologia Społeczna, 1/2013. Johnson, J. J. (2010). Beyond a shadow of doubt: The psychological nature of dogmatism. International Journal Of Interdisciplinary Social Sciences, 5(3), 149-161. Rokeach, M. (1954). The nature and meaning of dogmatism. Psychological Review, 61, 194-204.