I’m So Angry I Could . . . Help!” The Nature of Empathic Anger

Robert G. Bringle, Ph.D., Phil.D.Chancellor’s Professor Emeritus of Psychology and

Philanthropic StudiesSenior Scholar, IUPUI Center for Service & Learning

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolisrbringle@iupui.edu

Collaborators: Ashley Hedgepath, Liz Wall, & Derek Stephens

Is helping motivated by altruistic or egoistic concerns?–Altruistic: Motivated by the desire to

increase another’s welfare.–Egoistic: Motivated by the desire to

increase one’s own welfare (e.g., reduce negative feelings, avoid guilt, receive praise).

Altruism or Egoism?

Batson’s Empathy-Altruism TheoryBatson argues that true altruism does exist and that empathy is what sets it apart as altruism

Four PsychologicalStates Called EmpathyPerspective

TakingImagine-

Self Perspectiv

e

Imagine-Other

Perspective

Emotional Response

Emotion

Matching

Empathic

Concern

Batson & Ahmed (2009)

• Imagine-self perspective:• Imagining how one would think and

feel in another’s situation or “shoes.”

• Imagine-other perspective:• Imagining how another person

thinks or feels given his/her situation.

Perspective Taking

• Emotion matching:• Feeling as another person feels• Empathic concern:

Feeling for another person who is in need

Emotional Response

Batson & Ahmed (2009)

Victim distress

Empathy/ Distress

Sympathy

Guilt

Empathic Anger

Empathy over

Injustice

Hoffman’s Theory of Empathy

Empathic AngerTrait Empathic Anger

(TEA) Scale (Vitaglione & Barnett, 2003)

•“I get angry when a friend of mine is hurt by someone else.”•“When someone I know gets angry at someone else, I feel angry at that person too.”•“I feel angry for other people when they have been victimized by others.”

Findings:•Empathic anger is somewhat unique from empathy as sadness•Reliable effects of empathic anger on prosocial desires•Empathic anger predicted desires to punish a transgressor

Batson, Ahmad, & Tzang, 2002Motive Ultimate Goal Strength(s) Weakness(es)

Egoism Increasing one’s own welfare

Many forms; easily invoked; powerful

Increased community involvement relates to the motive only as an instrumental means or unintended consequences

Altruism Increase the welfare of one or more other individuals

Powerful; may generalize to group of which other is a member

May only result from empathy; may only occur as an instrumental means or unintended consequence

Collectivism Increase the welfare of a group or collective

Powerful; directly focused on common good

May be limited to ingroup

Principlism Uphold some moral principle (e.g., justice)

Directed toward universal and impartial good

Often seems weak; vulnerable to rationalization

• Can we develop a new measure of empathic anger that is not focused on friend, those who are close?• Can we obtain convergent and

discriminant validity evidence?• What is the relationship

between empathic anger and helping (e.g., past action; behavioral intentions)?

Research Questions (2013)

• Participants: N = 152: College students• Questionnaire:– Rived Empathic Anger scale—Hedgepath, Wall, &

Bringle– Volunteer Functions Inventory: Values Subscale –

Clary & Snyder – Interpersonal Reactivity Index (Empathy) – Davis– Social Dominance Orientation – Pratto et al.– Aggression questionnaire – Beck & Perry

Study 1 (2013)

• 8-item self-report measure

“My anger towards inequality has motivated me to take action against it.”

“When I think about problems that will affect future generations, I have gotten mad enough to do something about it.”

“I have involved myself in the community because I felt driven by my anger towards inequality and injustice”

“Problems like social injustice make me mad, so I volunteer to help resolve them.”

The Revised Empathic Anger (REA) Scale

Protective Motives• a way of protecting the ego from the

difficulties of lifeValues (Altruism)• a way to express ones altruistic and

humanitarian valuesCareer• a way to improve career prospects

Social• a way to develop and strengthen social ties

Understanding• a way to gain knowledge, skills, and

abilitiesEnhancement• a way to help the ego grow and develop

Volunteer Functions Inventory (VFI; Clary & Snyder, 1998): self-report measure examining the functional motives for volunteering

Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI; Davis, 1983): measure of dispositional empathy that takes the notion that empathy consists of a set of separate but related constructs. 

the tendency to spontaneously adopt the psychological point of view of others

Perspective Taking

Tendency to transpose themselves imaginatively into the feelings and actions of fictitious characters in books, movies, and plays

Fantasy

"other-oriented" feelings of sympathy and concern for unfortunate others

Empathic Concern

"self-oriented" feelings of personal anxiety and unease in tense interpersonal settings)

Personal Distress

•measure of individual differences in levels of group-based discrimination

Social Dominance Orientation (Pratto et al., 1994)

“Some groups of people are simply inferior to other groups.”

“It’s OK if some groups have more of a chance in life than others.”

“To get ahead in life, it is sometimes necessary to step on other groups.”

Aggression Questionnaire (Buss & Perry, 1992)

Physical Aggression

• Given enough provocation, I may hit another person.

Verbal Aggression

• I often find myself disagreeing with people

Angry Aggression

• I have trouble controlling my temper.

Hostility

• I am suspicious of overly friendly strangers

Bivariate CorrelationsREA

Aggression -.25**

Social Dominance Orientation -.47**

Interpersonal Reactivity Index  

Empathy-Distress .18*Empathy-Perspective .30*

Empathy-Fantasy .33*Empathy-Concern .45*

Motive-Values (Altruism) .52**Community organizations .43**

* = p 0.05, ** = p 0.01

Stepwise Multiple Regression

* = p .05, ** = p .01

Motive-Values.52**

Community Involvement.60**

Empathy-Distress.64**

•Participants (n = 132): College students•Questionnaire

Study 2 (2013)

Protective Motives• a way of protecting the ego from the

difficulties of lifeValues (Altruism)• a way to express ones altruistic and

humanitarian valuesCareer• a way to improve career prospects

Social• a way to develop and strengthen social ties

Understanding• a way to gain knowledge, skills, and

abilitiesEnhancement• a way to help the ego grow and develop

Volunteer Functions Inventory (VFI; Clary & Snyder, 1998): self-report measure examining the functional motives for volunteering

• 30-item self-report scale measuring knowledge, skills, dispositions, and behavioral intentions

–Merger of civic and education

–Knowledge of civil society

–Knowledge of contemporary social issues

– Communication skills

–Diversity skills

– Self-Efficacy

Civic-Minded Graduate Scale

Cultural Norms and Social Context

Civic-Minded Graduates

Identity

Civic Experiences

Educational Experiences

Civic-Minded Graduate (CMG)

1

2

3

Morton’s Types of Service

• transfer of resources to those in need

Charity

• working together to address a problem

Project

• empowering the disenfranchised to change the system

Social Change

Bivariate CorrelationsREA

VFIProtective .23**Values .36**Career -.04Social .16Understanding .23*Enhancement .14

REA CMG .34**Morton’s Typology–Direct Service .14–Programs .26*–Advocacy .53**

[only predictor in a stepwise MR]

Bivariate Correlations

•Overall, REA scale showed good reliability

• REA Scale negatively correlated with Aggression and SDO

• REA moderately correlated with all four empathy subscales

Results- REA Validity Study

Collect further construct validity evidence on REA and empathic anger

How is trait empathic anger related to efficacy, social justice, political activism, attitudes toward others?

Use a different measure of charity vs. advocacy

Research Questions (2014)

• 70 college students• Self-Efficacy Scale (Sherer et al., 1982) (α = .94, 23 items)“When I make plans, I am certain I can make them work.”• Social Justice Scale (Torres-Harding et al., 2012) (α

=.94, 24 items)“I believe that it is important to promote fair and equitable allocation of bargaining powers, obligations, and resources in our society.”•Universal Orientation Scale (Phillips & Ziller,

1997) (α = .66, 20 items) “I tend to value similarities over differences when I meet someone.”

Study 3 (2014)

• Different measure of Charity (α = .84, 6 items)“In the past 12 months, I have helped those in need.”• Different measure of Advocacy (α = .87, 6 items)“In the past 12 months, I have worked to change public policy for the benefit of the people.”[items taken from Moely et al.; Wang & Jackson]• Single item measures of –# of service learning courses–Political activity –Campus community involvement–Service to the community

Study 3 (2014)

REA Self-Efficacy .07Social Justice .41**Charity .28*Advocacy .46**SL Courses .23Political Activity .26*Campus Community Engagement .13Community Service .41**

Bivariate Correlations

Stepwise Multiple Regression

* = p .05, ** = p .01

Advocacy.46**

Social Justice.52**

Political Activity.65*

•Measurement–Changed one aspect of Trait Empathic Anger scale: individual group–We composed the items with two components:• Emotions, anger• Action

– Langstraat & Bowdon (2011) distinguish between empathy and compassion:• Empathy: Others’ emotions & judgment (unjust)• Compassion: Emotions, judgment, and action

Implications for Future Research

Trait Empathic Anger• What are the origins of individual differences in trait empathic anger?• How can trait empathic anger be developed?• What about the nature of those who score very high on REA vs. moderately high?• Are there other empathic emotions besides sadness and anger (e.g., disgust, fear, surprise, happiness) and what are their relationships to altruistic behaviors?• Does trait empathic anger predispose individuals toward particular patterns of attributions?

Implications for Future Research

• Presented the Fukushima nuclear disaster to 62 participants•Measured the degree to which attributions were made to natural cause or a potential transgressor (e.g., plant workers, nuclear regulators, government)

Study 4 (2014)

• REA was correlated with desire to help, r = .86**• Degree of human responsibility was correlated with desire to help, r = .71**• Attribution to nature was negatively correlated with desire to help, r = -.63• REA was –positively correlated with blaming someone (r

= .62**) –negatively correlated with blaming nature (r = -.56*)

Study 4 (2014)

State Empathic Anger• What situational factors (e.g., relationship to victim,

perspective-taking, direct exposure) can heighten state empathic anger?

• What is the relationship between the intensity of anger felt and likelihood to actual helping (e.g., giving one’s time, talents, or treasures)?

• Can state empathic anger felt on behalf of one individual generalize to the rest of the group (and vice versa)?

• How does the nature of the transgressor influence empathic arousal?

• What aspects of attributions are key to eliciting state empathic anger?

Implications for Future Research

Future Research Questions• Anger is produced when goals are threatened, but the threat can be overcome (Mackeun et al., 2010)

– If the threat is perceived as too large to reasonably overcome, the result is often motivational ambivalence (Cameron & Payne, 2009)

•What is the relationship between self-efficacy and the arousal of empathic anger?–How can we help students feel more

efficacious?

But to be angry with the right person to the right degree at the right time for the right purpose, and in the right way, that is not easy.”

-Aristotle

“Anyone can become angry. That is easy.

• Have you seen empathic anger in your work with students?• Should empathic anger be an educational objective in a service learning course?– If so, how can it be developed?

• How should courses be designed to develop empathic anger?• How should reflection be structured for empathic anger?• What is the role of causal attributions in the arousal of empathic anger on an intergroup level?

Implications for Practice