Ideological Differences in Public Compassion: The Effects of Perspective Taking, Emotions, and Attributions on Willingness to Help

公众同情心的意识形态差异：观点采择、情绪和归因对帮助意愿的影响

• 批准号: 0518084
• 负责人: Linda Skitka
• 金额: $ 16.46万
• 依托单位: University of Illinois at Chicago
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2005
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2005-09-01 至 2008-02-29
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0518084&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Ideological; Differences; Public; Compassion; Effects

Abstract Do people feel that the government should step in and help people who have suffered the consequences of a natural disaster, or do people feel that the government should stay out and let people cope on their own? What kinds of help should be provided and to whom? Considerable research indicates that the answers to these questions depend on the point of view of the perceiver. People make different attributions for why people need public assistance, even in the context of natural disasters. Some people tend to believe that most people's needs are the result of extenuating circumstances, a reaction that is associated with greater apparent sympathy and support for help. In contrast, others tend to believe that people's needs are consequences of what the needy have done or failed to do, reactions that are associated with less apparent sympathy and support for help. Neither standpoint may be called "right" or "wrong," for each is associated with widely accepted American values of a kind people balance in making political judgments. The goals of this research are to investigate the psychological mechanisms that lead to these views of the proper role for government, with a focus on the roles of (a) perspective taking, (b) affect, and (c) suppression. A national random sample of Americans will be asked to evaluate the proper role of Federal disaster assistance as a result of the 2004 Florida hurricanes. Study 1 will explore the effects of perspective taking (i.e., actively imagining being in another's shoes) on willingness to help victims of the hurricanes. Study 2 will explore whether participants' affective states (induced prior and unrelated to their evaluations of the hurricane victims) influence their attributions and affective reactions to claimants and consequently their willingness to help. Finally, Study 3 will explore whether asking people to suppress their blame cognitions increases their willingness to help that claimant, but produces a rebound effect when participants are asked to consider helping a new claimant. In addition to shedding insight into the psychological mechanisms that lead to ideological differences in willingness to support helping behavior, this research will allow us to test the relative malleability of helping orientations. We have found that it is relatively easy to make people who are favorable toward government assistance become less supportive (e.g., by increasing cognitive load, making resources scarce, or framing aid as serving secondary rather than primary needs). It is also relatively easy to make people who are unfavorable toward government assistance become more supportive (e.g., by asking people to perspective take, suppress responsibility judgments, or inducing them to feel more positive affect). In addition to advancing our understanding of the factors that influence public attitudes, the proposed research will also advance training of undergraduate and graduate students who will work on various aspects of the research and enhance the infrastructure for research by creating a number of rich data sets that students and others may be able to use to address additional questions of theoretical and practical importance.

人们是觉得政府应该介入，帮助遭受自然灾害影响的人们，还是觉得政府应该置身事外，让人们自己处理？应该提供什么样的帮助，向谁提供帮助？大量研究表明，这些问题的答案取决于接受者的观点。人们对人们为什么需要公共援助做出了不同的归因，即使在自然灾害的背景下也是如此。一些人倾向于认为，大多数人的需要是情有可原的结果，这种反应与更明显的同情和对帮助的支持有关。相比之下，其他人倾向于认为，人们的需要是穷人做了或没有做的事情的后果，这种反应与对帮助的不那么明显的同情和支持有关。这两种观点都不能称为“对”或“错”，因为每一种观点都与被广泛接受的美国价值观有关，这种价值观是人们在做出政治判断时取得平衡的。这项研究的目的是调查导致这些关于政府适当角色的观点的心理机制，重点是(A)采取观点，(B)影响和(C)压抑的作用。全国随机抽样的美国人将被要求评估联邦灾难援助在2004年佛罗里达飓风中的适当作用。研究1将探讨采取观点(即积极想象设身处地为他人着想)对帮助飓风受害者的意愿的影响。研究2将探讨参与者的情感状态(事先诱导的和与他们对飓风受害者的评价无关的)是否影响他们对索赔人的归因和情感反应，从而影响他们提供帮助的意愿。最后，研究3将探索让人们抑制他们的责备认知是否会增加他们帮助那个索赔人的意愿，但当参与者被要求考虑帮助一个新的索赔人时，是否会产生反弹效应。这项研究除了让我们深入了解导致支持帮助行为意愿的意识形态差异的心理机制外，还将使我们能够测试帮助取向的相对延展性。我们发现，相对容易的是，让那些支持政府援助的人变得不那么支持(例如，通过增加认知负担，使资源稀缺，或者将援助定位为服务于次要需求而不是主要需求)。让不喜欢政府援助的人变得更支持也是相对容易的(例如，通过要求人们采取观点、抑制责任判断，或诱导他们感受到更积极的影响)。除了促进我们对影响公众态度的因素的理解外，拟议的研究还将促进对本科生和研究生的培训，他们将致力于研究的各个方面，并通过创建一些丰富的数据集来增强研究的基础设施，学生和其他人可能能够使用这些数据集来解决其他具有理论和实践重要性的问题。