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

人们认为政府应该介入并帮助遭受自然灾害后果的人们，还是认为政府应该置身事外，让人们自己应对？应该向谁提供什么样的帮助？相当多的研究表明，这些问题的答案取决于感知者的观点。对于人们为什么需要公共援助，即使是在自然灾害的情况下，人们也有不同的归因。有些人倾向于认为，大多数人的需求是情有可原的情况下的结果，这种反应与更多的明显同情和支持帮助有关。相反，其他人则倾向于认为，人们的需求是需要帮助的人做过或没做过的事情的结果，这种反应与不那么明显的同情和支持帮助有关。这两种观点都不能被称为“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，即人们在做出政治判断时要保持平衡。本研究的目的是探讨导致这些政府适当角色观点的心理机制，重点关注(a)观点接受，(b)影响和(c)抑制的作用。在2004年佛罗里达飓风之后，将要求全国随机抽样的美国人评估联邦灾难援助的适当作用。研究1将探讨视角（即，积极地想象站在别人的立场上）对帮助飓风受害者意愿的影响。研究2将探讨参与者的情感状态（诱导的先前的和与他们对飓风受害者的评估无关的）是否影响他们对索赔人的归因和情感反应，从而影响他们的帮助意愿。最后，研究3将探讨是否要求人们抑制他们的指责认知会增加他们帮助索赔人的意愿，但当参与者被要求考虑帮助新的索赔人时，会产生反弹效应。除了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，这项研究还将使我们能够测试帮助取向的相对可塑性。我们发现，让支持政府援助的人变得不那么支持是相对容易的（例如，通过增加认知负荷，使资源稀缺，或将援助视为满足次要需求而不是主要需求）。让那些不喜欢政府援助的人变得更支持政府援助也相对容易（例如，通过要求人们正确看待、抑制责任判断，或诱导他们感受到更积极的影响）。除了增进我们对影响公众态度的因素的理解之外，拟议的研究还将促进对本科生和研究生的培训，这些学生将从事研究的各个方面的工作，并通过创建一些丰富的数据集来增强研究基础设施，学生和其他人可以使用这些数据集来解决具有理论和实践重要性的其他问题。

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.