Promoting empathy between groups by increasing empathic effort

美国的保守派和自由派经常妖魔化对方，认为对方的价值观低人一等，不道德。人们不是寻求他人的理解，而是经常对那些与自己观点不同的人置之不理，谈论，甚至吐出仇恨。这种“同理心鸿沟”反映出，当人们处于冲突或感觉彼此不同的情况下，同理心就会崩溃。这项研究通过关注人们如何理解自己的同理心来测试缩小这种同理心差距的方法。同理心是可以培养出来的这一信念是否会激励人们对不同观点的人产生同理心？通过研究人们对同理心的信念如何影响他们与其他群体成员的互动，这个项目为促进更开放的互动对话和减少群体间的两极分化提供了见解。这项研究的重点是移情努力的概念，即愿意投入时间和认知能量来理解和联系不同思想群体的成员。该项目使用不同的方法和具有全国代表性的样本来研究如何培养同理心。这项研究测试了(A)同理心的成长心态(相信一个人可以发展同理心)和动态的同理心规范(越来越多的人认为党间同理心很重要)是否结合在一起促进了对外部群体成员的共情努力，(B)对外部群体成员的共情努力和同理心是否会减少对更广泛的外部群体成员的敌意，以及(C)接受外部群体成员的共情努力是否会鼓励接受者的共情努力，并减少接受者对更广泛的外部群体的敌意。传授同理心的成长心态和同理心努力的动态规范的信息可以广泛地、跨多个群体间的背景传递。因此，这项研究为解决不同视角的人和其他群体之间的共鸣差距提供了洞察力。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Conservatives and liberals in America often demonize the other side, judging each other's values to be inferior and immoral. Rather than seeking understanding of others, people often shut out, talk over, or even spew hatred at people who do not share their own perspectives. This "empathy gap" reflects a tendency for empathy to break down in situations where people are in conflict or feel different from each other. This research tests ways to reduce this empathy gap by focusing on how people understand their own empathy. Does the belief that empathy can be developed motivate people to empathize with those who have differing perspectives? By examining how people's beliefs about empathy influence their interactions with members of other groups, this project offers insights into promoting more open-minded interactive dialogue and reducing intergroup polarization. This research focuses on the concept of empathic effort, which is the willingness to invest time and cognitive energy into understanding and relating to members of a different thought group. The project uses diverse methods and nationally representative samples to examine how to foster empathic effort. The research tests (a) whether a growth mindset of empathy (the belief that one can develop empathy) and a dynamic norm of empathy (the belief that a growing number of people think interparty empathy is important) combine to promote empathic effort toward outgroup members, (b) whether empathetic effort and feelings of empathy toward an outgroup member produce less hostility toward the broader outgroup, and (c) whether receiving empathic effort from an outgroup member encourages empathic effort from the recipient and reduces the recipient's hostility toward the broader outgroup. Messages that teach a growth mindset of empathy and dynamic norm of empathic effort could be delivered broadly and across multiple intergroup contexts. As a result, the research offers insight into addressing the empathy gap between those with different perspectives and other intergroup contexts.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.