Preliminary results from Empathy intervention Study 1
Alexander Tagesson
2023-09-19
Intro
Variables were operationalized in the experiment as follows:
Conditions:
1 - Limited: Definition: Empathy is defined as the ability to understand and share the feelings and thoughts of others. For example, empathizing with someone in distress involves understanding the situation from his/her perspective and feeling his/her negative emotions. Recent studies have found that empathy is a limited resource so people cannot feel it toward a large number of people. Imagine that you are about to meet people in distress. Toward how many of them could you feel empathy? Importantly, Participants used a scale going from 0 - 3 people when answering how many people they can empathize with.
2 - Unlimited: Definition: Empathy is defined as the ability to understand and share the feelings and thoughts of others. For example, empathizing with someone in distress involves understanding the situation from his/her perspective and feeling his/her negative emotions. Recent studies have found that empathy is an unlimited resource so people can feel it toward a large number of people. Imagine that you are about to meet people in distress. Toward how many of them could you feel empathy? Importantly, Participants used a scale going from 0 - 300 people when answering how many people they can empathize with.
3 - Malleable: Definition: Empathy is defined as the ability to understand and share the feelings and thoughts of others. For example, empathizing with someone in distress involves understanding the situation from his/her perspective and feeling his/her negative emotions. Recent studies have shown that we can regulate our empathy and that it is not a rigid trait. That is, we can become more empathic if we try to empathize with people. Some of these studies also showed that when people learned that we can regulate our empathy, they put more effort into becoming more empathic. Imagine that you find yourself in a social situation where you would want to be empathic. How much would you be able to increase your empathy in that situation? Importantly, Participants used a scale going from 0 - 100 when answering how much they would be able to increase their empathy.
4 - Normative: Definition: Empathy is defined as the
ability to understand and share the feelings and thoughts of others. For
example, empathizing with someone in distress involves understanding the
situation from his/her perspective and feeling his/her negative
emotions.
Empathy is highly valued in most communities. Several studies
demonstrate that people strongly value empathy and expect others in
their community to be empathic. Empathic people are also well-liked by
their peers because they better understand those around them. As people
learn that their community values empathy, they often put more effort
into relating to and understanding others. Imagine that you find
yourself in a social situation where you would want to be empathic. How
much would you be able to increase your empathy in that situation?
Importantly, Participants used a scale going from 0 - 100 when
answering how much they would be able to increase their empathy.
5 - Control: Financial investments can be risky. On average, people lose money when making stock investments. A small percentage of stock investors make the largest gains, the rest often lose money on their investments. Some people can be so unfortunate that they lose much of their savings and sometimes find themselves in problematic financial situations. How risky do you think stock investments are? Importantly, Participants used a scale going from 0 - 100 when answering how risky they deemed financial investments to be.
Empathy Measures:
1 - Empathic reactions:
a) Did you feel empathy with X?
b) Did you feel sympathy with X?
c) Did you feel compassion with X?
2 - Empathic drivers:
a) How badly affected were you by the story about X?
b) How much did you relate to X as you read his story? c) How motivated
are you to help X improve his situation if you are given the opportunity
to do so?
3 - Empathic beliefs:
a) To what extent do you think that empathy is a limited resource, for
example if you feel a lot of empathy with one person, you will not be
able to feel as much empathy with another person? (This is the
manipulation check)
b) To what extent do you think we can change our ability to be
empathic?
c) After participating in this experiment and learning more about
empathy, how motivated do you feel to try to increase the empathy you
feel in your everyday life?
Donation:
Opportunity to donate to the YMCA You, and everyone else that participates in this experiment, will receive a bonus payment of 1 pound (100 pence). This bonus payment is an additional payment to the basic payment that you receive for participating in this experiment. Whatever you choose to do with your bonus payment, you will receive your basic payment for participating in this experiment. As you know, John and people like him, receive help from the YMCA. You can choose to donate some, or all, of your bonus payment to the YMCA and thereby help people like John. Note, that whatever amount you choose to donate will be a real donation to the YMCA that the researchers conducting this study will make once it is completed Make your choice by using the slider below. Maximum amount that can be donated is 100 Pence. You can also choose to not donate any money to the YMCA by moving the cursor to 0. The amount you choose to donate will be deducted from your bonus payment.
Perceived ethnicity:
As you were reading his story, which ethnicity did you perceive X as having?
Trust in YMCA:
In the story you read, X visited the YMCA to receive help with various needs. The organization help people suffering from poverty across the US. How much do you trust that the YMCA use donated money in an effective way to help poor people?
Following acronyms are used in data presentation;
Intervention response = IntR
Donation = Don
Empathic reations = EmpR
Empathic drivers = EmpD
Ability = Abi
Reaction time (time spent) intervention = RT_I
Reaction time (time spent) story = RT_S
1. Descriptive data Outgroup
1.1 Demographics for participants:
| Characteristic | N = 7411 |
|---|---|
| Age | 41 (33, 53) |
| Ethnicity.simplified | |
| Black | 369 (50%) |
| White | 372 (50%) |
| Country.of.residence | |
| United States | 741 (100%) |
| Highest.education.level.completed | |
| Doctorate degree (PhD/other) | 22 (3.0%) |
| Graduate degree (MA/MSc/MPhil/other) | 108 (15%) |
| High school diploma/A-levels | 175 (24%) |
| Secondary education (e.g. GED/GCSE) | 19 (2.6%) |
| Technical/community college | 115 (16%) |
| Undergraduate degree (BA/BSc/other) | 302 (41%) |
| Employment.status | |
| DATA_EXPIRED | 156 (21%) |
| Due to start a new job within the next month | 4 (0.5%) |
| Full-Time | 329 (44%) |
| Not in paid work (e.g. homemaker', 'retired or disabled) | 72 (9.7%) |
| Other | 14 (1.9%) |
| Part-Time | 98 (13%) |
| Unemployed (and job seeking) | 68 (9.2%) |
| 1 Median (IQR); n (%) | |
1.2 Table showing means for most important variables:
1.3 Cronbach’s Alpha for Empathic reactions:
## Alpha Items Sample units
## Empathic reactions 0.932 3.000 741.000
## Empathic drivers 0.812 3.000 741.000
## Empathic beliefs 0.524 3.000 741.0001.4 Scatterplots for Empathy measures & Donation
1.5 Correlation matrix for empathy measures, donation & intervention
2. Replication of Hasson et als results
We look at the manipulation check and contrasts between conditions for groups Outgroup (i.e. participants that stated that they perceived protagonist as an outgroup member) and the whole group (i.e. all participants).
Outgroup
2.1 Manipulation check:
“Regarding the manipulation check, an independent-samples t-test revealed a significant effect of condition, t(1, 198) = −4.11, p < 0.001, d = 0.58, such that participants in the unlimited condition believed empathy is unlimited (M = 4.92, SD = 1.89) more than did those in the limited condition (M = 3.9, SD = 1.58).”, Hasson et al (2022).
Tibble with mean and sd on manipulation checks for conditions:
## # A tibble: 5 × 3
## condition mean sd
## <chr> <dbl> <dbl>
## 1 Control 4.84 2.25
## 2 Limited 4.34 2.00
## 3 Malleable 4.66 2.21
## 4 Normative 4.65 2.23
## 5 Unlimited 5.33 1.95Plotting manipulation check distribution:
Contrasting conditions on Manipulation check
Table showing mean difference and quantile interval on Manipulation check for Conditions:
## Mean Quantile interval
## Unlimited & Limited .95 .46 - 1.45
## Unlimited & Control .45 -.01 - .93
## Control & Limited .5 .02 - .97Histograms showing distribution differences between Conditions for Manipulation check:
2.2 Contrasting conditions on Empathic reactions:
“To test whether the manipulation influenced empathic reactions in response to each Syrian refugee’s testimony, we ran a repeated-measures ANOVA with testimony order (1–4) as a within-participant variable, and the condition (unlimited vs. limited) as a between-participants variable. We used testimony order as the within-participant variable because all testimonies were presented in a counterbalanced order to rule out the possibility that the content of the testimonies influences the results. We found a significant main effect of condition on empathic reactions, F(1, 198) = 8.93, p = 0.003, d = 0.423. On average, participants in the unlimited condition felt more empathy toward the outgroup members (M = 5.82, SD = 1.43), compared to those in the limited condition (M = 5.18, SD = 1.60). Pairwise comparisons between the effects of limited and unlimited conditions on empathy in each testimony were all significant (Testimony #1: p < 0.001; Testimony #2: p = 0.003; Testimony #3: p = 0.037; Testimony #4: p = 0.013). Moreover, we found a significant Testimony Order × Condition interaction, F(1, 196) = 2.78, p = 0.042, d = 0.41 (Fig. 2). While empathy changed across stories in the limited condition (between testimonies #1 and #4; p = 0.021), empathy remained stable in the unlimited condition, and there were no significant differences across stories (between testimonies #1 and #4; p = 0.917).”, Hasson et al (2022).
Plotting model coeffecients on Empathic reactions for Conditions:
Table showing mean difference and quantile on Empathic reactions for Conditions:
## Mean Quantile interval
## Unlimited & Limited .2 .01 - .43
## Control & Unlimited .04 -.26 - .18
## Control & Limited .25 .02 - .48Histogram showing distribution differences between conditions for Empathic reactions:
2.3 Cohens d for conditions for Empathic reactions:
## Unlimited-Limited Control-Limited Control-Unlimited
## Cohen's d 0.20 0.24 0.032.4 Conclusion H1a for Outgroup:
There is a hypothesized mean difference between conditions Unlimited & Limited (0.21) for Empathic reactions. Importantly, there is also a hypothesized mean difference between Control & Limited (.25). The interventions seem to have worked as expected in regards to influencing participants to believe that empathy is either limited or unlimited. There is a hypothesized mean difference between conditions Unlimited & Limited (.95) for Manipulation check.
Whole group
2.5 Manipulation check
tibble with mean and sd on manipulation checks between conditions for Outgroup:
## # A tibble: 5 × 3
## condition mean sd
## <chr> <dbl> <dbl>
## 1 Control 4.76 2.21
## 2 Limited 4.43 2.00
## 3 Malleable 4.82 2.11
## 4 Normative 4.72 2.16
## 5 Unlimited 5.32 1.99Plotting manipulation check distribution:
Contrasting conditions for Manipulation check
Table showing mean difference and quantile interval on Manipulation check for Conditions:
## Mean Quantile interval
## Unlimited & Limited .85 .42 - 1.29
## Unlimited & Control .54 .1 - .97
## Control & Limited .31 -.1 - .74Histogram showing distibution difference between conditions for Manipulatioc check:
2.6 Contrasting conditions on Empathic reactions
Plotting model coeffecients on Empathic reactions for Conditions:
## [1] 0.2911856## 2.5% 97.5%
## -0.0356875 0.6069128## [1] -0.06669561## 2.5% 97.5%
## -0.3877932 0.2585050## [1] -0.3578812## 2.5% 97.5%
## -0.66101525 -0.03810175Histogram showing distribution difference between conditions for Empathic reactions:
2.7 Cohens d for conditions:
## [1] 0.1946075## [1] 0.1363658## [1] 0.05476379## Unlimited-Limited Control-Limited Control-Unlimited
## Cohen's d 0.19 0.13 0.052.8 Conclusion for Whole group:
There is a hypothesized mean difference between conditions Unlimited & Limited for Empathic reactions. Importantly, there is also a hypothesized mean difference between Control & Limited. The interventions seem to have worked as expected in regards to influencing participants to believe that empathy is either limited or unlimited. There is a hypothesized mean difference between conditions Unlimited & Limited (.85) for Manipulation check.
2.9 General conlusion:
We replicate Hasson et als results for both groups, Outgroup and Whole group, that is - there is a hypothesized mean difference between condition Limited & Unlimited for Empathic reactions. Importantly, there is no difference between condition Unlimited & Control. This suggests that the difference between Limited & Unlimited is partly driven by a negative impact on Empathic reactions caused by condition Limited. In accordance with this suggestion, we also found a mean difference between Limited & Condition for Outgroup.
MESSED UP FROM HERE DONT READ
2.2.1 tibble with mean and sd for manipulation check for whole group:
## # A tibble: 5 × 3
## condition mean sd
## <chr> <dbl> <dbl>
## 1 Control 4.76 2.21
## 2 Limited 4.43 2.00
## 3 Malleable 4.82 2.11
## 4 Normative 4.72 2.16
## 5 Unlimited 5.32 1.992.2.2 anova to test conditions for manipulation check for whole group:
## Df Sum Sq Mean Sq F value Pr(>F)
## condition 4 72 18.122 4.123 0.00257 **
## Residuals 885 3890 4.396
## ---
## Signif. codes: 0 '***' 0.001 '**' 0.01 '*' 0.05 '.' 0.1 ' ' 12.2.3 Plotting manipulation check for whole group:
Contrasting conditions on Empathic reactions
Testing H1a - For Empathic reactions we hypothesize the following directional relationships: Malleable == Unlimited > Social Norm > Limited == Control - to test if results from Hasson et als article replicate.
2.2.4 Plotting mean differences on Empathic reactions between Conditions for Whole group:
2.2.5 Mean difference Unlimited vs Control:
## [1] -0.06669561Quantile interval:
## 2.5% 97.5%
## -0.3877932 0.2585050Histogram showing Mean difference between Unlimited & Control:
2.2.6 Mean difference for Malleable vs Control:
## [1] -0.193895Quantile interval:
## 2.5% 97.5%
## -0.5121162 0.1238105Histogram showing Mean difference between Malleable & Control:
2.2.7 Mean difference for Normative vs Control:
## [1] -0.1307329Quantile interval:
## 2.5% 97.5%
## -0.4456782 0.1851942Histogram showing Mean difference between Normative & Control:
2.2.8 Mean difference for Limited vs Control:
## [1] -0.3578812Quantile interval:
## 2.5% 97.5%
## -0.66101525 -0.03810175Histogram showing Mean difference between Limited & Control:
2.2.9 Mean difference for Unlimited vs Limited:
## [1] 0.2911856Quantile interval:
## 2.5% 97.5%
## -0.0356875 0.6069128Histogram showing Mean difference between Unlimited & Limited:
2.2.10 Mean difference for Malleable vs Limited:
## [1] 0.1639863Quantile interval:
## 2.5% 97.5%
## -0.1649105 0.4920310Histogram showing Mean difference between Malleable & Limited:
2.2.11 Mean difference for Normative vs Limited:
## [1] 0.2271483Quantile interval:
## 2.5% 97.5%
## -0.08789625 0.54537675Histogram showing Mean difference between Normative & Limited:
2.2.12 Cohens d for Limited & Unlimited:
## [1] 0.1946075Conclusion H1a for Whole group:
There is a hypothesized mean difference between conditions Unlimited & Limited (.2) for Empathic reactions. For the rest of the contrasts, HDI does not exclude zero and therefore we conclude no hypothesized mean difference between these conditions for Empathic reactions.
General conclusion:
We replicate Hasson et als results for both groups, Outgroup and Whole group, that is - there is a hypothesized mean difference between condition Limited & Unlimited for Empathic reactions. Importantly, there is no difference between condition Unlimited & Control, or Unlimited and the other conditions for both groups. This suggests that the difference between Limited & Unlimited is partly driven by a negative impact on Empathic reactions caused by condition Limited. In accordance with this suggestion, we also found a mean difference between Limited & Condition for Outgroup.
3. Modeling Empathic drivers
Empathic reactions rest of conditions
2.1.6 Mean difference for Malleable vs Control:
## [1] -0.1318073Quantile interval:
## 2.5% 97.5%
## -0.3606882 0.0932938Histogram showing Mean difference between Malleable & Control:
2.1.7 Mean difference for Normative vs Control:
## [1] -0.08704801Quantile interval:
## 2.5% 97.5%
## -0.3170253 0.1441882Histogram showing Mean difference between Normative & Control:
2.1.10 Mean difference for Malleable vs Limited:
## [1] 0.1185103Quantile interval:
## 2.5% 97.5%
## -0.09948274 0.33956760Histogram showing Mean difference between Malleable & Limited:
2.1.11 Mean difference for Normative vs Limited:
## [1] 0.1632696Quantile interval:
## 2.5% 97.5%
## -0.05790945 0.38196276Histogram showing Mean difference between Normative & Limited:
H1b - For Empathic drivers we hypothesize the following directional relationships: Malleable == Unlimited > Social Norm > Limited == Control.
## Family: gaussian
## Links: mu = identity; sigma = identity
## Formula: empathic_reactions_z ~ 0 + condition
## Data: outgroup (Number of observations: 741)
## Draws: 4 chains, each with iter = 2000; warmup = 1000; thin = 1;
## total post-warmup draws = 4000
##
## Population-Level Effects:
## Estimate Est.Error l-95% CI u-95% CI Rhat Bulk_ESS Tail_ESS
## conditionControl 0.10 0.08 -0.06 0.26 1.00 5827 2859
## conditionLimited -0.15 0.08 -0.31 0.01 1.00 6052 3047
## conditionMalleable -0.03 0.08 -0.19 0.13 1.00 6483 2935
## conditionNormative 0.01 0.08 -0.14 0.18 1.00 5488 3335
## conditionUnlimited 0.06 0.08 -0.10 0.22 1.00 5771 2812
##
## Family Specific Parameters:
## Estimate Est.Error l-95% CI u-95% CI Rhat Bulk_ESS Tail_ESS
## sigma 1.00 0.03 0.95 1.05 1.00 5951 2809
##
## Draws were sampled using sample(hmc). For each parameter, Bulk_ESS
## and Tail_ESS are effective sample size measures, and Rhat is the potential
## scale reduction factor on split chains (at convergence, Rhat = 1).## Warning: Dropping 'draws_df' class as required metadata was removed.## b_conditionControl b_conditionLimited b_conditionMalleable
## 2.5% -0.1702859 -0.26659882 -0.1605880
## 97.5% 0.1407791 0.05476715 0.1671147
## b_conditionNormative b_conditionUnlimited
## 2.5% -0.05879902 -0.1469587
## 97.5% 0.26525970 0.1753830Mean difference for Unlimited vs Control
## [1] 0.02863183
Quantile interval
## 2.5% 97.5%
## -0.1986312 0.2564561The HDI does not exclude zero, so we conclude no hypothesized difference between condition Control and Unlimitied for Empathic drivers
Mean difference for Malleable vs Control
## [1] 0.01720522
Quantile interval
## 2.5% 97.5%
## -0.2068777 0.2415954The HDI does not exclude zero, so we conclude no hypothesized difference between condition Malleable and Unlimitied for Empathic drivers
Mean difference for Normative vs Control
## [1] 0.1181297
Quantile interval
## 2.5% 97.5%
## -0.1093017 0.3505581The HDI does not exclude zero, so we conclude no hypothesized difference between condition Normative and Unlimitied for Empathic drivers
BRMS model empathic drivers
## Family: gaussian
## Links: mu = identity; sigma = identity
## Formula: donation_z ~ 0 + condition
## Data: outgroup (Number of observations: 741)
## Draws: 4 chains, each with iter = 2000; warmup = 1000; thin = 1;
## total post-warmup draws = 4000
##
## Population-Level Effects:
## Estimate Est.Error l-95% CI u-95% CI Rhat Bulk_ESS Tail_ESS
## conditionControl -0.01 0.08 -0.17 0.14 1.00 5571 2979
## conditionLimited -0.03 0.08 -0.19 0.13 1.00 5159 2871
## conditionMalleable -0.03 0.08 -0.19 0.14 1.00 5463 2672
## conditionNormative 0.11 0.08 -0.05 0.28 1.00 5427 3302
## conditionUnlimited -0.03 0.08 -0.20 0.13 1.00 5833 3185
##
## Family Specific Parameters:
## Estimate Est.Error l-95% CI u-95% CI Rhat Bulk_ESS Tail_ESS
## sigma 1.00 0.03 0.95 1.05 1.00 6963 3278
##
## Draws were sampled using sample(hmc). For each parameter, Bulk_ESS
## and Tail_ESS are effective sample size measures, and Rhat is the potential
## scale reduction factor on split chains (at convergence, Rhat = 1).## Warning: Dropping 'draws_df' class as required metadata was removed.## b_conditionControl b_conditionLimited b_conditionMalleable
## 2.5% -0.1688229 -0.1938809 -0.1880629
## 97.5% 0.1423076 0.1282579 0.1353247
## b_conditionNormative b_conditionUnlimited
## 2.5% -0.04986123 -0.1968648
## 97.5% 0.27561948 0.1319767Mean difference for Unlimited vs Control
## [1] -0.01859229
Quantile interval
## 2.5% 97.5%
## -0.2371990 0.2159797The HDI does not exclude zero, so we conclude no hypothesized difference between condition Control and Unlimitied for Donation
Mean difference for Malleable vs Control
## [1] -0.01199492
Quantile interval
## 2.5% 97.5%
## -0.2417528 0.2144014The HDI does not exclude zero, so we conclude no hypothesized difference between condition Malleable and Unlimitied for Donation
Mean difference for Normative vs Control
## [1] 0.1228901
Quantile interval
## 2.5% 97.5%
## -0.1005301 0.3581822