Do Bad People Deserve Empathy? Selective Empathy Based on Targets’ Moral Characteristics

IF 2.1 Q2 PSYCHOLOGY Affective science Pub Date : 2022-12-05 DOI:10.1007/s42761-022-00165-y

Yiyi Wang, Paul L. Harris, Meng Pei, Yanjie Su

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引用次数: 1

Abstract

The relation between empathy and morality is a widely discussed topic. However, previous discussions mainly focused on whether and how empathy influences moral cognition and moral behaviors, with limited attention to the reverse influence of morality on empathy. This review summarized how morality influences empathy by drawing together a number of hitherto scattered studies illustrating the influence of targets’ moral characteristics on empathy. To explain why empathy is morally selective, we discuss its ultimate cause, to increase survival rates, and five proximate causes based on similarity, affective bonds, the appraisal of deservingness, dehumanization, and potential group membership. To explain how empathy becomes morally selective, we consider three different pathways (automatic, regulative, and mixed) based on previous findings. Finally, we discuss future directions, including the reverse influence of selective empathy on moral cognition, the moral selectivity of positive empathy, and the role of selective empathy in selective helping and third-party punishment.

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坏人值得同情吗？基于目标道德特征的选择性移情。

移情与道德的关系是一个被广泛讨论的话题。然而，以往的讨论主要集中在移情是否以及如何影响道德认知和道德行为，而对道德对移情的反向影响关注有限。这篇综述总结了道德如何影响移情，汇集了迄今为止分散的一些研究，说明了目标的道德特征对移情的影响。为了解释为什么移情在道德上是有选择性的，我们讨论了它的最终原因，即提高生存率，以及基于相似性、情感纽带、对应得的评价、非人化和潜在的群体成员身份的五个近因。为了解释移情是如何在道德上具有选择性的，我们根据之前的研究结果考虑了三种不同的途径（自动、调节和混合）。最后，我们讨论了未来的方向，包括选择性移情对道德认知的反向影响，积极移情的道德选择性，以及选择性移情在选择性帮助和第三方惩罚中的作用。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Affective science

CiteScore

4.40

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0.00%

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