Perspective Taking: Imagining How Another Feels Versus Imaging How You Would Feel

TLDR

Imagining how another feels versus imagining how you would feel are distinct forms of perspective taking that elicit different emotions—empathy alone versus empathy plus personal distress. The study had undergraduates listen to a fabricated radio interview about a young woman in need, then divided them into three groups: objective listening, imagining the woman's feelings, or imagining their own feelings. Imagining the other's feelings produced empathy alone, linked to altruistic motivation, whereas imagining one's own feelings produced both empathy and personal distress, linked to egoistic motivation.

Abstract

Although often confused, imagining how another feels and imagining how you would feel are two distinct forms of perspective taking with different emotional consequences. The former evokes empathy; the latter, both empathy and distress. To test this claim, undergraduates listened to a (bogus) pilot radio interview with a young woman in serious need. One third were instructed to remain objective while listening; one third, to imagine how the young woman felt; and one third, to imagine how they would feel in her situation. The two imagine perspectives produced the predicted distinct pattern of emotions, suggesting different motivational consequences: Imagining how the other feels produced empathy, which has been found to evoke altruistic motivation; imagining how you would feel produced empathy, but it also produced personal distress, which has been found to evoke egoistic motivation.