Tenderness and Sympathy: Distinct Empathic Emotions Elicited by Different Forms of Need

• Published in: Personality & social psychology bulletin Vol. 37; no. 5; pp. 614 - 625
• Main Authors: Lishner, David A., Batson, C. Daniel, Huss, Elizabeth
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.05.2011; SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
• Subjects: Anecdotes as Topic; Attitudes; Emotions; Empathy; Female; Humans; Interpersonal Relations; Kansas; Male; Needs; Parents; Psychological Theory; Surveys and Questionnaires; Sympathy; Tenderness; Theory; Vulnerability; Wisconsin; Young Adult; Wisconsin; Kansas; tenderness; vulnerability; sympathy; current need; empathic concern
• ISSN: 0146-1672; 1552-7433
• DOI: 10.1177/0146167211403157

Current need and vulnerability are two different forms of need. Integrating (a) cognitive-appraisal theories of emotion with (b) a view of human parental nurturance as emotionally based and cognitively generalizable, this article proposes that these two forms of need elicit distinct empathic emotions: Vulnerability evokes feelings of tenderness, whereas current need evokes feelings of sympathy. Results of two experiments support this proposal. Vulnerable targets elicited tenderness even when there was no current need; nonvulnerable targets did not. Sympathy was low when there was no evidence of current need but high when there was evidence of current need. Other forms of need and other empathic emotions are proposed, as are motivational and behavioral consequences of the distinction between tenderness and sympathy.