From “Einfühlung” to empathy: exploring the relationship between aesthetic and interpersonal experience

Is there a relationship between aesthetic and interpersonal experience? This question is motivated not only by the fact that historically experiences of both kinds have often been accounted for in terms of “empathy”, the English translation of the German term “Einfühlung”, but also by the fact that some contemporary theories refer to mechanisms underlying both aesthetic and interpersonal experience. In this Editorial introducing the special section titled “From ‘Einfühlung’ to empathy: exploring the relationship between aesthetic and interpersonal experience”, we briefly sketch these two motivations and the relationship between the different mechanisms that have been associated with both aesthetic and interpersonal experience.     

Einfühlung as the breath of art: six modes of embodiment

Robert Vischer’s concept of Einfühlung, feeling-into, translated as empathy, serves as the departure point for a proposal about viewing art using the body for a non-imitative form of empathy termed a transomatization and for other embodied operations. A transomatization occurs when viewers reinterpret a component or process of their own bodies to serve as a non-imitative stand-in, or correlate, for something outside of the self, specifically, some quality of an art work or its production. This creates an overlap of the self and other that might be experienced subjectively as a feeling of projection, an operation characteristic of empathy. Transomatizations and other embodied experiences are grounded in empathic, intersubjective modes of engaging others that begin in early life. As applications of the proposed concepts, six different embodiments of the viewer’s breathing are explored in regard to Friedrich E. Church’s 1848 oil painting Morning, Looking East over the Hudson Valley from the Catskill Mountains. Support for elements of the proposed concepts and applications is drawn from research in the biological and social sciences and from first person, embodied accounts of viewing.     

Einfühlung: Über Empathie

Zusammenfassung. Die F?higkeit zur Empathie setzt sich aus unterschiedlichen Kompetenzen zusammen: Der Gefühlsansteckung, der Perspektivenübernahme und der F?higkeit, den Kontext sozialer Situationen zu verstehen. Alle drei Kompetenzen müssen in sozialer Erfahrung gelernt werden. Eine Theorie des empathischen Prozesses hat darzustellen, wie es m?glich ist, im Selbst die Gefühle und Phantasien eines Anderen zu erfahren und ihm auch zuzuordnen. Hier zeigt sich, da? der theoretisch begründete Versuch, zwischen Selbst- und Fremdwahrnehmung zu unterscheiden, in eine Sackgasse führen mu?. Angemessener erscheint eine konstruktivistisch orientierte Hypothese, die die Einfühlung als einen pers?nlichen Entwurf versteht. Dieser Entwurf orientiert sich sowohl an den eigenen inneren Objekten als auch an den konkreten Erfahrungen mit dem Gegenüber. Im psychoanalytischen Dialog bringen beide Beteiligte, Patienten und Psychoanalytiker, ihre empathischen Entwürfe zur Geltung und suchen darüber eine Verst?ndigung.

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The ability to share another person's feelings: About empathy

Summary. The ability of empathy includes different competences: being infected by emotions, the adoption of another person's perspective and the capability to understand the social context. All three competences have to be learned through social experiences. A theory of the empathic process has to describe, how it is possible to experience emotions and phantasies of another person in the self as one's own and to recognize them as belonging to the other. The theoretically founded attempt to differentiate between self-perception and the perception of the other proves necessarily to reach an impass. A constructivistic hypothesis seems to be more appropriate here, that conceives empathy as a personal draft. This draft is directed by one's own inner objects and by concrete experiences with the other as well. In the psychoanalytic dialogue both participants, patient and analyst, develop their empathic drafts and try to reach through them an understanding.

     

Empathy,Einfühlung,and aesthetic experience: the effect of emotion contagion on appreciation of representational and abstract art using fEMG and SCR

Since the advent of the concept of empathy in the scientific literature, it has been hypothesized, although not necessarily empirically verified, that empathic processes are essential to aesthetic experiences of visual art. We tested how the ability to “feel into” (“Einfühlung”) emotional content—a central aspect of art empathy theories—affects the bodily responses to and the subjective judgments of representational and abstract paintings. The ability to feel into was measured by a standardized pre-survey on “emotional contagion”—the ability to pick up and mirror, or in short to “feel into”, emotions, which often overlaps with higher general or interpersonal empathetic abilities. Participants evaluated the artworks on several aesthetic dimensions (liking, valence, moving, and interest), while their bodily reactions indicative of empathetic engagement (facial electromyography—EMG, and skin conductance responses—SCR) were recorded. High compared to low emotion contagion participants showed both more congruent and more intense bodily reactions (EMG and SCR) and aesthetic evaluations (higher being moved, valence, and interest) and also liked the art more. This was largely the case for both representational and abstract art, although stronger with the representational category. Our findings provide tentative evidence for recent arguments by art theorists for a close “empathic” mirroring of emotional content. We discuss this interpretation, as well as a potential tie between emotion contagion and a general increase in emotion intensity, both of which may impact, in tandem, the experience and evaluation of art.     

Alexithymia in the interpersonal domain: A general deficit of empathy?

Alexithymia and empathy have been related but very little is known on shared variance between their respective affective and cognitive dimensions. We examined this question with correlations, as well as both exploratory and confirmatory analyses, and controlled for anxiety and depression. The responses of 645 young adults to self-report questionnaires of alexithymia (TAS-20), empathy (IRI), anxiety (STAI-T) and depression (BDI-13) were examined. We observed associations between the proposed cognitive components of alexithymia (externally-oriented thinking) and that of empathy (perspective taking, fantasy) as well as empathic concern, which were insensitive to anxiety or depression. In contrast, associations between the proposed affective components of alexithymia (difficulty identifying feelings, difficulty describing feelings) and empathy (personal distress) were largely due to shared covariance with anxiety. A model encompassing an affective and a cognitive (including empathic concern) latent factors emerged, even after controlling for dysphoric affects. These findings suggest specific associations between cognitive and affective components of both constructs that were dissimilarly affected by anxiety and depression. The allocation of empathic concern to the cognitive factor is also discussed.     

Interaction of data and hypotheses in probabilistic inference tasks: Rejection of the hypothesis sampling model?

The problem of whether or not data influence subjects' sampling of hypotheses about functional relations in the probabilistic inference tasks was examined. The results of the experiment show first, a considerable impact of data on subjects' hypothesis selection and second, that the subjects significantly modify their hypothesis selection from one part of the experiment to the other. Thus, there is an interaction of data and hypotheses in cue probability learning (CPL) tasks regarding the hypothesis sampling process and an execution of cognitive control over the subjects' hypothesis pool.     

Decrement of the Müller-Lyer and Poggendorff illusions: the effects of inspection and practice

Five experiments assessed the decline or decrement in illusion magnitude for the wings-out form and the combined or Brentano form of the Müller-Lyer illusion, and for the Poggendorff illusion. Judgments were obtained under conditions of either continuous or intermittent inspection of the illusion figure. In the continuous-inspection conditions observers scanned the illusion figure during the inter-trial intervals whereas in the intermittent-inspection conditions they did not. Substantial illusion decrement was found in all continuous-inspection conditions and in intermittent conditions with short inter-trial intervals (upto 20 s) but not with longer inter-trial intervals. However, intermittent-inspection with a long inter-trial interval (40 s) produced illusion decrement but only when observers were instructed during the decrement session to ignore the wings, and pay attention to the shaft, of the Müller-Lyer figure. Taken together, the pattern of results does not support the claim that illusion decrement is primarily a product of practice or repeated trials.     

Which empathy? Limitations in the mirrored “understanding” of emotion

The recent discovery of so-called “mirror-neurons” in monkeys and a corresponding mirroring “system” in humans has provoked wide endorsement of the claim that humans understand a variety of observed actions, somatic sensations, and emotions via a kind of direct representation of those actions, sensations, and emotions. Philosophical efforts to assess the import of such “mirrored understanding” have typically focused on how that understanding might be brought to bear on theories of mindreading (how we represent other creatures as having mental states), and usually in cases of action. By contrast, this paper assesses mirrored understanding in cases of emotion and its import for theories of empathy and especially empathy in ethical contexts. In particular, this paper argues that the mirrored understanding claim is ambiguous and ultimately misleading when applied to emotion, partly because mirroring proponents fail to appreciate the way in which empathy might serve a distinct normative function in our judgments of what other people feel. The paper thus concludes with a call to revise the mirrored understanding claim, whether in neuroscience, psychology, or philosophy.     

Measuring adolescents’ beliefs in conspiracy theories: Development and validation of the Adolescent Conspiracy Beliefs Questionnaire (ACBQ)

Four studies (total n = 961) developed and validated the Adolescent Conspiracy Beliefs Questionnaire (ACBQ). Initial items were developed in collaboration with teachers. An exploratory factor analysis (Study 1, n = 208, aged 11–14) and a student focus group (N = 3, aged 11) enabled us to establish the factor structure of a 9-item scale. This was replicated via confirmatory factor analysis in Study 2 (N = 178, aged 11–17), and the scale displayed good convergent (i.e., relationship with paranoia and mistrust) and discriminant validity (i.e., no relationship with extraversion). Study 3a (N = 257) further tested convergent validity with a sample of 18-year-olds (i.e., relationship with adult-validated measures of conspiracy beliefs) and demonstrated strong test–retest reliability. Study 3b (N = 318) replicated these findings with a mixed-age adult sample. The ACBQ will allow researchers to explore the psychological antecedents and consequences of conspiracy thinking in young populations.     

理解“Einfühlung”的四条进路——以利普斯为核心的考察

从西方哲学史和思想史的演进历程来看,对"Einfühlung"的理解形成了四条基本进路:(1)同感美学;(2)同感心理学;(3)同感伦理学;(4)同感现象学。这四条进路并非外在并列的关系,而是内在地关联在一起。利普斯把同感分为审美同感和实践同感,前者导向的是同感美学,后者导向的则是同感心理学和同感伦理学。同感心理学和同感伦理学有一个共同的指向:他人。胡塞尔批判地继承了利普斯的同感概念,在实践同感的向度上构建了一门以他人问题为核心的同感现象学,但同感现象学仅限于认识论,而不涉及伦理学。利普斯把同感理解为自我的投射或移置,从根本上否认了他人的存在,从而也使其利他主义的伦理学陷入了悖论。胡塞尔在承认他人之绝对他异性和外在性的前提下,将同感理解为对他人及其体验的经验。虽然同感现象学也存在诸多问题,但其对同感之本质的理解具有相当的合理性,对于利普斯的同感理论可以起到必要的校正和纠偏作用。     

A quantitative analysis of illusion magnitude predicted by several averaging theories of the Müller-Lyer illusion

This article describes a quantitative method to evaluate several averaging:(i.e., confusion and assimilation) theories by comparing predictions of the absolute magnitude of the Müller-Lyer (ML) illusion with results of previous studies of the composite ML figure. The magnitude of illusion was best predicted by Davies and Spencer’s (1977) theory and by integrative field theory (Pressey & Pressey, 1992). Furthermore, when the ML figure was at the point of subject equality, the average of shaft and intertip distances, and the configurai dimensions proposed by Davies and Spencer, were most frequently closest to being equal in the apex-in ML and apex-out ML. Results indicate that a comparison of predicted and reported absolute magnitudes of the ML illusion can provide quantitative criteria to distinguish and evaluate averaging theories of the ML illusion.     

A narrative synthesis of the applicability of the CaR–FA–X model in child and adolescent populations: a systematic review

The CaR–FA–X model [Williams, J. M. G., Barnhofer, T., Crane, C., Hermans, D., Raes, F., Watkins, E.,?…?Dalgleish, T. (2007). Autobiographical memory specificity and emotional disorder. Psychological Bulletin, 133(1), 122–148. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.133.1.122] is the most prominent and comprehensive model of overgeneral autobiographical memory (OGM) and provides a framework for OGM. The model comprises of three mechanisms, capture and rumination, functional avoidance and impaired executive control. These can independently, or in interaction, account for OGM. This systematic review aims to evaluate the existing research on the CaR–FA–X model, and trauma exposure studies specific to child and adolescent populations. The following databases were searched: “PsychInfo”, “PsychArticles”, “PubMed”, “Web of Science”, “Medline”, “SCOPUS” and “Embase” for English-language, peer-reviewed papers with samples <M?=?18 years, published since 1986. Support was reported for a relationship between trauma exposure and OGM as well as for capture errors and OGM. Limited support was found for rumination, avoidance and impaired executive control in isolation. No support was found for interacting mechanisms and OGM. Partial support for the CaR–FA–X model was found for child and adolescent populations. Recommendations, proposals for future research and plausible explanations for the mixed findings are discussed.     

Perfectionism and emotion regulation in coaches: A test of the 2 × 2 model of dispositional perfectionism

The manner in which coaches regulate their emotions has implications for their performance and well-being. Drawing on research that has found perfectionism to predict emotion regulation in other settings, this study adopted the 2 × 2 model of perfectionism to examine whether subtypes of perfectionism among coaches were associated with variation in the use of emotion regulation strategies. Coaches (N = 238, M age = 23.92, SD = 10.32) from various sports completed measures of perfectionism (personal standards and evaluative concerns) and emotion regulation strategies (expressive suppression, cognitive reappraisal, and control of anger directed inwards and outwards). Moderated hierarchical regression provided mixed support for the 2 × 2 model. As expected, pure personal standards perfectionism (high standards/low concerns) was generally associated with the highest capacity for emotion regulation and pure evaluative concerns perfectionism (low standards/high concerns) with the lowest. Unexpectedly, mixed perfectionism (high standards/high concerns) was associated with the highest level of expressive suppression, suggesting that in some instances standards might exacerbate rather than attenuate concerns.