This presentation discusses empathy research and its applications to technology. It defines empathy as having both cognitive and affective components, including perspective-taking and feeling another's emotions. Studies show empathy increases with familiarity, similarity, learning, past experience, and salience. However, online interventions to increase empathy have mixed results and may paradoxically increase bias when perspective-taking is forced. The presenter's own research found the distraction condition reduced bias most, while empathy interventions increased self-centeredness. Moving forward, the presenter advocates reducing narcissism, strengthening self-esteem, and using collaboration to expand self-interest and create a sense of common humanity when designing empathy interventions online.

1. EMPATHY AND TECHNOLOGY
DEFINITIONS, EXAMPLES, AND FUTURE
DIRECTIONS
Presentation by Christine Rosakranse, Stanford University Department of Communication
Prepared for Facebook HQ, December 8, 2016

2. THE GOAL OF EMPATHY RESEARCH IS TO…
FIND A WAY TO MAKE
PEOPLE MORE
COMPASSIONATE OR TO
FOSTER EMPATHY AND
COMPASSION THROUGH
AN EXISTING
TECHNOLOGY

3. EMPATHY
WHAT IS IT?

4. TEXT
THEORY OF MIND
▸ Feeling another’s emotions
▸ Cognitive perspective-taking
▸ Mirror Neurons and ToM
(Trump Effect)
▸ Autistic example

5. EMPATHY: ITS ULTIMATE AND PROXIMATE BASES, (PRESTON, DE WAAL)
▸ Ultimate bases: “Empathy increases with:
Familiarity
(subject's previous experience with object)

6. SIMILARITY
▸ Similarity can be manipulated (red team vs. blue team)
(perceived overlap between subject and object e.g. species, personality, age, gender),

7. LEARNING
▸ Learning
(explicit or implicit teaching)

8. PAST EXPERIENCE
▸ Past experience
▸ (with situation of distress)

9. SALIENCE
▸ (strength of perceptual signal e.g. louder, closer, more
realistic etc.)

10. MOTIVATIONAL THEORIES OF
EMPATHY
BATSON’S EMPATHY-JOY-ALTRUISM
HYPOTHESES

11. EMPATHIC-JOY HYPOTHESIS
▸ “We reasoned that if empathically
aroused individuals are egoistically
motivated to gain empathic joy,
then their desire to hear from the
needy person again should be a
direct function of the likelihood of
obtaining empathic joy…”
▸ Empathic-altruism: “altruistically
motivated individuals should want
to hear how the needy person is
doing even when the chances of
improvement are not great.”

12. EMPATHIC-JOY HYPOTHESIS VS. EMPATHY-ALTRUISM
BATSON ET AL.’S ABSTRACT
▸ Three experiments tested whether empathy evokes egoistic motivation to share vicariously
in the victim's joy at improvement (the empathic-joy hypothesis) instead of altruistic
motivation to increase the victim's welfare (the empathy-altruism hypothesis).
▸ In Experiment 1, Ss induced to feel either low or high empathy for a young woman in need
were given a chance to help her. Some believed that if they helped they would receive
feedback about her improvement; others did not.
▸ In Experiments 2 and 3, Ss induced to feel either low or high empathy were given a choice
of getting update information about a needy person's condition. Before choosing, they were
told the likelihood of the person's condition having improved—and of their experiencing
empathic joy—was 20%, was 50%, or was 80%.
▸ Results of none of the experiments patterned as predicted by the empathic-joy hypothesis;
instead, results of each were consistent with the empathy-altruism hypothesis.

13. Perspective-taking as a method for increasing empathy
PERSPECTIVE-TAKING
▸ “To manipulate empathy, some
subjects were asked to adopt an
objective perspective while
watching (low-empathy
condition), and others were
asked to imagine how the young
woman felt (high-empathy
condition).”
IMAGE FROM PRESTON, DE WAAL HTTP://COGPRINTS.ORG/1042/1/PRESTON_DE_WAAL.HTML

14. FOR FIRST EXPERIMENT
DEPENDENT MEASURES
▸ Dependent measure: Volunteering to help KatieON, BATSON, SLINGSBY, HARRELL, PEEKNA, TODD
uded that the empathy
thy, distress, and sadness.
s raised earlier and the
stinguishability ofself-
onse to the need situa-
9; Batson et al, 1988), a
nses to the six empathy
rmed, grieved, troubled,
, and perturbed), and four
g low, heavyhearted, and
perturbed, all of these
nt. Omitting perturbed
t solution (eigenvalue =
gher on this component.
that in response to the
pathy, distress, and sad-
gle underlying dimen-
n was, as Batson et al.
d, that the distress and
Table 1
Proportion ofSubjects Agreeing to Help Katie
in Each Cell ofExperiment 1
Empathy
condition
Low
Proportion
M
High
Proportion
M
No information
about feedback
.42
0.67
.75
1.00
Information about feedback
No feedback
.33
0.33
.83
1.17
Feedback
.67
0.92
.58
0.75
Note, n = 12 per cell. The means are those for the scaled measure of
helping, ranging from no help (0), 3-5 hr (1), 6-8 hr (2), to 9-10 hr (3).
by the empathy-altruism hypothesis in both the no-informa-
tion (replication) condition (z = 1.69, p < .05, one-tailed) and the
no-feedback condition (z = 2.62, p < .005, one-tailed). The
significant difference in the no-feedback condition was con-
An analysis of variance on the proportion of subjects volunteering to help Katie in each cell revealed a
reliable empathy main effect, x2(l, N=12) = 5.04, p < .025. This main effect was, however, qualified
by a marginally significant interaction, x2(2, N= 72) = 4.87, p <. 10.

15. WILL EMPATHY
INTERVENTIONS WORK?
ONLINE?

16. ONLINE RAMIFICATIONS FOR INTERPERSONAL EMPATHY
▸ Computer-mediated communication eliminates some
real-world context clues for sharing emotion
▸ However, it can also be hyperpersonal (Walther)
▸ Hian, Chuan, Trevor, and Detenber's 2006 study found
that “relational intimacy” increased at a faster rate in
CMC than in Face-to-Face interactions

17. MEDIA AGAINST BIAS
➤ Mixed results
➤ VR example:
➤ Putting Yourself in the Skin
of a Black Avatar Reduces
Implicit Racial Bias (Tabitha
C. Peck, Sofia Seinfeld, Salvatore
M Aglioti, Mel Slater)
➤ The influence of racial
embodiment on racial bias
in immersive virtual
environments (Victoria
Groom, Jeremy N. Bailenson, and
Clifford Nass) - increases bias
in IAT

18. DIGITAL MEDIA EFFECTS
➤ Heavy social media use can be both an indication of
narcissism and a means of supporting and perpetuating
narcissistic behavior (Buffardi & Campbell, 2008; Leung,
2013)
➤ Social networks tend to be “homogenous with regard to many
sociodemographic, behavioral, and interpersonal
characteristics” (McPherson et al. 2001)
➤ Face-to-face communication is not the same as computer-
mediated communication (Walther et al., 1994; Riva, 2002)

19. MY EXPERIMENT

20. COMBINES THREE EXPERIMENTAL APPROACHES
➤ Oswald’s manipulation: designed a study using videotape to
demonstrate the relationship between affective empathy,
cognitive empathy, empathic concern and altruistic helping
➤ Decety and Yoder’s questionnaire design: using affective,
cognitive, and social justice sensitivity as measures
➤ Imagined intergroup contact paradigm: recording written
responses as a method for measuring perspective-taking

21. INDEPENDENT VARIABLES
➤ 2 x 3 design: Empathy
condition by cued condition
➤ Empathy condition:
Affective, cognitive, or
distraction
➤ Cued condition: Cued or
not cued for comment
Affective
Cued
Cognitive
Cued
Distraction
Cued
Affective
Not Cued
Cognitive
Not Cued
Distraction
Not Cued

22. DEPENDENT VARIABLES
➤ Bias Measures
➤ Homophobia
➤ Resentment and Over Racism
Against African-Americans
➤ Illegal Alien Scale
➤ Difference in Justice Sensitivity
Scales
➤ Helping Behaviors
➤ Volunteering
➤ Money Donation

23. ADDITIONAL
COVARIATES
Gender, Narcissism and
Interpersonal Reactivity

24. HYPOTHESES
➤ H1a-g: There will be a main effect of empathy conditions on bias against
marginalized groups.
➤ H2a-g: The interaction between empathy condition and cued condition
will result in significant effects on the bias measures.
➤ H3a-d: There will be a main effect of empathy condition on justice
sensitivity.
➤ H4a-d: The interaction between empathy condition and cued condition
will result in significant effects on justice sensitivity.
➤ H5a-d: The interaction between empathy condition and cued condition
will result in significant effects on helping behavior.

26. RESULTS
(but first a little thought experiment)

27. This is George…

28. RESULTS: H1 - MAIN EFFECT OF EMPATHY CONDITION ON ILLEGAL ALIEN SCALE
F (2, 135) = 3.31*
p = .039

29. H2 - WHAT IS AN INTERACTION EFFECT?
An interaction effect occurs
when the the effect of one
independent variable depends
on the level of the other
independent variable.

30. H2A-D: EFFECTS ON HOMOPHOBIA
F (2, 135) = 3.64*
p = .029
Factor 1,
Behavior/Negative Affect

31. H2A-D: EFFECTS ON HOMOPHOBIA
F (2, 135) = 3.34*
p = .038
Total:
Homophobia

32. JUSTICE
SENSITIVITY
with 4 subscales

33. Findings for Justice Sensitivity, 4 subscales

34. JUSTICE SENSITIVITY: FACTOR 1, SELF-ORIENTED (VICTIM)
F(2, 136) = 4.63
p = .01

35. JUSTICE SENSITIVITY: FACTOR 3, OTHER-ORIENTED
F(2, 135) = 3.63*
p = .03

36. HELPING BEHAVIORS
Volunteering and money donation

37. VOLUNTEERING: CIVIL RIGHTS AWARENESS BOOTH
F(2, 135) = 3.09*
p = .049

38. SIGNIFICANCE OF FINDINGS
When empathy succeeds and why it fails

39. EMPATHY VERSUS “RATIONAL COMPASSION”
➤ Implication of the medium
➤ Not the same as face-to-face
➤ Increasing interactivity has different
effects across conditions
➤ The popular YouTube format and digital
storytelling may have adverse effects on
bias against marginalized
➤ Compounded by empathy prompts
➤ Affected by forcing response

40. RELATED TO THE POPULATION
➤ Least bias against illegal aliens in
the distraction condition
➤ Least homophobia in the
distraction cued condition
➤ Empathy intervention activated
self-centeredness
➤ Justice sensitivity for the
self increased in the
affective condition
➤ Distraction condition had
more other-oriented
thinking
➤ Affective, cued had most
volunteering for civil rights booth

41. NEXT IN RESEARCH

42. ➤Empathy

43. Core is a person’s initial attachment, self-esteem, level of narcissism, natural ability.
Learning can expand an initial self-interest through active listening and other exercises.

44. DIRECTIONS
➤ Looking at empathy as one tool for
bias reduction
➤ Reduce narcissism
➤ Help practice non-
judgement
➤ Strengthen core: self-
esteem, ability to perform
emotional labor
➤ Researching the role of
collaboration in reducing bias
➤ As a means of expanding self-
interest
➤ Creating a greater sense of
common humanity

45. ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
▸ Ashoka
▸ Practical ideas for solving social problems
▸ Non-Violent Communication (NVC)
▸ Active listening
▸ Mindfulness
▸ Humanistic Values
▸ d.school at Stanford for empathy in the design process

46. THANK YOU.