Effect of situation similarity on younger and older adults’ episodic simulation of helping behaviours

Ryan, A. Dawn; Smitko, Ronald; Campbell, Karen L.

doi:10.1038/s41598-023-36189-y

Cited by 7 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 56 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The MLmed macro is suitable for testing 1-1-1 as well as 2-1-1 multilevel mediation models. Further, this macro has been reliably used in recent research involving multilevel mediation 59 – 64 , including research on narcissism 65 – 67 .…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Narcissistic coaches and athletes’ individual rowing performance

Nevicka,

van Gerven,

Sedikides

2023

Sci Rep

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Narcissism, a personality trait marked by an excessively self-aggrandizing, entitled, and dominant orientation, has been associated with high performance under competitive pressure, as these contexts afford the opportunity to self-enhance. Narcissism is often characteristic of organizational and political leaders, yet little is known about narcissism in sports coaches. We propose that in a competitive context narcissistic coaches could inspire and motivate their athletes to raise their performance. We investigated the association between coach narcissism and athletes’ performance, and the role of athletes’ perceived self-enhancement opportunity as a potential mediating mechanism. We examined coach narcissism, athletes’ individual end times (i.e., performance), and athletes’ perceptions of self-enhancement opportunity during annual national indoor rowing competitions in 266 national level competitive rowers from 52 rowing clubs. Results of multilevel analyses showed that coach narcissism positively predicted athlete performance, and this was explained by athletes’ perceived opportunity to self-enhance during the competition. Thus, narcissistic coaches seem to reinforce athletes’ perceptions that competition provides them with an opportunity to show off their skills, which in turn accounts for athletes’ better performance in comparison to athletes who do not train with narcissistic coaches. The findings point to a potentially functional side of narcissism in coaching.

show abstract

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Narcissistic coaches and athletes’ individual rowing performance

Nevicka,

van Gerven,

Sedikides

2023

Sci Rep

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The importance of episodic simulations in guiding empathic responding and prosocial behaviors has been well documented by prior research showing a link between forming episodic simulations of helping behavior, affective empathy, and the willingness to help a person in need (Gaesser et al, , 2019Ryan et al, 2023;Sawczak et al, 2022). However, another type of episodic simulation-and a more natural starting point for empathy-that might affect empathic responding is to imagine another person's distressing scenario.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

From memory to motivation: Probing the relationship between episodic simulation, empathy, and helping intentions.

Gregory,

Bartz,

O'Connor

et al. 2024

Emotion

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Research has documented a strong link between constructing episodic simulations-vivid imaginations of specific events-and empathy. To date, most studies have used episodic simulations of helping someone to facilitate affective empathy and promote helping intentions, but have not studied how episodic simulations of another's distressing situation affect empathy. Moreover, affective empathy encompasses both personal distress (i.e., an egocentric experience of distress in response to another's circumstances) and empathic concern (i.e., compassion for another), but we do not know how episodic simulations affect each component. To address these questions, we ran three experiments testing how different episodic simulations influenced personal distress and empathic concern, and thereby willingness to help. In Experiment 1 (N = 216), we found that participants who constructed episodic simulations of another's situation reported increased personal distress (but not empathic concern) and increased helping intentions compared to a control group; additional analyses revealed that personal distress mediated the simulation effect on helping. Furthermore, in Experiment 2 (N = 213), we contrasted episodic simulation of helping versus the distressing scenario; we found no differences in personal distress or helping intentions, but simulating helping led to higher empathic concern. Experiment 3 (N = 571) included both simulation conditions and a control condition; we fully replicated our findings, additionally showing that simulating a helping interaction increased personal distress, empathic concern, and helping intentions relative to the control condition, which consisted of prior work. Taken together, our work illustrates how distinct forms of episodic simulation differentially guide empathic responding and highlights the importance of personal distress in motivating helping.

show abstract

“…Thus, it should be further explored why such a difference cannot be observed in this study. Moreover, when considering the perspective-taking of older adults, the existing literature has suggested that cognitive empathy and perspective-taking abilities may decline with age [ 29 , 58 ]. In line with these findings, our study observed a similar trend using this unique research paradigm.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of Robot Animacy and Emotional Expressions on Perspective-Taking Abilities: A Comparative Study across Age Groups

Hu,

Tong

2023

Behavioral Sciences

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The global population is inevitably aging due to increased life expectancy and declining birth rates, leading to an amplified demand for innovative social and healthcare services. One promising avenue is the introduction of companion robots. These robots are designed to provide physical assistance as well as emotional support and companionship, necessitating effective human–robot interaction (HRI). This study explores the role of cognitive empathy within HRI, focusing on the influence of robot facial animacy and emotional expressions on perspective-taking abilities—a key aspect of cognitive empathy—across different age groups. To this end, a director task involving 60 participants (30 young and 30 older adults) with varying degrees of robot facial animacy (0%, 50%, 100%) and emotional expressions (happy, neutral) was conducted. The results revealed that older adults displayed enhanced perspective-taking with higher animacy faces. Interestingly, while happiness on high-animacy faces improved perspective-taking, the same expression on low-animacy faces reduced it. These findings highlight the importance of considering facial animacy and emotional expressions in designing companion robots for older adults to optimize user engagement and acceptance. The study’s implications are pertinent to the design and development of socially effective service robots, particularly for the aging population.

show abstract

Effect of situation similarity on younger and older adults’ episodic simulation of helping behaviours

Cited by 7 publications

References 56 publications

Narcissistic coaches and athletes’ individual rowing performance

Narcissistic coaches and athletes’ individual rowing performance

From memory to motivation: Probing the relationship between episodic simulation, empathy, and helping intentions.

Effects of Robot Animacy and Emotional Expressions on Perspective-Taking Abilities: A Comparative Study across Age Groups

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About