Preference for hierarchy is associated with reduced empathy and increased counter-empathy towards others, especially out-group targets

Abstract

Highlights• SDO predicted decreased empathy and increased counter-empathy in general.• Higher SDO scores were associated with greater intergroup empathy bias.• SDO scores also correlated with greater counter-empathy bias when groups competed. SOCIAL DOMINANCE ORIENTATION AND EMPATHY 3 AbstractThe capacity to empathize with others facilitates prosocial behavior. People's willingness and capacity to empathize, however, is often contingent upon the target's group membership -people are less empathic towards those they categorize as out-group members. In competitive or threatening intergroup contexts, people may even feel pleasure (counter-empathy) in response to out-group members' misfortunes. Social dominance orientation (SDO), or the extent to which people prefer and promote groupbased inequalities, is an ideological variable that is associated with a competitive view of the world, increased prejudicial attitudes, and decreased empathy. Thus, higher levels of SDO should be associated with reduced empathy and increased counter-empathy in general, but especially towards those whose subjugation maintains group inequalities.Across three studies we show that among White individuals, higher SDO levels are associated with less empathy, and more counter-empathy in response to others' good and bad fortunes. More importantly, these reductions in empathy and increases in schadenfreude as a function of SDO were significantly stronger for Asian and Black targets than for in-group White targets when group boundaries were made salient prior to the empathy ratings. Finally, in a fourth study we show that this phenomenon is not dependent upon a history of status differences: higher SDO scores were associated with decreased empathy and increased counter-empathy for competitive out-group (relative to in-group) targets in a novel group setting. We discuss implications of these effects for hierarchy maintenance.

Climate change threats increase modern racism as a function of social dominance orientation and ingroup identification

“…Previous research has shown that individuals high in SDO are especially attuned to information which signals increased competition for resources and privileges arising from disruptive social changes to the social hierarchy of status and power (e.g., Duckitt & Sibley, 2017 (Uenal, Sidanius, & van der Linden, 2020). Moreover, in line with previous research showing that individuals relatively high in SDO being highly attuned to information which signals increased competition for resources, status, and power (e.g., Duckitt & Sibley, 2017;Hudson, Sidanius, & Cikara, 2019;Sidanius et al, 2017) We tested our hypotheses in two pre-registered studies in two different national contexts (USA and UK; N = 1031). A detailed overview of our hypotheses is presented in the Supplementary Online Materials (see SOM, S-Hypotheses 1).…”

Empathic responses to social targets: The influence of warmth and competence perceptions, situational valence, and social identification

“…Previous evidence demonstrates that target characteristics influence the amount of empathy displayed by an observer. Specifically, earlier research has shown reduced (mostly emotional) empathy for out-group members compared with that for in-group members [25][26][27][28][29][30][31], which possibly relates to reduced moral processing mediated by the medial prefrontal cortex [32]. While suggestive, these observations call for further inspection.…”

Causes and consequences of coalitional cognition

“…One limitation is that asking how good and bad individuals feel in response to positive and negative events cannot fully capture the constructs "empathy" and "counter-empathy." Though we did not have this data at the time we ran the stereotype study, a subsequent pilot study (N=353; Hudson, Cikara, & Sidanius, 2019) assessed negative empathy and Schadenfreude using a multi-item scale that included the "good" and "bad" items as well as how sad/sympathetic/compassionate/concerned the participant felt (for empathy; items from Stürmer, Snyder, Kropp, & Siem, 2006) and how relieved/happy/satisfied the participant felt (for Schadenfreude; items from Leach et al, 2003;). Each subscale was internally consistent: empathy alpha = 0.87; Schadenfreude alpha = 0.96.…”