Sympathy for the underdog: people are inclined to adopt the emotional perspective of powerless (versus powerful) others

Sympathy for the underdog: people are inclined to adopt the emotional perspective of powerless (versus powerful) others. François Quesque, Alexandre Foncelle, Elodie Barat, Eric Chabanat, Yves Rossetti & Jean-Baptiste Van der Henst. Cognition and Emotion, Mar 16 2021. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2021.1902282

Abstract: Upon learning of the story of Cinderella, most people spontaneously adopt the emotional perspective of this helpless young woman rather than of her older sisters who oppress her. The present research examines whether this pattern reveals a general human tendency to empathise more with the emotions of individuals with low (versus high) power. Six experiments (N = 878) examined how power influences the focus of people’s emotional attributions. Participants were presented with situations in which one character exercised power over another one and had to resolve a referential ambiguity by considering the perspective of one or the other character. Results show that participants largely privileged the emotional states of the low-power character over those of the high-power character. This effect was observed with different types of stimuli (comics and video clips), with high- and low-power roles attributed to pairs of different genders (Experiments 1–4) or same gender (Experiments 5–6). Finally, the tendency persisted – though it was reduced – when participants adopted a less passive role with respect to the characters (Experiment 3) and when power occurred in a less despotic way (Experiment 6). Results are discussed with respect to social attention and sensitivity to fairness.

KEYWORDS: Perspective-takingemotionpowermentalisingreferential ambiguity