The effect of emotional valence on rudimentary sympathy

Abstract

Estimating and understanding the feelings of others (i.e., empathy) is essential in human society. Empathy with others in distress is called “sympathy,” in which we approach to the distressed others to console them, and/or help them. Preverbal infants show similar approaching behavior to a victim in aggressive social interaction of geometrical objects. It is called rudimentary sympathy, and it is also observed in adults. However, it is not clear whether rudimentary empathy is affected by other factors such as people’s mood. In the present study, we conducted an experiment to clarify the effects of emotional valence (positive and negative) on rudimentary sympathy in adults using a remote and online experiment. Positive and negative emotions were generated using audio stimuli. After participants listened to the stimuli, they observed an animation consisting of aggressor and victim objects, and responded to which they preferred more. We found that participants preferred the victim object to the aggressor object in both positive and negative emotions. These results suggest that rudimentary sympathy arises in adults regardless of their emotional valence.