抄録
Prior research suggests that higher socioeconomic status (SES) individuals help others less than lower SES individuals due to the lack of empathic concern. This is thought to be because higher SES individuals are less likely to pay attention to others and, as a result, less likely to perceive their emotions accurately. Then, it is possible that when the distress of others is clear, higher SES individuals can perceive it and show the same level of empathic concern and intention to help as lower SES individuals. To test this possibility, an experiment was conducted. First, subjective SES of the participants was manipulated to create higher/lower SES conditions by comparing themselves with lower/higher SES individuals. Participants then listened to a tape in which an inpatient expressed either clear/ambiguous distress. After that, they reported their intention to help her or other inpatients, perceived distress, and empathic concern. Contrary to our prediction, only the main effect of the clarity of distress was significant both on perceived distress and empathic concern. Additionally, an unexpected interaction was significant; while there was no effect of the manipulation of subjective SES when they heard ambiguous distress, participants in the higher SES condition were more willing to do volunteer work than those in the lower SES condition when they heard clear distress. There were no differences between the two SES conditions in overall intention to help and intention to do the indirect help such as donation whether they heard clear/ambiguous distress. These results can be explained by the possibilities that the manipulation of distress might have served as the level of distress, which resulted in one's overestimation of the difficulty of volunteer work, and that increased sense of control among participants in the higher SES condition assured them that they could do the volunteer work.
