Class and compassion: Socioeconomic factors predict responses to suffering.

作者：Jennifer Ellen Stellar, Vida Manzo, Michael W. Kraus, Dacher J. Keltner · 发表于：Emotion · 年份：2011 · DOI：10.1037/a0026508 · 被引用次数：385 · 研究领域：Psychological Well-being and Life Satisfaction、Cultural Differences and Values、Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes

Previous research indicates that lower-class individuals experience elevated negative emotions as compared with their upper-class counterparts. We examine how the environments of lower-class individuals can also promote greater compassionate responding-that is, concern for the suffering or well-being of others. In the present research, we investigate class-based differences in dispositional compassion and its activation in situations wherein others are suffering. Across studies, relative to their upper-class counterparts, lower-class individuals reported elevated dispositional compassion (Study 1), as well as greater self-reported compassion during a compassion-inducing video (Study 2) and for another person during a social interaction (Study 3). Lower-class individuals also exhibited heart rate deceleration-a physiological response associated with orienting to the social environment and engaging with others-during the compassion-inducing video (Study 2). We discuss a potential mechanism of class-based influences on compassion, whereby lower-class individuals' are more attuned to others' distress, relative to their upper-class counterparts.