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When (not) to empathize: The differential effects of combined emotion recognition and empathic concern on client satisfaction across professions

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Abstract

Previous research found inconsistent associations between individuals’ emotion recognition ability and their work-related outcomes. This research project focuses on client satisfaction as a core work-related outcome. We argue that service settings differentially affect clients’ emotional goals, activating either socio-affective goals or goals targeting cognitive clarity. In service settings activating clients’ socio-affective goals, clients are expected to respond favorably if service providers combine emotion recognition with high empathic concern; in service settings activating clients’ cognitive clarity goals, clients are expected to respond more favorably if service providers combine emotion recognition with low empathic concern. Study 1 confirmed that service settings differentially affect clients’ emotional goals, with hairdressing settings activating socio-affective goals and psychotherapy settings triggering cognitive clarity goals. Accordingly, hairdressing clients were more satisfied if service providers combined emotion-recognition ability with high trait empathic concern (Study 2). Conversely, in the context of psychotherapy, clients were more satisfied if therapists’ combined emotion-recognition ability with low trait empathic concern (Study 3). Thus, service contexts moderate the effect of affective responses to clients’ emotional signals in a predictable manner.

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Notes

  1. In addition to empathic accuracy, Batson (2009) lists another five empathic phenomena which also focus on how people come to understand others’ feelings and thoughts. Not all of these require deliberate and conscious analysis of another individual’s states: (a) “motor mimicry” (Dimberg et al. 2000; Hoffman 2000) or “imitation” (Lipps 1903; Meltzoff and Moore 1997; Titchener 1909), meaning that people share another individual’s affective states because they unconsciously adopt their postures or match their neural activity patterns when observing them. By mapping others’ goal-directed behaviors onto their own mental representations, people come to infer others’ states of being through analogy (Pfeifer and Dabreto 2009). This automatic neural phenomenon originating from mirror neurons’ activity may or may not concur with the conscious experience of empathy; (b) “emotional contagion” (Hatfield et al. 1994) or “automatic emotional empathy” (Hodges and Wegner 1997), implying that individuals may unconsciously adopt another individual’s affective states through “shared physiology” (Levenson and Ruef 1992). Emotion contagion, for example, may occur when a newborn in a group of crying newborns starts crying, too. But how exactly this baby or people in general come to share others’ physiological states is not explained in detail; (c) “aesthetic projection” or “aesthetic empathy” (Wispé 1968), denoting that people imagine themselves to be another person or inanimate object; (d) “perspective taking” (Ruby and Decety 2004) or “projection” (Adolphs 1999), where people imagine how another person is feeling; and (e) “role taking” (Mead 1934) or “simulation” (Darwall 1998), where individuals imagine how they would feel were they in the other’s situation [see Batson (2009) for more details on the peculiarities of each of these phenomena].

  2. Feeling at ease was more important to behavioral therapy clients than psychoanalysis clients, (MBT = 4.75, SD = 1.48 vs. MPA = 3.30, SD = 1.16), t(20) = 2.51, p = 0.02. Solving problems was equally important to both client groups, (M = 5.75, SD = 0.45 vs. M = 5.90, SD = 0.32), t(20) = − 0.88, p = 0.39.

  3. Restricting the analyses to the 7-item version of empathic concern did not change the results: Clients agreed that the empathy items portrayed a caring individual (M = 4.29, SD = 0.85), but significantly less so a helpful therapist (M = 3.24, SD = 0.89); the difference was significant and large, F(1, 21) = 32.27, p < 0.001, η2 = 0.58.

  4. Eight participants (14%) did not mention their hierarchical position.

  5. We checked the internal consistency of the 7-item version as well, which was lower (α = 0.72).

  6. Including them did not change the results.

  7. Using the 7-item version of empathic concern did not change the results. Running an additional model including client gender and age as well as hairdressers’ gender and age, the interaction was marginally significant, Est. = 0.044, SE = 0.025, t = 1.797, p = 0.072.

  8. Using the 7-item version of empathic concern (with or without gender and age of clients and hairdressers) did not change the results.

  9. For eight patients, no diagnosis was available.

  10. Internal consistency of the seven item version was lower with α = 0.69.

  11. Using the 7-item version of empathic concern, which had a lower reliability, the interaction was Est. = − 0.047, SE = 0.026, t = − 1.774, p = 0.076.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Julia Hutzler, Tirza Jung, Michelle Leech, Theano Tolgou, and Peter Winzen who valuably contributed to this research by assisting with the data collection.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. EBS University of Business and Law, Rheingaustr. 1, 65375, Oestrich-Winkel, Germany

    Myriam N. Bechtoldt

  2. Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, De Boelelaan 1081, 1081 HV, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Bianca Beersma

  3. Universiteit van Amsterdam, Postbus 15900, 1001 NK, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Gerben A. van Kleef

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Appendix

Appendix

Empathic concern items

1.

When someone gets hurt in my presence, I feel sad and want to help him.

2.

When a friend tells me about his good fortune, I feel genuinely happy for him.

3.

I feel sad when I see a lonely stranger in a group.

4.

I care for my friends a great deal.

5.

When I see someone being taken advantage of, I feel kind of protective toward them.*

6.

Seeing warm, emotional scenes melts my heart and makes me teary-eyed.

7.

Occasionally I am not very sympathetic to my friends when they are depressed.

8.

When I watch a sad, “tear-jerker” movie, I almost always have warm, compassionate feelings for the characters.

9.

When I see someone being treated unfairly, I sometimes don’t feel very much pity for them.*

10.

I often have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me.*

11.

I would describe myself as a pretty soft-hearted person.*

12.

Sometimes I don’t feel sorry for other people when they are having problems.*

13.

Usually I am not extremely concerned when I see someone else in trouble.*a

14.

I am often quite touched by things that I see happen.*

  1. *Item used in the abbreviated version of the scale as reported in Davis (1980)
  2. aIn the abbreviated version, item was replaced with “Other people’s misfortunes do not usually disturb me a great deal.”

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Bechtoldt, M.N., Beersma, B. & van Kleef, G.A. When (not) to empathize: The differential effects of combined emotion recognition and empathic concern on client satisfaction across professions. Motiv Emot 43, 112–129 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-018-9725-z

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