Relation of Sympathy and Personal Distress to Prosocial Behavior: A Multimethod Study

Relation of Sympathy and Personal Distress to Prosocial Behavior: A Multimethod Study

Nancy Eisenberg, Richard A. Fabes, Paul A. Miller, Jim Fultz, Rim Shell, Robin M. Mathy, and Ray R. Reno

Arizona State University

Assessed sympathy and personal distress with facial and physiological indexes (heart rate) as well as self-report indexes and examined the relations of these various indexes to prosocial behavior for children and adults in an easy escape condition. Heart rate deceleration during exposure to the needy others was associated with increased willingness to help. In addition, adults" reports of sympathy, as well as facial sadness and concerned attention, were positively related to their intention to assist. For children, there was some indication that report of positive affect and facial distress were negatively related to prosocial intentions and behavior, whereas facial concern was positively related to the indexes of prosocial behavior. These findings are interpreted as providing additional, convergent support for the notion that sympathy and personal distress are differentially related to prosoeial behavior.

Over the years, numerous philosophers (e.g., Blum, 1980) and psychologists (e.g., Barnett, 1987; Feshbach, 1978; Hoffman, 1984; Staub, 1978) have argued that empathy and sympathy, defined primarily in affective terms, are important motivators of altruistic behavior. In general, it has been asserted that people who experience emotional reactions consistent with the state of another and who feel other-oriented concern for the other are relatively likely to be motivated to alleviate the other's need or distress.

There is some empirical support for this assertion; most measures of empathy and sympathy have been significantly related to indexes of prosocial behavior (i.e., voluntary behaviors in-

This research was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation (BNS-8509223) and a Career Development Award from the National Institute of Child Health and Development (K04 HD00717) to Nancy Eisenberg and by postdoctoral fellowships from the National Institute of Mental Health to Paul Miller (1 F32 MH0926301-01) and Jim Fultz (l F32 MH081818-01).

We wish to express our gratitude to the principals, teachers, children, and parents of Arrendondo, Broadmor, Evans, Hudson, and Meyers schools who assisted in this work. Moreover, we are in debt to Neal Bechtal, Joseph Campos, and Ernest Lindholm for their consulting and expertise, to the anonymous reviewers for their insightful suggestions, to Tempe St. Luke's Hospital, and to the students who assisted in this research, especially Denise Bustamante, Elizabeth Grinder, Kelly Rhodes, Cheryl Provendar, Jeffrey Scott, and Michelle Wilson.

Paul Miller is now at Arizona State University, West Campus; Jim Fultz is now at Northern Illinois University; and Robin Mathy is now at the University of Indiana.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Nancy Eisenberg, Department of Psychology, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona 85287.

tended to benefit another; Eisenberg & Miller, 1987). The aforementioned pattern of empirical findings is not entirely uni- form, however, especially for self-report measures used with children. Moreover, the strength of the relations between empathy and prosocial behavior for both children and adults varies considerably, depending on the ways in which researchers have defined and operationalized empathy.

In regard to definitional issues, most investigators have not clearly differentiated among various types of negatively va- lenced affective responses to the distresses or needs of others (see, however, Hoffman, 1984; Stotland, 1969). This is problematic because one would not expect all types of vicariously induced emotional reactions to be positively associated with altruistic behavior. For example, Batson and his colleagues (Bat- son, 1987) have differentiated between sympathy (or empathy; Batson does not distinguish between the two) and personal distress reactions, both of which may occur when an observer re- sponds vicariously to another. Sympathy is defined as an other- oriented emotional reaction (such as concern) to another's emotional state or condition, whereas personal distress is defined as a self-oriented, aversive emotional reaction such as anxiety or discomfort. Batson has suggested that feelings of personal distress can be expected to lead to egoistically motivated assisting, that is, prosocial actions motivated by the desire to relieve one's own uncomfortable internal state by reducing contact with the aversive, arousal-producing cues emanating from the other. Thus, people experiencing personal distress are expected to help another primarily when they cannot easily escape from the arousal-producing situation; when escape is easy, people can more easily reduce their own distress by avoiding contact with the needy other. In contrast, feelings of sympathy are expected to lead to the other-oriented, altruistic goal of alleviat-

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1989, Vol. 57, No. 1, 55-66 Copyright 1989 by the American Psychological Association, Inc. 0022-3514/89/$00.75

55

56 EISENBERG ET AL.

ing the other's distress or need, even if it is easy to escape contact with the needy other (unless the cost of assisting is too high; see Batson, O'Quin, Fultz, Vanderplas, & Isen, 1983).

Several researchers (e.g., Batson, 1987; Davis, 1983; Dovidio, Allen, & Schroeder, 1987; Fultz, Batson, Fortenbach, McCar- thy, & Varney, 1986) have obtained considerable empirical support for Batson's assertions. Nonetheless, there are limitations in the literature in which sympathy and personal distress have been differentiated. In nearly all of the aforementioned research, sympathy and personal distress have been assessed with either self-report indexes or experimental manipulations (such as providing false feedback regarding subjects' empathic arousal or telling subjects either to imagine how another feels or to watch objectively). This is problematic because there are data consistent with the view that these self-report indexes and some experimental manipulations are influenced to some degree by concern with social evaluation or the desire to appear to oneself in socially desirable ways, or with both (e.g., Archer, Diaz-Loving, Gollwitzer, Davis, & Foushee, 1981; Eisenberg, Miller, et al., 1989; also see Eisenberg & Lennon, 1983). More- over, there is reason to believe that self-report indexes of young children's empathy and related responses may not adequately tap their emotional reactions; for example, self-report indexes of young children's vicarious responsivity are unrelated to their prosocial behavior, whereas facial indexes are positively related (Eisenberg & Miller, 1987). Thus, there is a need for research in which sympathy and personal distress are assessed with non- self-report indexes (e.g., facial and physiological indexes). Al- though all types of measures have problems (e.g., facial responses can be masked and physiological responses are affected by a variety of factors), conclusions regarding the relation between sympathy or personal distress and altruism could be drawn with greater confidence if findings from various types of indexes were to converge.

Another limitation of the extant research is that there are vir- tually no data concerning the ways in which sympathy versus personal distress relate to prosocial behavior in childhood. Hoffman (1984) has hypothesized that the capacities for experiencing personal distress (which Hoffman calls empathic distress) and sympathy (which he calls sympathetic distress) are developed by the second year of life. Moreover, prosocial acts that appear to be at least partially sympathetically motivated have been observed in 1- to 2-year-old children (Radke-Yarrow, Zahn-Waxler, & Chapman, 1983). Thus, it is reasonable to expect sympathy and personal distress to be differentially related to prosocial behavior in easy escape contexts in childhood, although such a relation may be less firmly established than during adulthood. There is some initial support for this hypothesis from research using facial indexes of personal distress and sadness or concern (Eisenberg, McCreath, & Ahn, 1988). However, there is, to our knowledge, no other relevant research involving children.

In this study, we used facial, self-report, and physiological (heart rate) indexes as markers of sympathy (or an other-orientation) and personal distress and examined the relations of these indexes to prosocial behavior in a situation in which escape from contact with the needy other was relatively easy. We assessed behavior in an easy escape situation to maximize the likelihood that any prosocial responding would reflect the altruistic

desire to alleviate the other person's distress rather than the egoistic desire to alleviate one's own distress. On the basis of the theory and literature reviewed previously, we expected the various indexes of sympathy (or concerned attention directed to- ward another) generally to relate positively to prosocial motivation and behavior (because empathic sadness and a focus on a needy other are likely to evoke or accompany role taking and sympathy). In contrast, we expected the indexes of personal distress to be uncorrelated with prosocial tendencies or to be negatively related (because an individual experiencing personal distress in an easy escape condition should be motivated to leave rather than help; Batson, 1987). However, given children's ap- parent difficulties in reporting precise emotional states (e.g., Eisenberg, McCreath, & Ahn, 1988), we did not expect self- report indexes to be consistently related to prosocial behavior among younger children.

In addition, in our emotion-eliciting situation, which involved another's (rather than one's own) sadness and distress, we expected empathic sadness (vicariously produced sadness in reaction to another's negative state) to be associated with a sympathetic reaction and, consequently, to be positively related to prosocial responsiveness. We made this prediction despite Cialdini, Schaller, Houlihan, Arps, Fultz, and Beaman's (1987) hypothesis that "an observer's heightened empathy for a sufferer brings with it increased personal sadness in the observer a n d . . , it is the egoistic desire to relieve the sadness, rather than the selfless desire to relieve the sufferer, that motivates helping" (p. 749). This was because Cialdini et al?s conclusions have not been supported in other studies (Batson, personal communication, May 1988; Dovidio & Schroeder, 1987; Eisen- berg, Miller, et at., 1989), and because our prediction is consistent with others' assumption that empathic sadness is fre- quently associated with other-oriented concern (e.g., Feshbach, 1978; Hoffman, 1984; Thompson, Cowan, & Rosenhan, 1980). However, our experimental context was one that would not cre- ate extremely strong levels of sadness; in situations in which empathic sadness is extreme or the other's distress and sadness has upsetting implications for the observer, empathic sadness may produce overarousal and a self-oriented response (Hoff- man, 1984).

With regard to the aforementioned hypotheses, it is easy to visualize the pattern of results for the self-report and facial indexes but more difficult to do so for heart rate (HR). However, there are conceptual and empirical reasons to expect different HR patterns to be associated with sympathetic and personal distress reactions. Specifically, it is likely that sympathy (or empathic sadness that leads to sympathy), which involves an other- oriented focus of attention, is associated with the intake of information concerning the needy other, interest in the other, and an outward attention. This type of information processing has been associated with HR deceleration in the psychophysiologi- cal literature (Cacioppo & Sandman, 1978; Lacey, Kagan, La- cey, & Moss, 1963). Of course, HR deceleration could also reflect an outward orientation unaccompanied by sympathy because physiological changes are affected by many factors, including cognitive processes. However, in situations involving needy or distressed others, other-oriented cognitive processes such as role taking might also be expected to lead to increased helping (Underwood & Moore, 1982). In contrast, when vicari-

SYMPATHY AND PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOR 57

ous responding results in an aversive reaction, such as apprehension, anxiety, or discomfort, it would be expected to be associated with the processing o f information relevant to one's own situation. Cognitive elaboration and active coping have been associated with H R acceleration across a variety o f studies (e.g., Cacioppo & Sandman, 1978; Lacey et al., 1963; Lazarus, 1974); thus, one can expect a self-focused, personal distress reaction to be associated with H R acceleration.

Consistent with the aforement ioned predictions, numerous researchers have found that fear, discomfort, or anxiety (e.g., Craig, 1968; Eisenberg, Fabes, et al., 1988; Kut ina & Fischer, 1977; Schwartz, Weinberger, & Singer, 1981), as well as personally distressing memories (i.e., memories of t imes when subjects were worried about their own well being; Eisenberg, Schaller, et al., 1988), are associated with H R acceleration. In contrast, vicariously induced sadness or sympathy appears to be associated with H R deceleration (e.g., Campos, Butterfield, & Klin- nert, 1985; Craig, 1968; Eisenberg, McCreath, & Ahn, 1988; Eisenberg, Schaller, et al., 1988). Thus, i f Batson (1987) is cor- rect, one would expect people who are willing to help in contexts likely to evoke sympathy to exhibit H R deceleration when exposed to needy others; in contrast, one would expect H R acceleration to be associated with lower levels o f prosocial intentions in situations in which it is easy to escape further contact with the distressing stimulus.

M e t h o d

S u b j e c t s

The participants were 66 second graders (31 girls, 35 boys; mean age = 8 years, 1 month), 69 fifth graders (34 girls, 35 boys; mean age = 10 years, 10 months), and 69 undergraduate students (36 women, 33 men; mean age = 21 years, 11 months). We dropped 10 additional sub- jeets (3 children, 7 adults) from the study because of either their suspi- cions about the study or technical problems. The children were from a middle-class community, and most were White. They received $5 and a prize for participation. The undergraduate students (most of whom were also White) participated for partial course credit in their introduc- tory psychology course.

P r o c e d u r e s

Experimental session. The study was described as a project being conducted for a local public TV station interested in obtaining individuals' emotional reactions to the content of actual, but as yet unaired, news broadcasts about real people and events in the community (adapted from Toi & Batson, 1982). Participants were led through the procedures by same-sex experimenters (three men, three women). This ~as done to reduce any embarrassment that might be caused when the experimenter attached the electrodes and because sex of experimenter has been shown to affect children's reports of empathy (Eisenberg & Lennon, 1983).

When the participants entered the experimental room, they were seated in an armchair facing a partially shielded one-way mirror and a television. While attaching the HR telemetry unit, the experimenter carefully explained how the system worked and, for children, made the process interesting and fun. Most of the children had previously viewed and touched the electrodes in their classrooms.

Two electrocardiograph electrodes were placed on each subject's left side--one on the chest just below the clavicle near the sternum and one above the clavicle on the shoulder (further out from the central axis of

the body). The experimenter then loosely strapped the participant's left arm to the arm of the chair to reduce movement (the strap could easily be loosened when participants needed to write).

Presentation o f the tapes and helping: Adults. The experimenter introduced the aduRs to the first TV program in the following way: "We have quite a number of different tapes so that only one participant will watch each tape, and who watches which tape is determined by a random procedure?' The tape was purportedly chosen according to a random-number list; the experimenter then started the videotape, asked the subject to tap a bell when the tape ended, and left the room. The primary purpose of the first tape was to promote the cover story that no two people would view the same programs. The context of the first tape (Bulletin Board, a newscast announcing community events and meet- ings) was very bland and (according to many subjects) rather boring. The purpose of including this film and the associated activities was to enhance the credibility of our cover story.

The experimenter returned when the subject rang the bell and gave the subject an emotional reaction questionnaire and an evaluation form to be used in rating the TV program. After explaining the forms, the experimenter again left the room while the subject completed the forms to avoid "biasing" the subject's responses. The adult subjects responded to 12 adjectives (on a 7-point scale: 1 = not at all; 7 = extremely), indicating their current emotional state. We counterbalanced order of adjectives across participants. On the basis of previous research, these adjectives should reflect individuals' personal distress, sympathetic concern, and sad reactions to another's need (Cialdini et al., 1987; Fultz, Schaller, & Cialdini, 1988). Subjects next rated (on a 7-point scale) how interesting the broadcast was and other related items.

The subject again rang the bell when finished, and the experimenter returned and introduced the second tape as another randomly assigned tape, this time from a series called "News From the Personal Side?' The series was described as short programs about real events that happened to people in the local community. As before, the subject was asked to watch the tape carefully because he or she would be the only person seeing that particular program. All subjects actually viewed the same tape in which a woman seated in a local hospital room with her "injured" children described to a reporter a serious car accident, the injuries it caused her two children, and the adjustment problems they were having as a result. She explicitly noted her children's fears of getting behind in school and failing and her problem as a single parent finding enough time to both be with them at the hospital and take care of household duties. Again, participants viewed the tapes alone.

When the subject rang the bell, the experimenter returned with the same forms as were used for the first tape. On "discovering" that one part of the evaluation form was misplaced, the experimenter asked the subject to start rating the adjectives as he or she went to search for the other form. About a minute after the subject completed the form, the experimenter returned (slightly out of breath), placed the missing evaluation form on the clipboard, and then said,

I also have this [envelope] to give you. I don't know what is in it, but the professor in charge of this research said to give it to the student scheduled to watch tape #24, so I guess that's you. So why don't you open and read this note first, and then work on the evaluation form and ring the bell when you are through.

The experimenter then left the room. In the envelope were two letters. One was from the professor in charge

of the research. She said that she had encouraged the mother to write a letter requesting assistance from the subject who watched the tape she was in. In the second letter, the mother said that it had been difficult for her to write the letter, but because of mounting difficulties in handling problems related to the accident, she had agreed to ask for some assistance with certain household tasks (e.g., shopping, yard work) so that she could spend more time tutoring and supporting her children while

58 EISENBERG ET AL.

they were hospitalized. She also indicated that she did not want the subject to feel obligated in any way. As in Batson's (1987) easy escape condition, individuals were led to believe they would have no contact with the family in need if they refused to help, and that the experimenter would be unaware of their decision. Enclosed with these letters was a small slip of paper indicating the number of hours that could be donated to helping her around the house, in 3-hr increments from 1-3 hr to more than ! 8 hr (i.e., 1 = no helping; 8 = more than 18 hr). The subject then, as indicated in the professor's cover letter, placed the slip (unsigned if the subject wished although there was a place for his or her name and phone number) in an envelope and sealed it. Finally, subjects filled out the "missing" program evaluation form, which included questions regarding the degree to which the person interviewed in the film was lik- able and needed help.

The experimenter returned and indicated that the session was nearly over. Prior to debriefing, the experimenter asked the participant for reactions to the films and probed for information that would suggest awareness of the experimental manipulation.

Adults in this study had also filled out several questionnaires (including the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale; Crowne & Marlowe, 1964) at a session 1-2 weeks prior to the experimental session. This session was described to the subjects as being part of a different study and was conducted by a different experimenter in a different room than was the experimental session.

Presentation o f tapes and helping: Children. The procedures involved in introducing the tapes and in the ratings were similar for children, with the following exceptions. First, the instructions were simplified when necessary. Second, the children rated their emotional reactions, using only 11 adjectives, and to help the children understand the use of the scale points, the scale was presented visually in the form of seven stacks of checkers---each stack of a different height--from which the children chose the one which reflected "how much" they felt each of the 11 feelings. Third, the experimenter read the adjectives to the children and showed the children how to rate the adjectives with the checkers. Fourth, the experimenter picked a number from a bowl (rather than by using a random numbers list) to determine which tape the children were to see (but of course the same tape was always indicated). Fifth, the letters from the professor and from the mother in the tape were read to the children by the experimenter, who then left the room while the child decided whether or not to assist. Sixth, the helping task for the children was different from that for adults. Each child was told that the children in the hospital needed help getting their homework from school, and that he or she could assist in gathering together homework materials if he or she was willing to give up recess time to help. The children in the tape were identified as new students at the subject's school but as being in different classes than the child's. Moreover, the participants were led to believe that the injured children would not re- turn to school in the near future, and so there would be little likelihood of contact with them. Participants were shown a 2-week calendar and told that they could indicate the number of days that they were willing to give up their recess by putting an X i n the space for any of the 10 days they wished to help (coded as 1 = 0 days, 11 = 10 days).

After the children had been left alone and given the opportunity to volunteer to assist, the experimenter returned and verbally adminis- tered several questionnaire indexes (see Footnote 4). Then, for a subgroup of 50 children (this procedure was added partway through the study), participants were told that if they wished, they could donate some of the $5 they were to earn for participating in the study to the family. The participants were then left alone to make their decision and to mark it on a piece of paper by circling the amount of money they wished to donate ($0, $0.50, $1, and so forth up to $5; coded 1 = $0, 11 = $5). This same subgroup rated on a 7-point scale how much they liked recess. Finally, after being given the opportunity to assist, all chil-

dren responded to 10 items from the Crandall, Crandall, and Katkovsky (1965) Social Desirability scale.

S c o r i n g

Heart rate. The HR data were recorded onto audiotapes for entry into the computer. We used the HR samplings (collected every 10 ms) to compute mean HR per 0.5 s (see Graham, 1978). When there was artifact in the HR data due to movement (which occurred relatively infrequently), we used the average of the last codable beat before and the first codable beat after the artifact in place of the uncodable data points (however, usually the 10-ms samplings could be used to determine when the peak of the heart beat occurred).

We computed mean HR (beats per minute) for the Bulletin Board tape (baseline tape), for the initial portion of the hospital tape during which time the announcer was merely introducing the hospital tape, for the most emotion-evoking portion of the tape (called the critical segment), and for the period during which the participants read (or were read) the letter from the mother. This critical segment of the hospital tape was chosen a priori by three psychologists who viewed the tape and agreed on which portion of the tape was most evocative (this was the section when the mother was talking about the accident and became visibly upset). This segment was 16 s in length (the entire tape could not be used because not all sections were evocative, and there would be too many data points to compute the trend analyses). Due to equipment problems, HR data were missing for 1 adult during the tape and for 2 adults during the reading of the letter.t

Facial data. The facial data were coded by two observers, both of whom were unaware of the details of the study or of the hypotheses. Moreover, the facial expressions were coded with the audio portion of the videotape off so that the coders would not know which tape was being coded. Facial codings were assigned every 15 s for the two tapes and once for the time during which the subjects were reading the letter from the mother requesting help. For each time unit, facial expressions were coded on a 0-5 rating scale (0 = no sign o f the given emotion, 5 = exceptionally strong display) for each of the following emotions: happiness (but not anxious or miserable smiles; Ekman & Friesen, 1982), sadness, distress or anxiety (mild apprehension), and sympathy (concerned attention). The specific criteria for scoring each emotion except sympathy were similar to those used in prior work on empathy (e.g., Eisenberg, Fabes, et al., 1988; Eisenber~ McCreath, & Ahn, 1988; Eisenberg, Schaller, et al., 1988) and reflect Ekman and Friesen's (1975, 1978, 1982) general criteria for facial scoring (i.e., for their happy, sad, and mild apprehension expressions). However, maximal responding and specific facial expressions, not facial action units, were coded. More- over, nervous, nonfunctional mouth and chin movements such as tight- ening of one's lips or biting of the lip were coded as distress, as were these movements combined with a brow that was lowered and pulled forward (this is in addition to the coding of Ekman & Friesen's mild apprehension as distress). Criteria for the concerned attention or sympathetic reactions (which were viewed as reflecting an orientation to- ward the other) were the eyebrow pulled down flat and forward over the bridge of the nose, furrowing in the center of the brow (especially for adults), eyelids not pulled in tight or raised, head and body oriented forward, bottom eyelids sometimes raised slightly, and lower face re- laxed (with the mouth sometimes opened). This type of response seemed to reflect an outward orientation and interest that would often

Because individuals' arms were strapped to the arm of the chair, and individuals were highly oriented to the tapes and could not assist the needy others by taking action while viewing the tape, there was very little gross movement by subjects while viewing the tapes (subjects' actions were recorded on videotape). Thus, it was not necessary to control for movement in analyses.


(although not always) be expected to be associated with role taking and sympathy.

Interrater reliabilities were computed for each of the time segments (each 15-s interval for the tapes, the entire period for the letter) for each of the four emotions (with Spearman coefficients). Reliabilities ranged from 0.63 to 1.00. In addition, alpha coefficients were computed for each of the four emotions for each tape and the letter reading period. These ranged from .84 to .97 with the exception of facial happiness during the Bulletin Board film (.65). Facial data were missing for 4 adults during the reading of the letter (but were available for when the adults viewed the tape).

Self-report data. As a first step in creating composite indexes of personal distress and sympathy, we factor-analyzed the self-report adjective ratings included to assess sympathy and personal distress after the hospital tape (using a varimax rotation). When loadings of.5 were considered and adjectives for sympathy, personal distress, and negative mood were included, three separate negative Mood (feeling sad, bad, down), Sym- pathy (concerned, sorry for), and Distress (anxious, worried) factors emerged for children, although the Distress adjective upset loaded more highly on the Mood (.51) than on the Distress (.45) factor (however, upset loaded with the Distress adjectives when mood adjectives were omitted from the factor analysis). For adults, the Mood (bipolar ratings on happy-sad, elated-depressed, and positive-negative mood), Sympa- thy (moved, sympathetic, compassionate, softhearted) and Distress (upset, alarmed, disturbed, distressed) factors emerged with no cross-loadings.

Subsequently, for both children and adults, we computed composite indexes of emotional response by determining the mean ratings for the adjectives in each composite index. The alpha coefficients for the children's three-item Distress scale (including the item distress) and two- item Sympathy scale were .74 and .69, respectively. Alphas for the adults' distress and sympathy composites were both .91. Self-report of distress and sympathy during the film were missing for 2 and 1 adults, respectively, and both were missing for 1 child. In addition, we computed alpha coefficients for the children's positive (feeling good, great, happy; a = .87) and negative (a = .77) mood scales, as well as for the mood scale for the adults (a = .91). Data were incomplete for 2 children.

Alphas for the social desirability scales were .80 for adults and. 74 for children.

Resul ts

Interrelations of Relevant Indexes of Emotional Response

Facial indexes. We hypothesized that, in our study, facial sadness would be a reflection of other-oriented empathic sadness rather than of egoistic personal sadness and therefore would be positively related to indexes of sympathy or concerned attention and not to indexes of personal distress (anxiety, worry). To explore this issue, we first examined the correlations among the various facial indexes. In these and all other analyses of facial expressions, we used difference scores (in which facial indexes for the Bulletin Board tape were subtracted from those for the hospital tape or for the period during the reading of the request for help) to control for individual differences in facial expressions in relatively neutral contexts (Rogosa & Willett, 1983). 2

For both adults and children, facial sadness during the hospital tape was significantly related to facial concerned attention, partial r(66) = .33, p < .006, and partial r(131) = .43, p < .001, respectively (in these and all other partial correlations, we partialed out sex for adults and children and grade for children;

however, doing so seldom had an appreciable effect on the correlations). We obtained a similar correlation for adults only during the reading of the request for help, partial r(62) = .24, p < .051. For children, facial sadness during the hospital tape was also marginally, negatively related to personal distress expressions, partial r ( l 31) = - . 16, p < .059 (facial sadness was not significantly related to adults' distress expressions, partial r = - . 17). Correlations between concerned attention and facial distress did not approach significance. There was also a significant negative relation for adults only between sad and happy expressions while viewing the hospital tape, partial r(66) = - .31 , p < .01. Thus, it appears that facial sadness and concern were positively interrelated and were unrelated (or marginally negatively related) to facial distress.

Facial and self-report indexes. Another way to examine the meaning of the various facial indexes was to compare them to subjects' self-reports of their emotional reactions during the same time frame. Of course, it is difficult to interpret interrelations of this sort because people may deny emotional responding, mask facial reactions, or be unable to accurately report what they are feeling. For adults, the few relevant, significant correlations support the view that our indexes of facial sadness and concerned attention reflect sympathetic reactions. Adults' displays of facial concerned attention and sadness were both at least marginally related to their reports of feelings of sympathy, partial rs(65) = .29 and .22, ps < .017 and .082, respectively. The only other correlation between adults' self-report indexes and facial responding was a marginally significant negative relation between facial sadness and report of personal distress while viewing the hospital tape, partial r(64) = - .22 , p < ,081.

For children, facial concerned attention was unrelated to their self-reports of feelings. However, facial sadness was positively related to the children's reports of negative mood, partial r(130) = .20, p < .025, and negatively related to report of posi- five mood, partial r(129) = - .22 , p < .011. The relation of facial sadness to reports of emotion was most evident for the second- grade girls; facial sadness was positively related to report of sympathy while viewing the hospital tape, r(29) =.38, p < .034, and negatively related to report of happiness, r(29) = - .46 , p < .01. This pattern of relations provides some support for the notion that facial sadness reflects, in part, sympathetic responding. The stronger findings for young gifts may be due to the fact that facial sadness was more frequent among the second graders than among the fifth graders or the adults, F(2, 198) = 3.71, p < .026 (Newman-Keuls post hoc tests were significant at .05). Moreover, these findings are consistent with our general finding of stronger interrelations among self-report and facial indexes for younger children than among those for older children or adults (Eisenberg, Fabes, Schaller, & Miller, in press). 3

2 The results of the various analyses involving facial indexes usually varied relatively little as a function of whether we used difference scores or scores for reactions during the hospital film.

3 Of the adults, women scored higher than men on self-reported negative mood, sympathy, and personal distress, ps < .008, .012, and .095, respectively. There were no gender differences in facial responses or helping. For children, there were no significant differences in self-reported emotional or facial reactions, although boys tended to report less distress, p < .08. However, girls helped and donated more than did boys, ps < .02 and .0 l, respectively.

60 EISENBERG ET AL.

• High Helper Group

n LOW Helper Group

8 6 - -

8 5 -

t~ 8 3 - - tW 1~ 8 2 - -

8 1 - - "1" , - 8 0 - -

~ 7 9 - -

7 8 - -

7 7 - -

7 6 - -

7 5 - -

. .f I 1

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Seconds

Figure 1. The relation of heart rate during the critical period of the sympathy film to high versus low helping. (Note: The critical period began at 3 s. The fact that low helpers generally were lower in heart rate than high helpers--regardless of the trend--was due to inclusion of more adults in the former group and more children in the latter [the effect for age was significant]. However, the Age × Linear Trend interaction was not significant.)

Heart rate with other indexes. To determine if HR deceleration was associated with other markers of sympathy and concern, whereas HR acceleration was associated with other markers of personal distress, we correlated change in HR (mean HR during the critical period minus mean HR during initial portion of film) with facial and verbal indexes. For the entire sample, there tended to be a decrease in HR (M = - .40) , and this decrease was associated with low levels of facial distress (i.e., there was a positive correlation between the change score and facial distress), partial r(199) = .21, p < .003. Acceleration in HR was positively related to adults ' self-report of negative mood, partial r(64) = .25, p < .04, but not to reports of distress or sympathy. In addition, fifth graders' (but not second graders') self-reports of personal distress were positively related to rela- tive increases in HR, partial r(64) = .36,p < .01 (in these analyses, we partialed out baseline HR as well as sex or age group, owing to the law of initial values). Thus, although there were relatively few correlations between HR and facial or self-report indexes, those that were obtained are consistent with expectations.

Relation of Situational Indexes of Sympathy, Personal Distress, and Mood to Willingness to Help

In the next set of analyses, we examine the hypothesis that the various markers of sympathy (including concerned attention) would be positively related to prosocial tendencies, whereas markers of personal distress would be unrelated or negatively related.

Heart rate. The major analyses conducted to test the relation between HR and willingness to help were trend analyses conducted for the HR data from the critical portion of the hospital tape. Participants were divided into two groups: those who did not volunteer to help or who volunteered to assist for only the minimum amount of time (one recess for children, 1-3 hr for adults; n = 70) and those who agreed to assist more than the minimum amount of time (n = 130). We used the split between minimal helpers and nonhelpers because only 6 second graders and I 1 fifth graders did not help at all; therefore, there were too few child nonhelpers to justify such a split. The number of children who helped was approximately 20% higher (N = 21) if minimal helpers were included with nonhelpers. We computed a 2 (sex) × 3 (age group) × 2 (helper: high vs. low) × Linear Trend (using the 0.5-s HR units as the repeated measure) repeated measures multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA).

We chose this procedure (using multivariate repeated measures procedures even with only one dependent variable) on the basis of recent recommendations of the Society for Psychophysiologi- cal Research (Jennings, Cohen, Ruchkin, & Fridlund, 1987; Va- sey & Thayer, 1987); repeated measures analyses, including trend analyses, have been among the most common experimental designs in psychophysiology (Vasey & Thayer, 1987). With such an analysis, we could examine change in HR patterns over time while subjects viewed the tape. Consistent with the physiological literature (Shields, 1983), there was a main effect for age, with HR being faster for younger people (mean HRs per min for the second and fifth graders and the adults were 88.7, 82.9, and 75.2, respectively), F(2, 191 ) = 15.61, p < .001. In addition, the Linear × Helper interaction was significant, F(I , 191) = 4.09, p < .04. 4 According to tests of simple linear effects, HR decelerated for the high helpers, F(1, 127) = 3.64, p < .06, but not for the low helpers (see Figure 1). The pattern was similar for adults and children (ps < . 15 or better). Moreover, when the 16 children who said they did not like recess were dropped from the analysis (because liking of recess was significantly, negatively correlated with helping, partial r(47) = - .45, p < .001), the Linear × Helper interaction was significant, p < .03 for both age groups combined and p < .09 for children, and the simple effect for helpers of all ages was significant, F(1, 118) = 4.07, p < .05.

We computed analogous analyses for the 50 children who also had an opportunity to donate some of their $5 to the needy family; this index of prosocial behavior was nonsignificantly, positively related to intent to help, partial r(46) = .20, p < . 18. This trend was not significant. In addition, we computed a MANOVA in which the difference between mean HR during the critical period of the tape and HR at the beginning of the tape was related to amount of helping (change in HR was treated as a continuous independent variable along with that of sex or age group; SPSSX, 1983). In this and all analyses, we transformed continuous indexes of willingness to help and donating with a natural logarithm to normalize the distribution of the data.

4 An alternative option would have been to split child helpers as minimal helpers or nonhelpers versus high helpers while splitting adults at help versus nonhelp (so the adult split between helping groups would be most even). For this analysis, F( l, 191 ) = 2.60, p <. 1 l , and F( 1, 191) = 3.86,p < .06, when the children who disliked recess were omitted.


This analysis was not significant for the measure of helping (for adults or children), but change in HR was related to amount of money donated by the younger children, F(I, 42) = 4.00, p < .051, for the Age × HR interaction; F(I, 24) = 5.35, p < .03, for the simple effect. Among second graders, HR deceleration was associated with higher donations, partial r(23) = - .43, p < .03.

Self-report and facial data:Adults. In a series of analyses, we examined the hypotheses that facial indexes of sympathy and sadness and self-report of sympathy (and perhaps global negative affect; there was no verbal index solely of sadness) would be positively related to indexes of prosocial tendencies, whereas indexes of personal distress would be unrelated or negatively related. As discussed previously, we expected the relations for verbal indexes to be stronger for adults. Because children's and adults' self-report composites were derived from ratings of somewhat different sets of adjectives, we analyzed their data separately. In addition, the results for the analyses of facial data are reported separately for adults and children because of differences in the results for the age groups.

We examined the pattern of results for adults' self-report data with a series of MANOVAS, including sex and one verbal report index as independent variables (the verbal index was treated as a continuous independent variable; SPSSX, 1983) and willingness to help as the dependent variable. We also computed corre- lational analyses to determine the direction and strength of any significant or marginally significant findings in the MANOVAS. Self-report of sympathy--the emotion expected to relate most strongly with helping--was significantly related to willingness to help, F(1, 62) = 4.40, p < .04. Report of sympathy was positively related to helping, partial r(63) = .25, p < .046 (see Tables 1 and 2). Report of personal distress was also marginally, positively related to helpful intentions, partial r(62) = .23, p < .07. Although this relation was not hypothesized, it is not surprising given that Batson and his colleagues (Batson et al., 1988) found (in several studies) that adults in a similar experimental situation seemed to respond to the items tapping personal distress "more in terms of an other-oriented feeling of distress... . than a feeling of being personally distressed by her [the needy other's] need" (p. 72). Indeed, adults' self-reported sympathy and distress were highly related in this study, partial r(64) = .62, p < .001, and in other studies (Batson, 1987). Because there were no significant interactions with sex in the aforementioned analyses, the patterns of findings were not significantly different for men and women (the respective partial rs were .31 and .20 for sympathy and .26 and .20 for distress).

Adults' self-reported sympathy and distress were both positively correlated with social desirability, partial r(60) = .30 and partial r(59) = .35, ps < .018 and .006, respectively (social desirability was unrelated to any other indexes). Thus, one must interpret the adults' verbal self-reports cautiously. 5

We examined the facial data with analyses similar to those described for the self-report data. In these analyses, there was a significant main effect of facial sadness, F(l, 63) = 5.98, p < .017, and a nearly significant effect for concerned attention, F(I, 63) = 3.61, p < .062. As predicted, both sadness and concerned attention were positively correlated with willingness to help, partial rs(64) = .30 and .20, ps < .032 and. 10, respectively (the rs for men and women were .30 and .29 for sadness and. 11 and

.32 for concerned attention, respectively). Facial expressions while reading the mother's request for help were unrelated to willingness to help (however, adults were looking down at the letter while reading). 6

In a final regression analysis, the various indexes of emotional response that would be expected conceptually to predict helping (facial sadness, distress and concerned attention, self- reported sympathy and distress, HR) were entered stepwise in the order of their contribution once the effects of sex had been removed; regression analysis was used so that more than one continuous independent variable could be included. In this analysis, we computed HR slope by summing the increases and decreases in HR over all the 0.5-s periods in the critical segment of the hospital film. We used this approximation of an index of slope for each individual (not for a correlation of HR with another variable) because the slope of a line for a single individual generally is dependent on only two data points (the first and last of the critical period) and therefore can vary considerably, depending on which 0.5-s periods are used as the starting and ending points.

In the aforementioned regression equation, facial sadness was the strongest predictor of adults' helping, R 2 change = .09 (over and above the contribution of sex), F(1, 63) for R 2 change = 6.01, p < .017. We entered self-report of sympathy into the equation next; for the additional contribution of this index, R 2 change = .06, F(I, 62) = 4.27, p < .043. The R for these three predictors was .38; no other indexes added significantly to the variance accounted for once we entered sex, facial sadness, and report of sympathy into the equation.

Self-report and facial data: Children. For children, the relations of self-reported emotional responses (positive mood, negative mood, distress, and sympathy) while viewing the needy others to willingness to help were examined with four separate 2 × 2 (Sex × Age Group) MANOVAS in which one of the four self-report composites was treated as a continuous independent variable (emotional response) and the dependent variable was amount of helpful intentions (SPSSX, 1983). There were no significant effects except for a Sex × Grade × Emotion interaction for positive affect, F(I, 126) = 3.98, p < .048. For older children only, there was a significant interaction between sex and emotion, F(1,64) = 6.89, p < .011, and this interaction was due primarily to boys' reports, F(I, 33) = 5.66, p < .023. For older boys, report of feeling good was negatively related to willingness to help, r(33) = - .38, p < .023 (see Table 3).

We computed analogous analyses for the subset of children

s In all the aforementioned analyses involving the continuous index of helping, results were very similar (and sometimes even stronger) when the index of helping was dichotomized into helping versus not helping or helping the minimum or less versus helping more than the minimum. A predominance index (sympathy minus distress) also was unrelated to helping. Similarly, when reported sympathy was correlated with helping while partialing out the effects of reported distress (and sex) and vice versa, neither reported sympathy nor reported distress was significantly correlated with helping (partial rs =. 14 and. 10, respectively).

6 In all the aforementioned analyses involving the continuous index of helping, results were very similar (and sometimes even stronger) when the index of helping was dichotomized into helping versus not helping or helping the minimum or less versus helping more than the minimum. This was also true for the children's data.

6 2 EISENBERG ET AL.

Table 1 Means for the Indexes of Self-Report Facial Affective Responses and Prosocial Behavior

Index Grade 2 Grade 5 Adults

Self-report of positive affect ~ 3.95 3.56 3.80 b

Self-report of negative affect ~ 3.69 3.81 Self-report of sympathy" 3.32 3.62 4.46 Self-report of parental distress ~ 5.56 5.48 3.17 Facial concern (sympathy) during

tapec 0.67 0.46 0.37 Facial distress during tape O. 14 0.08 0.07 Facial sadness during tape 0.82 0.64 0.59 Facial happiness during tape -0.01 -0.10 -0.09 Facial concern during request 0.34 0.24 0.22 Facial distress during request 0.59 0.47 0.26 Facial sadness during request 0.82 0.70 0.35 Facial happiness during request 0.21 -0.01 0.15 Helping d 5.31 5.90 2.19 Donating ~ 3.54 3.21

These indexes differed in form for children and adults, b For adults we used a bipolar scale such that a high score indicates a more negative reaction, c We used difference scores (subtracting facial reactions during the Bulletin Board tape) for all analyses of facial reactions, a Means for prosocial indexes are not transformed. ¢ Obtained only for a sub- sample of children.

p < .083, there was a marginally significant negative relation between distress and donating, partial r(18) = - .40, p < .085. In addition, for facial reactions to the reading of the request for help, there was a significant Grade × Emotion interaction for sympathetic reactions, F ( I , 42) = 4.19, p < .047. For younger children, F( I , 24) = 6.43, p < .018, there was a positive relation between sympathetic reactions and donating, partial r(23) = .48, p < .016. Thus, consistent with predictions, the overall pattern is that children's personal distress reactions were negatively related to helping or donating, whereas facial concerned attention was positively related to prosocial behavior (especially for younger children). We did not compute a regression equation for the children similar to that computed for adults because of the complex pattern of findings (i.e., many interactions with age and sex) for their data. Social desirability scores were not significantly related to the various indexes of children's emotional reactions.

In summary, for the facial indexes, there were relatively clear relations between facial reactions believed to reflect sympathy or empathic sadness and willingness to help for adults. For children, the findings were not as clear; however, there was some indication that children's personal distress reactions were negatively related to prosocial responding, whereas concerned attention reactions during the reading of the letter were positively related to prosocial tendencies.

who had the opportunity to donate money, using amount of donations as the dependent variable. There was a Sex × Emo- tion interaction for report of positive affect after the hospital film, F(1, 42) = 5.72, p < .021. The simple effect was significant for boys, F( I , 19) = 10.00, p < .005. For boys, report of positive affect was negatively related to amount of donations, partial r(18) = - . 6 2 , p < .003.

For children, facial reactions to the hospital tape were unrelated to willingness to help. However, reactions when hearing the letter from the mother (the request for help) were related to willingness to help. For distress reactions, the Sex × Emotion interaction was significant, F( I , 126) = 11.80, p < .001. The simple effect was significant for boys, F( I , 68) = 9.35, p < .003. As predicted for personal distress reactions, boys who exhibited more personal distress were relatively unlikely to offer to assist, partial r(67) = - .35 , p < .003. Moreover, although it was only marginally significant, there also was an interaction of Sex × Grade × Emotion for concerned attention reactions, F ( l , 126) = 3.10, p < .08 I. The simple effect was marginally significant for boys, p < .088; the simple, simple effect for young boys was also significant, p < .05. For second grade boys, sympathetic facial reactions were positively, marginally related to helping, partial r(35) = .33, p < .052.

We computed similar analyses for examining the relations between facial reactions and donating behavior. For reactions to the hospital tape, the only case in which a final correlation was significant was for distress. The Emotion × Grade interaction was significant for distress, F( I , 42) -- 5.77, p < .02 I. The simple effect was significant for older children, 17(1, 22) = 6.04, p < .022. For this group, facial distress was negatively related to donating, partial r(21) = - .59 , p < .003. Moreover, there was a marginally significant effect for the Sex × Emotion interaction for distress, F( 1, 42) = 3.5 l, p < .068. For boys, ]7( 1, 19) = 3.34,

Discuss ion

This study's results support several important conclusions. First, our data generally are consistent with the view that the distinction between sympathy and personal distress is a critical one and that these two types of emotional response are differentially related to prosocial intentions and behavior. Overall, markers of sympathy (or an outward orientation) tended to be

Table 2 Relation of Facial and Verbal Indexes to Helping: Adults

Correlation with helping

Partial r Index controlling sex Zero-order r

Verbal Sympathy .25"* .25"* Personal distress .23* .23* Negative or positive mood .20* .20*

Facial During film

Sympathy .20" .20" Sadness .30"* .29"* Personal distress .16 .16 Happy -.06 -.06

During letter ~ Sympathy .02 .01 Sadness .00 .00 Personal distress .08 .07 Happy - . 14 - . 15

a Adults were looking down while reading the letter so their facial expressions often were less clear than during the film. * p <. 10, two-tailed test. ** p < .05, two-tailed test.

SYMPATHY AND PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOR

Table 3 Correlations of Facial and Verbal Indexes to Helping and Donating: Children

63

Correlations with prosoeial indexes

For interactions For interactions For total sample a with sex b with age b

Indexes Help Donate Help Donate Help Donate

For Sex × Age interactions b

Help Donate

Verbal Sympathy . i I .03 Personal distress .04 .14 Negative mood .09 .18 Positive mood -.18"* -.24*

Facial During film

Sympathy .04 .26 * Sadness .12 .02 Personal distress .00 .00 Happy .00 - . 15

During letter c Sympathy .02 .30"* Sadness .06 .05 Personal distress - . 11 - . 15 Happy .10 .25 *

-.35"**B

-.40*B -.59***0

.48 **Y

-.38"*OB -.62"**OB

.33*YB

Note. G = girls, B = boys, Y = younger children, O = older children. a Partialing sex and grade, b Correlations are reported for significant and marginally significant interactions in the Sex X Age × Emotion Index multivariate analyses, c The letter was read to the child by the adult, so the child's facial reactions could have been due to the letter or directed at the adult (e.g., smiles). *p<.10,two-tailedtest. **p<.05,two-tailedtest. ***p<.01,two-tailedtest.

positively related to prosocial responding in an easy escape situation, whereas facial indexes of distress tended to be unrelated or negatively related. More specifically, HR deceleration was positively related to prosocial tendencies; facial sadness (for adults) and concerned attention (for adults and younger children) tended to be positively related to prosocial tendencies, whereas facial personal distress (for children) tended to be negatively related to indexes of prosocial behavior; and self-report of sympathy was positively related to adults' helping, whereas boys' reports of positive mood were negatively related to indexes ofprosocial behavior. Although some of the findings con- stituting this pattern of results were relatively weak or inter- acted with sex and age for the children, the overall pattern of results is consistent with theory.

One weakness in the overall pattern of data concerns the positive relation of adults' self-report personal distress to helping and the lack of relations between children's verbal reports of distress and sympathy and their prosocial tendencies. However, verbal indexes of personal distress have been found in other research to be ambiguous in meaning (indeed, they sometimes seem to tap sympathy rather than personal distress; Batson et al., 1988), and adults' reports of sympathy and personal distress have been correlated with indexes of social desirability (Cialdini et al., 1987; Eisenberg, Miller, et al., 1989; this study). In addition, one would not expect children to be able to report their emotional responses as well as adults. Given the problems with self-report indexes of vicarious emotional responding and the considerable evidence suggesting that HR and facial indexes are valid markers of variously induced emotional reactions (e.g., Campos et al., 1985; Craig, 1968; Eisenberg, Fabes, et al., 1988;

Eisenberg, McCreath, & Ahn, 1988; Eisenberg, Schaller, et al., 1988; Kutina & Fischer, 1977; Schwartz et al., 1981), we believe the HR and facial data are more valid than the self-report data.

This is not to argue that verbal data are useless; although facial, verbal, and HR indexes are generally not consistently related to one another in the literature, especially past early childhood (see Buck, 1984; Eisenberg, Fabes, et al., in press), it is likely that the three types of indexes assess somewhat different things. Verbal indexes may be most likely to reflect conscious emotional reactions that the individual can categorize and label (at least if the individual is willing to do so in an honest way), whereas facial and especially HR indexes may reflect emotional reactions that the individual is not strongly aware of or able to label (as well as those that are conscious). In the present study, all three types of indexes were interrelated in expectable ways to some degree (especially facial and verbal indexes), suggesting that they overlapped to a modest degree in the phenomenon they indexed. In any case, our conclusions can be drawn with more certainty because the results with all three types of indexes are generally consistent with expectations.

The pattern of data in the present study would be somewhat difficult to interpret if one accepted Cialdini et al.'s (1987) argu- ment that vicariously induced sadness is a self-oriented emotion and that observers who experience sadness assist others to relieve their own sadness. However, in the present study, facial sadness was positively correlated with facial concerned attention and negatively related to children's facial personal distress (p < .06). (As in Cialdini et al.'s work, verbal report of sadness was significantly related to verbal reports of both empathy and distress, probably because all the aforementioned verbal in-

64 EISENBERG ET AL.

dexes reflect willingness and ability to report emotion, as well as general emotionality). Thus, on the basis of our facial data and other studies in which Cialdini's hypothesis was not supported (e.g., Dovidio & Schroeder, 1987; Eisenberg, Miller, et al., 1989), it seems reasonable to conclude that empathically induced sadness in our experimental situation did not result in feelings of self-focused personal sadness and the egoistic motive to reduce one's own distress; rather, it was associated with other- oriented cognitions and concern. Such a conclusion is consistent with the theoretical perspectives of many investigators examining empathy (e.g., Feshbach, 1978; Hoffman, 1984; Thompson et al., 1980). ~

The relations of facial and self-report indexes to prosocial tendencies were more consistent for the adults than for the children, although the findings for facial personal distress were obtained for children only. The clearer pattern of results for adults could be due to differences in the helping indexes for the two age groups or to greater responsivity of the adults to the mother's distress in the critical segment of the tape (because of people's tendency to empathize with similar others; Feshbach, 1978), or it could reflect developmental processes. For example, it is possible that, for adults, there is a somewhat stronger link between vicariously induced emotional responses and subse- quent behavior than there is for children. Moreover, the fact that facial personal distress was negatively related to children's (especially boys' and older children's) prosocial behavior but not to that of adults further suggests possible age-related differences in relevant processes. Perhaps the adults were better able to mask their personal distress or were merely less distressed (adults did show significantly less personal distress while viewing the film). Alternatively, the experience of personal distress may be more highly (and negatively) related to children's prosocial responding because (a) children may be more highly motivated to reduce their own distress (e.g., are less able to cope with it) or (b) competing motives based on sympathetic reactions or internalized prosocial values are weaker for children (see Eisen- berg, 1986). Additional research is needed to verify the strength of any age-related differences and their origins.

For a subset of 50 children, we obtained a measure of actual prosocial behavior (i.e., donating) as well as an index of intention to help. Even though the sample size for the former measure was much smaller than for the latter, we obtained a number of significant findings for both indexes, with the general pattern being the same for both the intention (willingness to help) and the behavioral (donating) indexes (i.e., both were positively related to indexes of concern and negatively related to indexes of reported happiness and facial personal distress). Thus, at least for children, it appears as if the findings hold for real behavior as well as for prosocial intentions (although prosocial intentions might also be expected to relate positively to prosocial behavior; e.g., Ajzen & Fishbein, 1977; Pomazal & Jaccard, 1976).

In contrast to our findings, Gaertner and his colleagues (Gaertner & Dovidio, 1977; Sterling & Gaertner, 1984) have found that HR acceleration is positively related to speed of helping in a relatively unambiguous emergency. However, un- like in our study, HR was measured while the subject may have been preparing to stand up and assist. Thus, acceleration may have been associated with assisting because of the mobilization for physical action, which increases HR (Obrist, Webb, Sut-

terer, & Howard, 1970). Moreover, those who exhibited HR acceleration may have been feeling personal distress (due to the sounds of distress from the next room), not sympathy, and may have felt they could most readily reduce their distress by ascer- taining what had happened in the next room and by trying to reduce the arousal-inducing cues. Consistent with this possibil- ity, Sterling and Gaertner (1984) obtained a nonsignificant positive relation between HR acceleration and latency to helping in an ambiguous emergency, as well as a highly significant negative relation between acceleration and subjects' judgments of the seriousness of the other's injuries. Thus, when subjects could reduce their own distress by denying the seriousness of the other's injuries, HR acceleration was not related to speed of helping.

It should be noted that the outward orientation believed to be reflected in our HR and facial indexes of sympathy may have been due to factors other than sympathetic responding, such as increased thought and role taking regarding the distressed other. At this time, we know of no method for partitioning the effects of cognitive and emotional processes on physiological responses, and our concerned attention facial coding does not cor- respond to that for any of the basic emotions (e.g., sadness, fear). However, given the conceptual link between an outward orientation or role taking and sympathy, as well as the fact that cognitive role taking with another is positively correlated with prosocial behavior (Underwood & Moore, 1982), it is likely that HR deceleration and concerned facial expressions are often associated with sympathetic reactions. Moreover, it is not likely that HR deceleration in this study reflected simply an orienting response due to detecting a change in stimuli (which is associated with deceleration because change induces uncertainty; So- kolov, 1963), because there were no marked changes in the video stimulus at the beginning of the critical period from the preceding section of the videotape (and the tape had been run- ning for quite a period of time).

The relation of HR to prosocial behavior obtained in this study cannot be expected in all helping contexts. For example, if the potential helper's own welfare is unduly threatened if he or she assists, one might expect feelings of sympathy and personal distress to be so strongly interrelated that it would be difficult to use HR to predict helping. Alternatively, in such a situation, one might expect a period of HR deceleration (during the stage of intense orientation to the other) followed by a period of either acceleration (as the potential helper realizes the costs to the self for helping) or stable HR (due to the interaction of competing processes). In addition, in a situation in which it is difficult to

7 One could also argue that our helping situation was not an easy escape situation because so many children chose to help. However, this is unlikely because the children expected no future contact with the needy others. Some children may have chosen to assist because they did not like recess (as was reported by some children) or because helping might bring social approval from the teacher. Moreover, most children probably do not mind giving up an occasional recess. The fact that the various indexes of personal distress, with the exception of adults' verbal report of distress (which has been found to be problematic; Batson et al., 1988), were negatively related or unrelated to helping is not consistent with the view that our experimental situation was a difficult escape situation (in a difficult escape context, personal distress would be expected to be positively related to prosocial tendencies),


escape from the aversive cues emanat ing from the needy other, H R acceleration (as well as deceleration) may be associated with high levels of helping (because helping may be the easiest way to eliminate the aversive personal distress reaction). Sim- ilarly, facial expressions indicative of vicarious responsiveness may vary in different situations and in some contexts may occur sequentially. In addition, one must consider the psychological significance of the prosocial act. One would not expect prosocial behaviors that are no t motivated by sympathy or personal distress to be related to facial, physiological, or self-report indexes of sympathy and personal distress, respectively. Thus, it is no t our intent ion to argue that certain physiological and facial reactions will always be strong predictors of prosocial (or even altruistic) behavior; the context and the meaning of the given prosocial act for the potential helper must be considered.

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Received May 31, 1988 Revision received January 31, 1989

Accepted February 13, 1989 •

Relation of Sympathy and Personal Distress to Prosocial Behavior: A Multimethod Study

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