Ara empathic messages really effective? : The effects of these messages on the impression of message providers

キョウカン テキ メッセージ ハ ホントウニ コウカテキ ナノカ オクリテ ノ インショウ ヘ ノ エイキョウ ヲ チュウシン ニ

ゲンジダ, ケンイチ

Genjida, Kenichi

村田, 光二

ムラタ, コウジ

Murata, Koji

オオサカ ダイガク ダイガクイン ニンゲン カガク ケンキュウカ タイジン シャカイ シンリガク ケンキュウシツ

親密性

面子の維持

慰め

情緒的サポート

empathy

closeness

facework

comforting

emotional support

Previous studies indicated that people perceived empathic messages positively and that these messages were effective. However, in these studies, empathy contained several components or its effect was examined in the context of close personal relationships. This study focuses on empathy as communicative acts in the context of comforting and examined how the empathic messages, compared to non-empathic messages, influence evaluations of message providers by recipients in two experiments. Here we concentrated on the most central component of empathy (perspective taking). Closeness of provider-recipient relationships, which is considered to be moderator of effectiveness of empathy, was included in the experimental conditions, and participants evaluated message providers. In experiment 1, the result suggested that under the high-closeness condition, empathic message providers tended to be evaluated more positively, whereas, under the low-closeness condition, empathic message providers tended to be evaluated more negatively. In experiment 2, empathic message providers were evaluated more negatively regardless of closeness. Therefore, it was suggested that positive effect of the component of empathy examined in this study is limited.

村田, 光二