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Empathetic anger motivates volunteers as much as sympathy

biophile

Places I'd rather be.
Messages
8,977
Are you a non-aggressive person in general but whose blood specifically boils at the harmful psychobabble and other injustices faced by the group of patients with ME and CFS?

Professor Bringle explained: "Although there are many reasons why individuals help, empathy is prominent. Empathy occurs when an individual has a similar response to a suffering person and this is usually sadness. Empathic sadness motivates a person to help in order to alleviate the other person's suffering and to alleviate one's own discomfort."

"This research focused on circumstances when empathy elicits anger. Whereas anger is usually seen as evoking an aggressive response, we wanted to analyse empathic anger as a basis for helping. This seems most likely to occur when the attribution is made about the unfairness of the circumstances that caused the victim's suffering."

Two questionnaire studies focused on the nature of those reporting empathic anger using a new measure, the "Revised Empathic Anger" scale. In Study 1 (involving 132 participants) found that those scoring high on empathic anger were publically spirited and more likely to support community projects and organisations as a way to affect change rather than charitable volunteering. Study 2 (involving 152 participants) found those reporting high empathic anger were not aggressive people, but were concerned and altruistic individuals who rejected group-based discrimination and inequality among groups.

Professor Bringle added: "This research adds a new dimension to motives for volunteering. Empathic anger is probably a more extreme or intense motive than others that have been described or studied in the previous research on volunteering and prosocial behavior."

"By developing our understanding of empathic anger we can better appreciate why some volunteers are motivated to assist certain social causes. The new scale provides opportunities for future research to study the nature of empathic anger, its development, and it journey across time."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/05/140506204042.htm
 

peggy-sue

Senior Member
Messages
2,623
Location
Scotland
Or at any of the injustices all around the world, where ordinary folk just like us are suffering and being deprived of their human rights, starved, poisoned and bullied by governments and big business.

Cameron is planning to force through legislation to remove ordinarly folk's rights to refuse permission to be fracked under...

Bhopal hasn't been cleared up yet...

(I think I belong in this group of angry empathisers. :p )