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. 2022 Jul 13:13:801150.
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.801150. eCollection 2022.

Motivated Down-Regulation of Emotion and Compassion Collapse Revisited

William Hagman  1   2   3 , Gustav Tinghög  1   2   4 , Stephan Dickert  5   6 , Paul Slovic  7 , Daniel Västfjäll  1   2   7
Affiliations

Motivated Down-Regulation of Emotion and Compassion Collapse Revisited

William Hagman et al. Front Psychol. .

Abstract

Compassion collapse is a phenomenon where feelings and helping behavior decrease as the number of needy increases. But what are the underlying mechanisms for compassion collapse? Previous research has attempted to pit two explanations: Limitations of the feeling system vs. motivated down-regulation of emotion, against each other. In this article, we critically reexamine a previous study comparing these two accounts published in 2011 and present new data that contest motivated down-regulation of emotion as the primary explanation for compassion collapse.

Keywords: charitable giving; compassion; down-regulation; emotion; emotion regulation; prosocial behavior.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
(A) Mean compassion toward the child (children) across conditions (higher number indicates more compassion). (B) Number of participants that choose to donate across conditions. (C) Mean donation amount in USD split by help request and number of victims’ condition. (D) Mean change in mood ratings between baseline and after viewing the child/children (lower number indicates a more negative mood). Error bars are SD.
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Mean compassion toward the child (children) across conditions. Error bars are SD.
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
Mean compassion toward the child (children) across conditions (higher number indicates more compassion). Error bars are SD.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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