Science of Emotion and Sensibility (감성과학)

Korean Society for Emotion and Sensibility (한국감성과학회)
권호 표지
DOI QR코드

DOI QR Code

The Effect of Empathic Concern and Perspective Taking on the Relationship Between Trait-Anger and Aggression

특성분노와 공격성 간의 관계에서 공감적 관여와 조망수용의 조절효과

  • Received : 2020.11.09
  • Accepted : 2020.12.27
  • Published : 2021.03.31
Download PDF
⟨ Previous Next ⟩

Abstract

Aggressive behavior triggered by the tendency to become angry is generating various social problems. To combat these various social issues, it is important to recognize the role that empathy plays in preventing those with trait-anger from becoming aggressive. More specifically, the hypothesis that empathic concern and perspective taking would mitigate the association between trait-anger and aggression was examined through this study. 329 college students participated in a survey containing questions related to trait-anger, aggression, empathic concern and perspective taking. The results showed that empathic concern moderated the association between trait-anger and aggression, whereas perspective taking did not. That is, those who are emotionally empathetic do not act aggressively easily even if their trait-anger is high; while those who are cognitively empathetic struggle to reduce the likelihood of their trait-anger leading to aggressive behavior. The result of this study indicates that emotional empathy was more useful than cognitive empathy in preventing those with trait-anger leading to aggressive behaviors. The implications, limitations and future directions of this study were also considered and presented as well.

일반적으로 분노경향이 높은 사람들은 공격적인 행동을 하는 경향이 높다. 이러한 분노와 공격 간의 높은 상관관계는 다양한 사회적 문제를 야기하는 요인이 되고 있다. 본 연구에서는 이러한 관계를 완화하기 위한 개입이 필요하다는 점에 주목하고, 공감의 두 차원인 공감적 관여(empathic concern)와 조망수용(perspective taking)이 특성분노와 공격성 간의 정적인 관계를 조절할 것이라는 가설을 검증해보았다. 학부생 329명을 대상으로 설문을 통해 특성분노(분노경향성), 공격성, 공감적 관여, 조망수용 양상을 조사한 결과, 특성분노와 공격성 간의 관계를 공감적 관여는 조절한 반면, 조망수용은 조절하지 않았다. 우선 공감적 관여는 특성분노가 공격성을 높이는 관계를 약화시키는 기능을 보였는데, 이는 특성분노가 낮은 집단에서보다 높은 집단에서 더 강하게 나타났다. 반면, 특성분노가 높은 사람이나 낮은 사람이나 모두 특성분노와 공격성 간에 정적인 관계를 보이지만, 이는 조망수용 정도에 따라 다르지 않았다. 이 결과는 공감의 기능이 정서적 인지적 측면에 따라 변별적으로 나타날 수 있으며, 특히 분노가 공격으로 이행되는 과정에서는 정서적 측면의 공감이 인지적 측면에서의 공감보다 더 중요하다는 점을 보여준 결과라고 볼 수 있다. 마지막으로, 이러한 주요 결과와 함께 본 연구의 함의와 시사점, 추후 연구 방향이 함께 제시되었다.

Keywords

Acknowledgement

본 연구는 경희대학교 비폭력연구소의 2020-2021 연구비 지원으로 이루어졌음.

References

  1. Batanova, M. D., & Loukas, A. (2011). Social anxiety and aggression in early adolescents: Examining the moderating roles of empathic concern and perspective taking. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 40(11), 1534-1543. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-011-9634-x
  2. Batson, C. D., Ahmad, N., Lishner, D. A., & Tsang, J. (2002). Empathy and altruism. In S. J. Lopez & C. R. snyder (Eds.), Oxford handbook of positive psychology (pp. 485-498). NY: Oxford University Press.
  3. Berkowitz, L. (1983). The experience of anger as a parallel process in the display of impulsive, "angry" aggression. In R. G. Green & E. I. donnerstein (Eds.), Aggression: Theoretical and empirical views 1 (pp. 103-134). New York: Academic Press.
  4. Bushman, B. J. (2002). Does venting anger feed or extinguish the flame? Catharsis, rumination, distraction, anger, and aggressive responding. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28(6), 724-731. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167202289002
  5. Bushman, B. J., Baumeister, R. F., & Phillips, C. M. (2001). Do people aggress to improve their mood? catharsis beliefs, affect regulation opportunity, and aggressive responding. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81(1), 17-32. https://doi.org/10.1037//0022-3514.81.1.17
  6. Bushman, B. J., Baumeister, R. F., & Stack, A. D. (1999). Catharsis, aggression, and persuasive influence: Self-fulfilling or self-defeating prophecies?. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76(3), 367-376. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.76.3.367
  7. Buss, A. H., & Perry, M. (1992). The aggression questionnaire. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63(3), 452-459. https://doi.org/10.1037//0022-3514.63.3.452
  8. Carlo, G., Raffaelli, M., Laible, D. J., & Meyer, K. A. (1999). Why are girls less physically aggressive than boys? Personality and parenting mediators of physical aggression. Sex Roles, 40(9-10), 711-729. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1018856601513
  9. Carlo, G., Roesch, S. C., & Melby, J. (1998). The multiplicative relations of parenting and temperament to prosocial and antisocial behaviors in adolescence. The Journal of Early Adolescence, 18(3), 266-290. https://doi.org/10.1177/0272431698018003003
  10. Clark, K. B.(1980). Empathy: A neglected topic in psychological research. American Psychologist, 35(2), 187-190. https://doi.org/10.1037//0003-066X.35.2.187
  11. Chung, Y. (2006). The motional characteristics of aggerssive people-with an emphasis on anger responses to the negative emotional events. (Unpublished master's thesis). Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea.
  12. Cohen, D., & Strayer, J. (1996). Empathy in conductdisordered and comparison youth. Developmental Psychology, 32(6), 988-998. https://doi.org/10.1037//0012-1649.32.6.988
  13. Cornell, D. G., Peterson, C. S., & Richards, H. (1999). Anger as a predictor of aggression among incarcerated adolescents. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 67(1), 108-115. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-006X.67.1.108
  14. Crick, N. R., & Dodge, K. A. (1994). A review and reformulation of social information-processing mechanisms in children's social adjustment. Psychological Bulletin, 115(1), 74-101. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.115.1.74
  15. Davis, M. H. (1980). A multidimensional approach to individual differences in empathy. JSAS Catalog of Selected Documents in Psychology, 10, 85.
  16. Davis, M. H. (1983). Measuring individual differences in empathy: Evidence for a multidimensional approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 44(1), 113-126. https://doi.org/10.1037//0022-3514.44.1.113
  17. Davis, M. H. (1994). Empathy: A social psychological approach. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
  18. Davis, M. H. (1996). Empathy: A social psychological approach. Boulder: Westview Press.
  19. Davis, M. H., & Oathout, H. A.(1987). Maintenance of satisfaction in romantic relationships : Empathy and relational competence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53(2), 397-410. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.53.2.397
  20. Decety, J., & Lamm, C. (2006). Human empathy through the lens of social neuroscience. The Scientific World Journal, 6, 1146-1163. https://doi.org/10.1100/tsw.2006.221
  21. Denham, S. A., Renwick-DeBardi, S., & Hewes, S. (1994). Emotional communication between mothers and preschoolers: Relations with emotional competence. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 40(4), 488-508.
  22. Dodge, K. A. (1980). Social cognition and children's aggressive behavior. Child development, 51(1), 162-170. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.1980.tb02522.x
  23. Dula, C. S., & Ballard, M. E. (2003). Development and evaluation of a measure of dangerous, aggressive, negative emotional, and risky driving. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 33(2), 263-282. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.2003.tb01896.x
  24. Eckhardt, C. I., & Cohen, D. J. (1997). Attention to anger-relevant and irrelevant stimuli following naturalistic insult. Personality and Individual Differences, 23(4), 619-629. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0191-8869(97)00074-3
  25. Eisenberg, N. (2000). Emotion, regulation, and moral development. Annual Review of Psychology, 51(1), 665-697. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.51.1.665
  26. Eisenberg, N., & Fabes, R. A. (1998). Prosocial development. In N. Eisenberg & W. Damon (Eds.), Handbook of child psychology: Social, emotional and personality development 4, 5 ed., (pp. 701-78), New York, NY: Wiley.
  27. Eisenberg, N., & Miller, P. A. (1987). The relation of empathy to prosocial and related behaviors. Psychological Bulletin, 101, 91-119. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.101.1.91
  28. Eum, Y. J., Lee, K. H., & Sohn, J. H. (2018). Brain function during recall of anger experience according to the level of trait anger. Science of Emotion and Sensibility, 20(3), 49-60.
  29. Feshbach, N. D. (1975). Empathy in children: some theoretical and empirical considerations. The Counseling Psychologist, 5(2), 25-30. https://doi.org/10.1177/001100007500500207
  30. Feshbach N. D., & Feshbach S. 2009. Empathy and education. In: Decety J, Ickes W. J., editors. The social neuroscience of empathy (pp. 85-98), Cambridge: The MIT Press.
  31. Gruhn, D., Rebucal, K., Diehl, M., Lumley, M., & Labouvie-Vief, G. (2008). Empathy across the adult lifespan: Longitudinal and experience-sampling findings. Emotion, 8(6), 753-765. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0014123
  32. Hastings, P. D., & Zahn-Waxler, C. (1998). Psychophysiological and socialization predictors of empathy and externalizing problems in middle childhood. In annual conference of the American Psychological Associacion.
  33. Hoffman, M. L. (2000). Empathy and moral development, implications for caring and justice. Cambridge University Press, UK.
  34. Holmgren, R. A., Eisenberg, N., & Fabes, R. A. (1998). The relations of children's situational empathyrelated emotions to dispositional prosocial behaviour. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 22(1), 169-193. https://doi.org/10.1080/016502598384568
  35. Jolliffe, D., & Farrington, D. P. (2011). Is low empathy related to bullying after controlling for individual and social background variables?. Journal of Adolescence, 34(1), 59-71. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2010.02.001
  36. Kaukiainen, A., Bjorkqvist, K., Lagerspetz, K., Osterman, K., Salmivalli, C., Rothberg, S., & Ahlbom, A. (1999). The relationships between social intelligence, empathy, and three types of aggression. Aggressive Behavior: Official Journal of the International Society for Research on Aggression, 25(2), 81-89. https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1098-2337(1999)25:2<81::AID-AB1>3.0.CO;2-M
  37. King, Y., & Parker, D. (2008). Driving violations, aggression and perceived consensus. European Review of Applied Psychology, 58(1), 43-49. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erap.2006.05.001
  38. Kim, J. H. (2006). Relations among Perspective Taking, Relationship Attribution, Conflict Coping Behavior and Dating Couple Relationship Satisfaction. (Unpublished master's thesis). The Catholic University of Korea, Bucheon, Korea.
  39. Kim, S. J. (1999). The Effects of the Adult Attachment Style Upon the Experience of the Anger. (Unpublished master's thesis). Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea.
  40. Korean National Police Agency (2019). Criminal Investigation.
  41. Lonigro, A., Schneider, B. H., Laghi, F., Baiocco, R., Pallini, S., & Brunner, T. (2015). Is cyberbullying related to trait or state anger?. Child Psychiatry and Human Development, 46(3), 445-454. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10578-014-0484-0
  42. Loudin, J. L., Loukas, A., & Robinson, S. (2003). Relational aggression in college students: Examining the roles of social anxiety and empathy. Aggressive Behavior: Official Journal of the International Society for Research on Aggression, 29(5), 430-439. https://doi.org/10.1002/ab.10039
  43. Mancke, F., Herpertz, S. C., Kleindienst, N., & Bertsch, K. (2017). Emotion dysregulation and trait anger sequentially mediate the association between borderline personality disorder and aggression. Journal of Personality Disorders, 31(2), 256-272. https://doi.org/10.1521/pedi_2016_30_247
  44. Maslow, A. H. (1943). A theory of human motivation. Psychological Review, 50(4), 370-396. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0054346
  45. Mayer, J. D., Caruso, D., & Salovey, P. (2000). Selecting a measure of emotional intelligence: The case for ability scales. In R. Bar-On & J. D. A. Parker (Eds.), The handbook of emotional intelligence (pp. 320-42). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
  46. Mehrabian, A. (1997). Relations among personality scales of aggression, violence, and empathy: Validational evidence bearing on the Risk of Eruptive Violence Scale. Aggressive Behavior: Official Journal of the International Society for Research on Aggression, 23(6), 433-445. https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1098-2337(1997)23:6<433::AID-AB3>3.0.CO;2-H
  47. Metcalfe, J., & Mischel, W. (1999). A hot/cool system analysis of delay of gratification: Dynamics of willpower. Psychological Review, 106(1), 3-19. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.106.1.3
  48. Parrott, D. J., & Zeichner, A. (2002). Effects of alcohol and trait anger on physical aggression in men. Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 63(2), 196-204. https://doi.org/10.15288/jsa.2002.63.196
  49. Plutchik, R. (1980). Emotion. A psychoevolutionary synthesis. New York: Harper & Row.
  50. Putman, P., Hermans, E., & van Honk, J. (2004). Emotional stroop performance for masked angry faces: it's BAS, not BIS. Emotion, 4(3), 305-311. https://doi.org/10.1037/1528-3542.4.3.305
  51. Richardson, D. R., Hammock, G. S., Smith, S. M., Gardner, W., & Signo, M. (1994). Empathy as a cognitive inhibitor of interpersonal aggression. Aggressive Behavior, 20, 275-289. https://doi.org/10.1002/1098-2337(1994)20:4<275::AID-AB2480200402>3.0.CO;2-4
  52. Russel, J. A. (1980). A Circumplex Model of Affect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39(6), 1161-1178. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0077714
  53. Shechtman, Z. (2002). Cognitive and affective empathy in aggressive boys: Implications for counseling. International Journal for the Advancement of Counselling, 24(4), 211-222. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1023316712331
  54. Shorey, R. C., Cornelius, T. L., & Idema, C. (2011). Trait anger as a mediator of difficulties with emotion regulation and female-perpetrated psychological aggression. Violence and Victims, 26(3), 271-282. https://doi.org/10.1891/0886-6708.26.3.271
  55. Spielberger, C. D. (1980). Preliminary Manual for the State-Trait Anger Scale(STAS). Tampa, Florida: University of South Florida Human Resources Institute.
  56. Spielberger, C. D., Jacobs, G., Russell, S., & Crane, R. S. (1983). Assessment of anger: The state-trait anger scale. Advances in personality assessment, 2, 161-189.
  57. Tangney, J. P. (1991). Moral affect: The good, the bad, and the ugly. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 61(4), 598-607. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.61.4.598
  58. Taylor, N., & Signal, T. D. (2005). Empathy and attitudes to animals. Anthrozoos, 18, 18-27. https://doi.org/10.2752/089279305785594342
  59. Tremblay, R. E., Pihl, R. O., Vitaro, F., & Dobkin, P. L. (1994). Predicting early onset of male antisocial behavior from preschool behavior. Archives of General Psychiatry, 51(9), 732-739. https://doi.org/10.1001/archpsyc.1994.03950090064009
  60. Todorov, A., & Bargh, J. A. (2002). Automatic sources of aggression. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 7(1), 53-68. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1359-1789(00)00036-7
  61. Welsh, W. N., & Gordon, A. (1991). Cognitive mediators of aggression: Test of a causal model. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 18(2), 125-145. https://doi.org/10.1177/0093854891018002002
  62. Wilhelm, M. O., & Bekkers, R. (2010). Helping behavior, dispositional empathic concern, and the principle of care. Social Psychology Quarterly, 73, 11-32. https://doi.org/10.1177/0190272510361435
  63. Wilkowski, B. M., & Robinson, M. D. (2008). The cognitive basis of trait anger and reactive aggression: An integrative analysis. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 12(1), 3-21. https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868307309874
  64. Wilkowski, B. M., Robinson, M. D., Gordon, R. D., & Troop-Gordon, W. (2007). Tracking the evil eye: trait anger and selective attention within ambiguously hostile scenes. Journal of Research in Personality, 41(3), 650-666. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2006.07.003
  65. Wilkowski, B. M., & Robinson, M. D. (2010). The anatomy of anger: An integrative cognitive model of trait anger and reactive aggression. Journal of Personality, 78(1), 9-38. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.2009.00607.x
  66. Yang, M. H., & Kim, E. J. (2007). The empirical study on the adolescents' anger: Its relationship to self-concept clarity and personality traits. Studies on Korean Youth, 18(1), 163-184.
  67. Yun, J. H., Hyun, M. H., & Kim, I, S. (2004). The effect of trait anger and intent-ambiguity on other-blame and driving anger. The Korean Journal of Health Psychology, 9(3), 713-728. https://doi.org/10.1177/1359105304045366
  68. Zahn-Waxler, C., Cole, P. M., Welsh, J. D., & Fox, N. A. (1995). Psychophysiological correlates of empathy and prosocial behaviors in preschool children with behavior problems. Development and Psychopathology, 7(1), 27-48. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954579400006325
  69. Zhou, Q., Valiente, C., & Eisenberg, N. (2003). Empathy and its measurement. In S. J. Lopez & C. R. snyder (Eds.), Positive psychological assessment: A handbook of models and measures (pp. 269-284), Washington, DC, US: American Psychological Association.