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Effects of Sexual Orientation on Reactive Empathy Expression in Women
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by Cassandra M. Groth,
Jon R. Bourn,
Lauren Maurer,
Christopher P. Terry - Elmira College
The majority of previous social psychological research regarding
interpersonal reactions with lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT)
individuals has examined interpersonal prejudice toward members of
the LGBT community (Blashill & Powlishta, 2009; Herek & Capitanio, 1999;
Snyder & Uranowitz, 1978). To expand and diversify the research knowledge
base, we focused on reactive empathy. One hundred and sixteen college
women read a short vignette of a heterosexual, gay/lesbian, or unspecified
man or woman who was having a bad day. Participants then completed
a reactive empathy scale and a general empathy scale. Results show that
college women report more reactive empathy toward heterosexual
characters than toward gay men or lesbian characters, F(2, 109) = 8.01,
p < .001, np
2 = .13, and participants reported significantly higher reactive
empathy scores for the lesbian character than the gay male character,
t(47) = 1.84, p = .037 (one-tailed), r2 = .08. Findings indicate that gay men
or lesbians experiencing negative circumstances may be viewed with less
empathy than heterosexual men and women experiencing similar
circumstances.
Winter 2012 | Psi Chi Journal of Undergraduate Research (Vol. 17, No. 4, p. 138), published by Psi Chi, The International Honor Society in Psychology (Chattanooga, TN). Copyright, 2012, Psi Chi, The International Honor Society in Psychology. All rights reserved.