DESIRED VERSUS FEARED EMPATHY: THE ROLE OF EMPATHY IN THE REPRESENTATION OF LOVE

• Authors: Lamy L.
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

The author investigates whether empathy constitutes the main dimension of the representation of love. The participants were acquainted with two tales telling of the beginning of a love story. The experimental group integrates discursive marks showing the empathic ability of the speaker towards his/her partner. No such marks of empathic ability existed in the control group. The participants assess the more or less prototypic nature of love in these two stories. The results show that a story is acknowledged as being more representative of love when the speaker is empathic than when he is not; but also that a dimension of inter-sex rivalry may modify this process: when the impression of intenseness of love expressed by the story decreases, empathy is only perceived positively when it testifies to the mastery of the relationship by someone of the same sex as the participant.

Keywords

EN

EMPATHY; LOVE; SOCIAL REPRESENTATION

Discipline

• PSYCHOLOGY: PSYCHOLOGY

• Publisher: Institute of Experimental Psychology, Slovak Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Studia Psychologica
• Year: 2006
• Volume: 48
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 45-56
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Lamy L.

• L. Lamy, Université Paris-11, IUT de Sceaux 8, avenue Cauchy, 92330 Sceaux, France

Identifiers

CEJSH db identifier

06SKAAAA00842039