Culture of Empathy Builder: Jacob Israelashvili

Different Faces of Empathy:
feelings of similarity disrupt recognition
Jacob Israelashvili

Jacob Israelashvili did his PhD in Social Psychology at Tel Aviv University. His research examines the empathic processes that antecedent understanding and caring for others. Jacob recently coauthored a study and paper entitled: Different faces of empathy: Feelings of similarity disrupt recognition of negative emotions. In this interview we talk about that study.

Some Highlights of the Study.

Recognition of emotions becomes less accurate when having had similar negative experiences.
Personal distress evoked by a negative story inhibits recognition of the storyteller's emotions.
Being instructed to take another's perspective does not help to recognize emotions better.

Sub Conferences: Science

Links

Faculty Page

Different Faces of Empathy: feelings of similarity disrupt recognition.
Jacob Israelashvili and Edwin Rutsch

View On Youtube or On Facebook

Papers

Different faces of empathyi: Feelings of similarity disrupt recognition of negative emotions
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology

by Jacob Israelashvili, Disa A.Sauter, Agneta H.Fischer

Highlights

Recognition of emotions becomes less accurate when having had similar negative experiences.
Personal distress evoked by a negative story inhibits recognition of the storyteller's emotions.
Being instructed to take another's perspective does not help to recognize emotions better.

"Findings showed that perceivers who have had a negative life experience similar to the emotional event described in the video felt greater personal distress after watching the video, which in part explained their reduced accuracy. These results provide the first demonstration that spontaneous empathy, evoked by similarity in negative experiences, may inhibit rather than increase our understanding of others' emotions."

Israelashvili, J., Sauter D., & Fischer, A. (2020) Different faces of empathy: Feelings of similarity disrupt recognition of negative emotions. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2019.103912

Israelashvili, J., Oosterwijk S., Sauter D. & Fischer, A., (2019) Knowing me, knowing you: Emotion differentiation in oneself is associated with recognition of others’ emotions. Cognition and Emotion. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2019.1577221

Israelashvili, J., Sauter D., & Fischer, A. (2019) How well can we assess our ability to understand others’ feelings? Beliefs about taking others’ perspectives and actual understanding of others’ emotions. Frontiers in Psychology. 10:2475. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02475

Israelashvili, J., Hassin R., & Aviezer, H. (2018) When emotions run high: A critical role for context in the dynamic unfolding of real-life intense facial affect. Emotion. Advance online publication. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/emo0000441

Israelashvili, J., & Karniol, R. (2018) Testing Alternative Models of Dispositional Empathy: The Affect-to-Cognition (ACM) versus the Cognition-to-Affect (CAM) Model. Personality and Individual Differences, 121, 161-169. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2017.09.036