Similarity of Target and Observer – Prosocial behaviour

1. The VICTEC Project The EU sponsored project VICTEC aims to create a software (the “Demonstrator”) that helps students aged 8 to 12 to cope with aggressive behaviour in school contexts (bullying). Key feature of the Demonstrator is the implementation of empathic agents acting in a virtual school building where they take the role of teachers and students involved in bullying scenarios. The child users’ interaction with the Demonstrator enables them to simulate their behaviour in real bullying situations in order to learn more about how to cope with aggressive acts against them and to reach their goals without using violence. The VICTEC project aims at creating empathy between the child user and the virtual agent to improve social immersion and gain better learning effects. Bullying According to literature bullying is a repeated action that occurs regularly over time. Two different types of bullying can be distinguished: direct and relational bullying. Direct bullying can be distinguished further between physical bullying (hitting, kicking, taking belongings) and verbal bullying (name calling, cruel teasing, taunting, threatening). Relational bullying focuses on the social network of the victim and can be achieved for example by social exclusion, rumour spreading or deliberate withdrawal of friendship. Empathy Empathy is a psychological concept that describes the ability of one person (“observer”) to achieve information on the “inner state” of another person (“target”). Most contemporary empathy researchers agree that two different aspects of empathy have to be distinguished: the cognitive and the affective aspect. Thus, one speaks of cognitive empathy (also “perspective-taking”), when the outcome of an empathic process is that the observer tries to understand how the target feels in a given situation. Affective empathy refers to processes with an affective outcome: The observer feels something due to the perception of a target. Modelling Empathy: The EU-Project VICTEC (Virtual Information And Communication Technology With Empathic Characters) Running Model The running model aims to simulate empathy processes for both cognitive and affective empathy with an identical structure. It assumes that factors on side of the target, on side of the observer and the similarity between the two influence empathic processes. Empathy is influenced by the competencies of the observer, some organism parameters (activation, resolution level and selection treshold) and his motivation for affiliation (the need for social experiences) and certainty (the need to be able to predict the environment of the organism). If the target shows a clear emotional expression, acts clearly with high intensity and pursues goals he is aware of, empathic processes are facilitated. Furthermore, research has shown that similarity between target and observer might promote empathy (e.g. Davis, 1994). Harald Schaub (harald.schaub@ppp.uni-bamberg.de), Carsten Zoll (carsten.zoll@ppp.uni-bamberg.de), Sibylle Enz (sibylle.enz@ppp.uni-bamberg.de) Institut für Theoretische Psychologie, Universität Bamberg, Markusplatz 3, 96045 Bamberg, Germany Ruth Aylett (r.s.aylett@salford.ac.uk) The Centre for Virtual Environments, University of Salford, Manchester M5 4WT, England Evaluation of the running Model The quality of the model is proofed by a comparison of model variables relations with empirical results. Similarity of Target and Observer – Extroverted behaviour Very weak negative to no correlations are reported for the relation between similarity of target and observer and aggressive behaviour (which can be interpreted as a subset of “extroverted behaviour of observer”): Davis (1994) The running Model r = 0.19 Cognitive Empathy – Need for Affiliation Franzoi, Davis & Young (1985) report a positive correlation between cognitive empathy and satisfaction with current relationships. The latter is an indicator for a low need for affiliation. The running Model r = -0,48 Similarity of Target and Observer – Prosocial behaviour Positive correlations are reported for the relation between similarity of target and observer and prosocial behaviour (here: “observer’s care for target”): Eisenberg & Miller (1987) The running Model r = 0.93 Franzoi, S. L., Davis, M. H. & Young, R. D. (1985). The effects of private self-consciousness and perspective taking on satisfaction in close relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 48, 1584–1594. Davis, M. H. (1994). Empathy: A social psychological approach. Dubuque: Brown and Benchmark Publishers. Eisenberg, N. & Miller, P. A. (1987). Empathy and prosocial behavior. Psychological Bulletin, 101, 91-119.