Empathy, Sadness, and Distress: Three Related but Distinct Vicarious Affective Responses to Another's Suffering

A negative state relief explanation for the empathy-helping relationship (e.g., Cialdini et al., 1987) rests on the two-part assumption that empathy, sadness, and distress are (a) related but (b) distinct vicarious affective responses to another's suffering. This assumption received support in two studies from principal components analyses of subjects' self-reported affective responses to situations in which another college student was in need. In Study I subjects reported their response to three different need situations described as having occurred in recent psychology experiments, and in Study 2 subjects reported their response to a current need situation. Oblique rotations of three components extracted from affective responses to each need situation revealed that all components were intercorrelated. Orthogonal rotations, however, yielded component structures suggesting that empathy, sadness, and distress are quantitatively distinct. Correlations between indices of empathy, sadness, and distress further elucidated the relationships between the three affective responses. It is concluded that motivational models of helping and models of vicarious affect should include sadness as a response that is distinct from but related to both empathy and distress.