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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Dec 26, 2025

Observational Fear as a Model of Affective Empathy in Mice

Observational Fear as a Model of Affective Empathy in Mice

Published on: November 22, 2024

Empathy does not amplify vicarious threat learning.

Alexander L Williams¹, Christopher C Conway²

¹Department of Psychology, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA.

Behaviour Research and Therapy

|March 8, 2020

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

People can learn fears by watching others, a process called vicarious threat conditioning. This study found empathy did not significantly increase fear responses learned through observation.

Keywords:

Classical conditioning Empathy Fear Skin conductance response Threat Vicarious conditioning

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Area of Science:

Psychology
Social Learning Theory
Fear Conditioning

Background:

Clinically significant fears and phobias can be acquired through vicarious learning.
Observing defensive reactions to danger can condition threat responses in observers.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate individual differences in vicarious threat conditioning.
To test the hypothesis that dispositional empathy modulates vicarious threat conditioning.

Main Methods:

University students (N=150) observed strangers undergoing Pavlovian threat conditioning.
Conditioned threat responding was measured via electrodermal activity.
Participants' dispositional empathy was assessed.

Main Results:

A substantial conditioned defensive response was observed (Cohen's d = 0.66).
Dispositional empathy showed a weak correlation with conditioned responses (median r = 0.04).

Conclusions:

Vicarious threat learning can be experimentally validated.
Empathy does not appear to amplify vicarious threat conditioning.