Research Hit: How Imagination Boosts Empathy - And Motivation To Help

Recent research shows that actively imagining another's distress promotes empathy but also motivation to help

Isn’t empathy already the ability to put yourself in another’s shoes?

Yes, indeed, technically empathy is the ability to feel what another person is feeling. However, a lot of research has focused on compassion, which is related, or used situations of helping a person in distress.

So, what was this recent research doing then?

So rather than focus on the compassion aspect, Gregory et al. of McGill and Albany Universities conducted a series of experiments that compared putting yourself in another’s position vs. simulated helping of a distressed individual.

Andy what did they find?