IMPLICIT MEASURES OF COMPASSION

DARYL CAMERON UNIVERSITY OF IOWA

HOW TO ASSESS COMPASSION?

We could simply ask people how much compassion they feel for someone else Emotion self-reports can provide useful experiential information to complement other assessment techniques (Barrett et al., 2007)

HOW TO ASSESS COMPASSION?

But there could be drawbacks
People may want to hide compassionate feelings due to social norms or financial cost People may say they feel more compassion than they do, a socially desirable response People may not know how they feel, or why they feel as they do (Nisbett & Wilson, 1977) And once they label their feeling as compassion, this may have downstream measurement consequences (Kassam & Mendes, 2013)

IMPLICIT MEASUREMENT

What is implicit measurement?

Measures of attitudes, emotions and beliefs that dont directly ask for an evaluationgets beyond social desirability and response bias Can capture immediate affective and conceptual responses that may be unconscious, automatic, involuntary

AFFECT MISATTRIBUTION

Causal influence

Situational cues

AFFECT MISATTRIBUTION

AFFECT MISATTRIBUTION

AFFECT MISATTRIBUTION PROCEDURE

AFFECT MISATTRIBUTION PROCEDURE (AMP)

Can measure individual differences in implicit affect toward social stimuli Implicit in a strong sense: misattributions are happening even when people are warned about prime influence and told to avoid it Easily administered, reliable, and predicts explicit attitudes and behaviors (Cameron, Brown-Iannuzzi, & Payne 2012 meta-analysis) Though traditionally asked to judge pleasant/unpleasantness of pictograph, has recently been adapted to assess discrete emotions (CCARE AMP demo)

IMPLICIT ASSOCIATION TEST (IAT)

Perhaps the most well-known implicit measure of attitudes and beliefs Measures the relative strength of association between concepts and attributes, based upon the speed with which you respond to different combinations of categories: You should be faster in responding to pairs of concepts and attributes that are strongly associated than pairs that are not Can be used to assess stereotypes, attitudes, self-concept, worldview

The Implicit Association Test

Clap RIGHT KNEE for GOOD; Clap LEFT KNEE for BAD!

BAD

GOOD

Excellent

BAD

GOOD

Horrible

BAD

GOOD

Lovely

BAD

GOOD

Disgusting

BAD

GOOD

Excellent

BAD

GOOD

Lovely

BAD

GOOD

Wonderful

BAD

GOOD

Terrible

BAD

GOOD

Awful

NOW- Change: You will see stereotypically White and stereotypically Black names
(White = Phillip, Chip, Henry, Heather, Debbie, Elizabeth; Black = Tyrone, Jamal, Deion, Latisha, Sharise, Latoya). Clap RIGHT KNEE for WHITE;

Clap LEFT KNEE for BLACK!

BLACK

WHITE

Phillip

BLACK

WHITE

Jamal

BLACK

WHITE

Tyrone

BLACK

WHITE

Henry

BLACK

WHITE

Elizabeth

BLACK

WHITE

Heather

BLACK

WHITE

Latoya

BLACK

WHITE

Sharise

BLACK

WHITE

Deion

BLACK

WHITE

Debbie

Now- Combine:

Clap RIGHT KNEE if GOOD or WHITE

Clap LEFT KNEE if BAD or BLACK

BLACK
BAD

WHITE
GOOD

Elizabeth

BLACK
BAD

WHITE
GOOD

Lovely

BLACK
BAD

WHITE
GOOD

Horrible

BLACK
BAD

WHITE
GOOD

Heather

BLACK BAD

WHITE GOOD

Heather

BLACK BAD

WHITE GOOD

Latoya

BLACK
BAD

WHITE
GOOD

Excellent

BLACK
BAD

WHITE
GOOD

Sharise

BLACK
BAD

WHITE
GOOD

Deion

BLACK
BAD

WHITE
GOOD

Disgusting

Now- Change:

Clap RIGHT KNEE if GOOD or BLACK

Clap LEFT KNEE if BAD or WHITE

WHITE
BAD

BLACK
GOOD

Elizabeth

WHITE
BAD

BLACK
GOOD

Lovely

WHITE
BAD

BLACK
GOOD

Horrible

WHITE
BAD

BLACK
GOOD

Heather

WHITE
BAD

BLACK
GOOD

Latoya

WHITE
BAD

BLACK
GOOD

Excellent

WHITE
BAD

BLACK
GOOD

Sharise

WHITE
BAD

BLACK
GOOD

Deion

WHITE
BAD

BLACK
GOOD

Disgusting

WHITE
BAD

BLACK
GOOD

Wonderful

IMPLICIT ASSOCIATION TEST

Why am I feeling the way that Im feeling?

Cut to CCARE Compassion/Self IAT demo

IMPLICIT ASSOCIATION TEST (IAT)

Like the AMP, the IAT predicts explicit attitudes (Hofmann et al., 2005) and behaviors (Greenwald et al., 2010)
One critique of using IAT to assess discrete emotions is that it captures concepts and beliefs rather than affect or emotions

APPROACH-AVOIDANCE TASKS
Captures motivational approach/avoid orientations toward social stimuli thought to mediate influence of automatic affect/attitudes on behavior

Manikin randomly appears above or below, instructed to move it toward or away from picture as fast as you can

If feel compassion, should be faster to approach and slower to avoid

Impulsive avoidance of AIDS patients correlates with IAT attitudes (Neumann et al., 2004); behavioral intentions correlated with explicit attitudes

MULTI-METHOD APPROACH
What you choose will depend on the question you want to ask.

If you want peoples full-blown conscious experience, ask them to self-report compassion. But consider whether there are normative pressures in play, and whether self-reports will change other outcome measures.
If you want to capture immediate affect or emotion, consider the AMP. If you want to capture conceptual activation related to compassion (i.e., thoughts about victims; compassionate self-concept), use the IAT. If you want to capture behavioral orientations, use either the approach-avoidance task or measure behavior in the laboratory.

Emotion experience (selfreports)

Immediate affect (AMP)

Conceptual activation (IAT) Spontaneous behavioral orientations (approach-avoid) Behavior (altruism, donation)

Emotion experience (selfreports)

Immediate affect (AMP)

Conceptual activation (IAT) Spontaneous behavioral orientations (approach-avoid) Behavior (altruism, donation)