Matriz de Perfil Competitivo MPC

The second type of empathy account is the concern account (Batson 1987, 1991;

Hoffman 1975, 2000). What concern accounts and matching accounts have in common is that matching is a criterion for empathic accuracy. For example, on Batson’s account accurate empathy requires that the valence of an agent’s emotional experience be “congruent” with the valence of a target’s emotional experience (Batson 1991). By ‘congruence’, Batson does not mean that the content of an agent’s emotional state be the same as that of a target’s. For example, when an agent empathizes with a target, the agent may feel sad and the target may feel frustrated. Rather, what the agent must match is the valence of the target’s emotional state–the agent must experience a negatively valenced emotional state when a target is experiencing a negatively valenced emotional state (and likewise for positive valence).

Matching relation C: The valences of the agent’s experience match the valences of the target’s experience.

But although matching is a criterion of empathic accuracy on both types of accounts, matching is not the main criterion on concern accounts.

On concern accounts, empathy is not just a matter of matching (Batson 1991; Hoffman 2000). Concern accounts add two criteria of empathic accuracy other than matching. The first of these is that an agent must become aware of the needs or concerns of a target. To achieve such awareness, the agent must have the ability to recognize that the target is an animate organism that is distinct from itself, other animate organisms, and inanimate organisms (Hoffman 1975, 2000). Then by taking the perspective of a target, the agent may come to have an awareness of the target’s concerns. On concern accounts, this is when empathy starts. And an accurate awareness of a target’s needs is a main criterion for assessing when accurate empathy has occurred.

The second additional criterion for empathic accuracy on concern accounts is that an agent must feel motivated to help a target with their concerns. This motivational component of empathy is supposed to be caused by the agent having matched the emotional valences of a target’s internal states. An agent must select a target, take their perspective, and become aware of the target’s concerns. This awareness of the target’s concerns can result in the agent having an emotional response whose valence matches that of a target. Alternatively, the valence match between an agent and target can occur via processes that are less voluntarily controlled than perspective taking, such as

emotional contagion. But regardless of the process by which an agent comes to have an experience whose valence matches that of a target, once the agent has such an experience, the agent must also feel motivated to help the target with their concerns (Hoffman 1981, p 51). And these concerns may be associated with either positively or negatively valenced emotional states. For example, a target may have just won a race and is expressing

positively valenced joy. On a concern account, it is not sufficient that the agent vicariously experience the target’s joy for accurate empathy to occur. The agent must experience joy or some other positively congruent emotional feeling such as pride. But it is also necessary that the agent become aware of the target’s concern(s). An example of a target’s concern in such a situation may be that others express recognition of how

difficult it was to win the race. Thus, for accurate empathy to occur on a concern account, the agent must be aware of this concern for others to express recognition, and the agent must feel motivated to recognize the winning racer’s achievement. It is important to note that behaviour directed at helping a target with their concern does not need to occur for accurate empathy on concern accounts. The agent must feel motivated to help, but does not need to act on this motivation. Helping behaviour may be suppressed. Or once motivated to help the target with their concern, the agent may be distracted or decide to engage in some other activity. However, the two main criteria for accurate empathy that concern accounts add are that an agent must first become aware of a target’s concerns, and second, feel at least momentarily motivated to help that target.

To recap, concern accounts and matching accounts of empathy both specify that an important criterion for accurate empathy is that agents must (in some sense) match the

internal state of a target. On matching accounts this takes the form of an agent matching the experience of a target, or of an agent having matching representations about the target’s experience. On concern accounts, the matching relation between agent and target is one of valence. For empathy to occur, an agent does not need to match the exact content of a target’s emotional experience. But the agent must have an emotional experience that matches a target’s experience in terms of its valence (either positive or negative). What differentiates matching accounts from concern accounts then is that the latter introduce two additional criteria for empathic accuracy: 1) that an agent have an experiential awareness (based on the target’s emotional state valences) of the concerns of a target; and 2) that an agent feels motivated to help the target with those concerns.