Empathizing and Systemizing (Un)justified Mediated Violence: Psychophysiological Indicators of Emotional Response

Abstract

This article examines individual variability in empathizing and systemizing abilities (Baron-Cohen, 2003, 2009) on emotional responses to mediated violence. It is predicted that these abilities influence feelings of distress and enjoyment while processing violent media and that they interact with the motives for aggressive behavior—whether the violence was justified or not. Psychophysiological measures of negative and positive valence activation and arousal were recorded for 90 participants while they were exposed to fourteen full-motion film clips that contained violence that was either justified or not by the narrative. Results show unjustified content led to greater physiological arousal and greater negative valence activation overall and to a significantly greater extent in highly empathetic viewers. Advantages of employing the empathizing—systemizing theory to mediated violence research are discussed.

NOTE

Notes

1. In spite of some criticism (Andrew, Cooke, & Muncer, 2008), later studies have evidenced EQ to be an appropriate, valid and unidimensional measure of the construct of empathy (Allison et al., 2011).