The Effect of Empathy induced by Positive Events on Subjective Value of Reward: Preliminary Study

Recent studies have focused on human empathic behavior regarding to physical, cognitive, and emotional aspects. Especially empathy is considered as a multidisciplinary study because of its wide application. However, majority of the studies have been focusing on empathy induced by negative emotion and physical pain. As a result, the purpose of this study, based on Loggia et al. (2008), is to investigate if empathy could be induced by positive events, and consequently if the positive empathy could increase subjective value of reward. According to the result of experiment which involved eight participants, we could confirm the inducement of empathy by positive events significantly; its power is not so strong though. However there was no interaction between empathy type (positive and no empathy) and whether the target received the reward or not. But if we would recruit more participants and additionally analyze correlation among trait/empathic state questionnaire, subjective ratings of the reward and emotion of the target, we suggest that this study would be valuable in that it could expand the empathy studies.