Rhetoric of Truthfulness in the Battle Between Social Attributions and Empathic Emotions - Conflict and Multimodal Communication: Social Research and Machine Intelligence - page 294

15.6.1.2 Self-Reported Emotions

Mean comparisons between the two experimental groups (ingroup and
outgroup) were performed on each of the 24 items of Batson's scales.
In particular, this analysis revealed that participants reported to be more
grieved ( M outgroup D 5.18, M ingroup D 4.21, t 64 D 2.32, p < 0.05), compassionate
( M outgroup D 5.33, M ingroup D 4.15, t 64 D 2.967, p < 0.005), upset ( M outgroup D 3.51,
M ingroup D 2.42, t 64 D 2.57, p < 0.05), tender ( M outgroup D 3.84, M ingroup D 2.57,
t 64 D 2.786, p D 0.007), feeling low ( M outgroup D 5.12, M ingroup D 3.75, t 64 D 3.004,
p < 0.005), sorrowful ( M outgroup D 3.27, M ingroup D 2.21, t 64 D 2.425, p < 0.05),
kind ( M outgroup D 3.24, M ingroup D 2.28, t 64 D 2.264, p < 0.05), sad ( M outgroup D 3.6,
M ingroup D 2.5, t 64 D 2.397, p < 0.05), touched ( M outgroup D 5.21, M ingroup D 4.21,
t 64 D 2.402, p < 0.05), and uneasy ( M outgroup D 2.66, M ingroup D 1.65, t 63 D 2.787,
p < 0.005) toward outgroup members than toward ingroup members (Fig. 15.2 ). As
emerges from these analyses on Batson's scale of single items, the emotional
response is constantly higher toward the outgroup target (even with respect to some
emotions that could be described as parallel emotions ).
How to explain this unexpected result? One possible answer is provided by
participants' self-reported evaluations concerning the story and social desirability
of different reactions to a person in need, such as those included in this study.

15.6.2 Truthfulness

Although in general our participants considered the stimulus story to be “fairly
credible” ( M D 5.47, ds D 1.69, range D 1-7), those in the outgroup condition
considered the story as significantly more credible than participants in the ingroup
condition ( M outgroup D 6.03, M ingroup D 4.93, t 63 D 2.721, p < 0.01) (Fig. 15.3 ).

15.6.3 Emotional Impact of Story

A t -test for independent samples was performed on the nine measures
of emotional impact. Participants in the outgroup condition considered
the story more alarming ( M outgroup D 4.93, M ingroup D 3.72, t 64 D 2.949,
p < 0.005), interesting ( M outgroup D 5.21, M ingroup D 3.84, t 64 D 3.442, p D 0.001),
worrying

( M outgroup D 4.62, M ingroup D 3.48, t 63 D 2.519, p < 0.05), touch-

ing ( M outgroup D 6.24, M ingroup D 4.39, t 64 D 2.055, p < 0.05), and involving

( M outgroup D 5.18, M ingroup D 4.18, t 64 D 2.371, p < 0.05, Fig. 15.4 ) than

participants in the ingroup condition.