Motivational antecedents of empathy: Inhibiting effects of fatigue

Two experiments investigated the joint effect of need for cognitive closure (induced by mental fatigue) and similarity of perspective on empathic responding. Results indicated that when participants felt similar to a distressed target, no differences in empathy emerged across fatigue conditions. When they felt dissimilar, participants in the high (vs. low) mental fatigue condition were less likely to accept the target's response as appropriate and reported less empathic concern for the target. Furthermore, when motivated to learn more about the target because of an outcome dependency manipulation (introduced in Experiment 2) the reduced empathy observed under fatigue was corrected. The results imply that fatigue-induced need for cognitive closure acts as a motivational boundary condition of empathic responding.