title: Limits of symhedonia: the differential role of prior emotional attachment in sympathy and sympathetic joy.
abstract: Seven studies tested the hypothesis that compared with sympathy symhedonia (sympathy for another's good fortune) is inherently more contingent on prior emotional attachment to its targets. As predicted, Studies 1-4 found that reported attachment was higher for past episodes of symhedonia than for those of sympathy and that recalled incidence of sympathy exceeded that of symhedonia when the target was a stranger. Study 5 showed that whereas symhedonia was significantly higher for high- versus low-attachment targets sympathy was not. Study 6 found that sympathy is more likely than symhedonia when a relationship is strained. Study 7 found that both sympathy and symhedonia are weaker for nonclose (vs. close) others, but the disparity is significantly smaller for sympathy than for symhedonia.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA. royzman@psych.upenn.edu
authors.forename: Edward B
authors.initials: EB
authors.lastname: Royzman
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Rozin
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D004644:Emotions; D004645:Empathy; D005260:Female; D006240:Happiness; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009769:Object Attachment; D011582:Psychological Theory; D014481:United States