EMPATHY AND ATTITUDES - CAN FEELING FOR A MEMBER OF A STIGMATIZED GROUP IMPROVE FEELINGS TOWARD THE GROUP

Results of 3 experiments suggest that feeling empathy for a member of a stigmatized group can improve attitudes toward the group as a whole. In Experiments 1 and 2, inducing empathy for a young woman with AIDS (Experiment 1) or a homeless man (Experiment 2) led to more positive a ttitudes toward people with AIDS or toward the homeless, respectively Experiment 3 tested possible limits of the empathy-attitude effect by inducing empathy toward a member of a highly stigmatized group, convic ted murderers, and measuring attitudes toward this group immediately a nd then 1-2 weeks later. Results provided only weak evidence of improv ed altitudes toward murderers immediately but strong evidence of impro ved attitudes 1-2 weeks later.