Challenging the Intrapersonal Empathy Gap An Experiment with Self-Commitment Power

摘要

Loewenstein (1996, 2005) identi?es an intrapersonal empathy gap. In the respective experiments, subjects make choices with delayed consequences. When entering the state where these consequences would unfold, they get the possibility to revise their initial choice. Revisions are more substantial when these two choices are made in di?erent emotional states. The concept of the empathy gap suggests that the initial choice represents a misprediction of future preferences. However, it might alternatively be based on a well understood disagreement with future preferences. In this sense, people would like to add: “But don’t ask me again!” To disentangle both explanations, we induce two di?erent emotional states in each subject and o?er a self-commitment device in the ?rst state. In one condition, subjects move from a “cold” state of re?ection to a “hot” state of impulsiveness. In the other condition, this order is reversed. We ?nd evidence for the hot-to-cold empathy gap, but not for the cold-to-hot empathy gap when subjects can self-commit to their initial choice.