Sara Konrath

University of Notre Dame | ND · Institute for Advanced Study

How does economic inequality relate to prosocial behaviour? Existing theories and empirical studies from multiple disciplines have produced mixed results. Here we conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis to systematically synthesize empirical studies. Results from 192 effect sizes and over 2.5 million observations in 100 studies show that the...

Age and gender differences in narcissism have been studied often. However, considering the rich history of narcissism research accompanied by its diverging conceptualizations, little is known about age and gender differences across various narcissism measures. The present study investigated age and gender differences and their interactions across e...

Age and gender differences in narcissism have been studied often. However, considering the rich history of narcissism research accompanied by its diverging conceptualizations, little is known about age and gender differences across various narcissism measures. The present study investigated age and gender differences and their interactions across e...

Mindfulness is a focused attention to and acceptance of present experiences. Although several reliable and valid multi-item measures of trait mindfulness exist, researchers may sometimes want a short and quick measure of mindfulness. In this project, we developed and validated the Single-Item Mindfulness Scale (SIMS) to assess trait mindfulness. We...

Charitable organizations have embraced virtual reality (VR); however, scientific evidence supporting its effectiveness for social good often uses poor experimental methodology and finds inconsistent results. We conducted a rigorous randomized control trial testing whether 360° video virtual reality increases empathy and charitable donations. Partic...

Research finds that people from individualistic cultures prioritize individual emotional expression and recognition compared to collectivistic cultures. Moreover, those with more independent self-construals self-report less difficulty in identifying and describing their emotions (i.e. lower alexithymia). However, it is unclear whether one aspect of...

Background Physician empathy has been linked to increased patient satisfaction, improved patient outcomes and reduced provider burnout. Our objective was to test the effectiveness of an educational intervention to improve physician empathy and trust in the ED setting. Methods Physician participants from six emergency medicine residencies in the US...

Scholars posit that economically prosperous times should produce higher individualism and narcissism, and economically challenging times lower individualism and narcissism. This creates the possibility that narcissism among U.S. college students, which increased between 1982 and 2009, may have declined after the Great Recession. Updating a cross-te...

This empirical study examines knowledge production between 1925 and 2015 in nonprofit and philanthropic studies from quantitative and thematic perspectives. Quantitative results suggest that scholars in this field have been actively generating a considerable amount of literature and a solid intellectual base for developing this field toward a new d...

Empathy is the tendency to understand and share others' thoughts and feelings. Literature in psychology has shown through surveys potential beneficial implications of empathy. Prior psychology literature showed that a particular type of empathy called "situational empathy" --- an immediate empathic response to a triggering situation (e.g., a distre...

How is charitable giving influenced by other donors’ giving? Do people give more in the presence of donors who are similar to themselves? Most research suggests that individuals are positively influenced by similar others across a variety of behaviors. In the charitable giving context, if similar others donate, individuals are more likely to donate...

Evidence exists that beautiful is seen as good: the halo effect wherein more physically attractive people are perceived to be good, and the reverse halo that good is seen as beautiful. Yet research has rarely examined the evidence linking the beautiful with the good, or the reverse, without the halo effect. We examine the relationship between physi...

This paper reviews the scientific research literature on changes over time in social connection and self-focus in the United States. It discusses the implications of these changes for the need for meaning, and in terms of mental health trends in the US. It then suggests that art museums can play a critical role in helping communities re-connect, by...

Giving circles and alumni campaigns are popular forms of nonprofit fund-raising practice that may lead to positive peer effects that promote charitable giving among similar individuals. However, do individuals always give more in the presence of similar others? Most research finds a positive social influence among similar individuals in donor–solic...

Compassion can be cultivated, argues a psychologist

The development of empathy is a hotly debated topic. Some studies find declines and others an inverse U-shaped pattern in empathy across the life span. Yet other studies find no age-related changes. Most of this research is cross sectional, and the few longitudinal studies have their limitations. The current study addresses these limitations by exa...

This empirical study examines knowledge production between 1925 and 2015 in nonprofit and philanthropic studies from quantitative and thematic perspectives. Quantitative results suggest that scholars in this field have been actively generating a considerable amount of literature and a solid intellectual base for developing this field toward a new d...

Self-transcendence refers to a shift in mindset from focusing on self-interests to the well-being of others. We offer an integrative neural model of self-transcendence in the context of persuasive messaging by examining the mechanisms of self-transcendence in promoting receptivity to health messages and behavior change. Specifically, we posited tha...

In this article, we develop and validate a comprehensive self-report scale of why people make charitable donations, relying on a theoretical model of private versus public benefits to donors. In Study 1, we administered an initial pool of 54 items to a general adult sample online. An exploratory factor analysis supported six final factors in the Mo...

Youth well-being, social connectedness, and personality traits, such as empathy and narcissism, are at the crux of concerns often raised about the impacts of digital life. Understanding known impacts, and research gaps, in these areas is an important first step toward supporting media use that contributes positively to youth's happiness, life satis...

Empathy involves feeling compassion for others and imagining how they feel. In this article, we develop and validate the Single Item Trait Empathy Scale (SITES), which contains only one item that takes seconds to complete. In seven studies (N=5,724), the SITES was found to be both reliable and valid. It correlated in expected ways with a wide varie...

This commentary discusses the research finding that warmer temperatures are associated with more prosocial outcomes. It calls for future research and theory on climate-related variables and social behavior to allow for both positive and negative emotional and behavioral responses to warmer temperatures.

Empathy is often studied at the individual level, but little is known about variation in empathy across geographic regions and how this variation is associated with important regional-level outcomes. The present study examined associations between state-level empathy, prosocial behavior, and antisocial behavior in the United States. Participants we...

Cultural practices socialize people to relate to others in different ways. One critical way in which these interpersonal bonds are formed and maintained is via empathy, our emotional reactivity toward others’ experiences. However, the extent to which individuals from different cultures vary in their dispositional empathy, and the correlates of thes...

This study examined 480 Americans’ psychological attitudes following Osama bin Laden’s death. We tracked changes in how different participants responded to dissimilar others from the night of bin Laden’s death for five weeks. Liberal participants reported lower worldview defense (i.e., a defensive reaction to uphold one’s cultural worldview) immedi...

Across three studies, we examined the relationship between narcissism, prosocial behaviors, and the reasons why people engaged in them. Specifically, we examined how narcissistic people engaged in charitable donations, taking advantage of a naturally occurring mass charitable donation campaign, the ALS “ice bucket challenge” (Study 1). We also exam...

We review research on physiological correlates of volunteering, a neglected but promising research field. Some of these correlates seem to be causal factors influencing volunteering. Volunteers tend to have better physical health, both self-reported and expert-assessed, better mental health, and perform better on cognitive tasks. Research thus far...

This empirical study examines knowledge production between 1986 and 2015 in nonprofit and philanthropic studies using science mapping and network analysis. Results suggest that scholars in this field have been actively generating a considerable amount of literature and a solid intellectual base for the continuing development of this field as a new...

The current chapter summarizes research on empathy in terms of its benefits and costs. The majority of research on empathy finds desirable correlates. For example, high empathy is associated with more prosocial behaviors and stronger relationships with others. Yet, excessive empathy can also be problematic in a variety of ways. Taken together, the...

Narcissism is a personality trait that is characterized by excessively positive self-views and low empathy. It is a complex constellation consisting of mostly positive individual correlates and mostly negative social correlates. This entry presents two different theoretical models that attempt to reconcile these apparently contradictory implication...

To what extent can simple mental exercises cause shifts in empathic habits? Can we use mobile technology to make people more empathic? It may depend on how empathy is measured. Scholars have identified a number of different facets and correlates of empathy. This study is among the first to take a comprehensive, multidimensional approach to empathy...

Statement of purpose Sexting by youth has recently garnered much attention in popular media; and although some prior literature has begun to describe sexting experiences, limited research has been conducted among African American youth. Methods/approach Participants 14–20 years old were screened at an urban Emergency Department based on home addres...

Using data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study, the purpose of this study is twofold. First, the study identifies coping strategies used by older adults. Second, the study examines the impact of older adults’ chosen coping strategies on mortality reduction. The study focuses specifically on differences in the use of religious and secular coping s...

Main Objectives The narcissistic personality is characterized by grandiosity, entitlement, and low empathy. This paper describes the development and validation of the Single Item Narcissism Scale (SINS). Although the use of longer instruments is superior in most circumstances, we recommend the SINS in some circumstances (e.g. under serious time con...

Many psychological theories of morality suggest that satisfying our own self-interest motives and desires at the expense of others is the default condition in early childhood development, but that humans eventually learn to behave selflessly in the interest of others. Recent research examining societal increases in traits related to self-interest (...

Research has found that war is likely to break out in times when leaders are high in power motives and low in affiliation, however research has been limited to conflicts between Western countries. We examine 4 revolutionary movements in the Philippines to examine whether this pattern applies to political violence across cultures and conflict types...

The goal of this paper is to examine whether individual differences in affect intensity predict people’s responses to food advertisements. In doing so, we aim to uncover individual differences and situational factors that are associated with higher food cravings and other consumption-related responses. Studies 1 and 2 identified three mediators (em...

Background Validated measures that can accurate describe young adults’ HPV vaccination attitudes and how these relate to vaccination intention and receipt are needed for developing interventions to improve low HPV vaccination levels. The Carolina HPV Immunization Attitudes Scale (CHIAS) is a validated measure of these outcomes that was originally d...

Mothers need to make caregiving decisions to meet the needs of children, which may or may not result in positive child feedback. Variations in caregivers' emotional reactivity to unpleasant child-feedback may be partially explained by their dispositional empathy levels. Furthermore, empathic response to the child's unpleasant feedback likely helps...

Narcissism is a complex phenomenon, involving a level of defensive self-enhancement. Narcissists have avoidant attachment styles, maintain distance in relationships and claim not to need others. However, they are especially sensitive to others’ evaluations, needing positive reflected appraisals to maintain their inflated self-views, and showing ext...

The current article examines changes over time in a commonly used measure of adult attachment style. A cross-temporal meta-analysis was conducted on 94 samples of American college students (total N = 25,243, between 1988 and 2011) who chose the most representative description of four possible attachment styles (Secure, Dismissing, Preoccupied, and...

The present research explores the link between the personality trait exploitativeness, a component of narcissism, and emotion recognition abilities. Prior research on this topic has produced inconsistent findings. We attempt to resolve these inconsistencies by testing the hypothesis that narcissistic exploitativeness, in particular, should be assoc...

Intuition suggests that the Martin Luther King holiday (MLK Day) should improve racial attitudes toward African Americans. However, its influence may depend on whether African Americans are evaluated as a group or individually. In two studies, we assessed racial attitudes either on MLK Day or on a control day. As might be expected, participants had...

This chapter reviews research on the relationship between giving money (i.e., philanthropy) and time (i.e., volunteering) and givers' psychological wellbeing. It summarize a wide body of research literature suggesting correlational, longitudinal, and experimental links between giving time and money to others and psychological wellbeing. The chapter...

Bentley et al. argue for the social scientific contextualization of “big data” by proposing a four-quadrant model. We suggest extensions of the east–west (i.e., socially motivated versus independently motivated) decision-making dimension in light of findings from social psychology and neuroscience. We outline a method that leverages linguistic tool...

Bentley, O’Brien, & Brock (Bentley et al.) argue for the social scientific contextualization of “big data” by proposing a four-quadrant model. We suggest extensions of the east (socially motivated)—west (independently motivated) decision-making dimension in light of findings from social psychology and neuroscience. We outline a method that leverage...

Narcissism is a personality trait that is characterized by excessively high self-esteem in combination with low empathy. Since the development of sound instruments to measure the narcissistic personality in the 1970s, scholars have discovered a lot about the interpersonal correlates and consequences of narcissism. For example, people scoring high o...

The purpose of this chapter is to summarize changes in personality traits that have co-occurred with the rise of new social media, and to evaluate the plausibility of the hypothesis that new social media are a partial explanation for these dramatic changes. Studies have found a rise in social disconnection among recent generations of young American...

Abstract This Critical Synthesis Package contains: (1) a Critical Analysis of the psychometric properties and the application to health science education of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI), and (2) a copy of the IRI and the scoring instructions developed by Mark Davis, PhD. The IRI is a 28-item self-report questionnaire that was measures f...

Cross-cultural comparisons demonstrate that subjective well-being (SWB) is rated lower among East Asian than Western individuals. Regardless of such cultural differences, however, factors that predict SWB among people from various cultures may be similar. In the current study we demonstrate the universality of two potential pathways to SWB: those w...

In accord with social neuroscience's progression to include interactive experimental paradigms, parents' brains have been activated by emotionally charged infant stimuli - especially of their own infant - including baby cry and picture. More recent research includes the use of brief video clips and opportunities for maternal response. Among brain s...

In this paper, we examine whether and what extent public and private forms of religiosity act as moderators of the volunteering and well-being relationship in mid- to later-life. We use data from the second wave of the National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States (n = 1,805). We analyzed the relationships between volunteering and ind...

We review two subjective (mis)perceptions that influence revenge and forgiveness systems. Individual differences predict more (e.g., narcissism) or less (e.g., empathy) revenge, with the opposite pattern for forgiveness. Moreover, differences in victim versus perpetrator perceptions can influence revenge and forgiveness systems, perpetuating never-...

This paper addresses the health problems and opportunities that society will face in 2030. We propose a proactive model to combat the trend towards declining levels of physical activity and increasing obesity. The model emphasizes the need to increase physical activity among individuals of all ages. We focus on the right to move and the benefits of...

Women are visually depicted with lower facial prominence than men, with consequences for perceptions of their competence. The current study examines the relationship between the size of this “face-ism” bias (i.e., individual or micro-level sexism) and a number of gender inequality indicators (i.e., institutional or macro-level sexism) at the cross-...

Consumer products have long been known to influence observers’ impressions of product owners. The angle at which products are visually portrayed in advertisements, however, may be an overlooked factor in these effects. We hypothesize and find that portrayals of the same product from different viewpoints can prime different associations that color i...

Objective: We investigated linear and quadratic effects of age on self-reported empathy in three large cross-sectional samples of American adults aged 18-90 years. Method: Participants completed subscales of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (Davis, 1983), allowing us to independently assess an emotional component of empathy ("empathic concern"...

Previous research finds positive relationships between alexithymia and aggression. This study examined potential interpersonal factors that might elicit aggressiveness among people with high levels of alexithymia. College student participants completed the Toronto Alexithymia Scale online prior to interacting with their partners in the laboratory....

Narcissism is characterized by grandiosity, low empathy, and entitlement. There has been limited research regarding the hormonal correlates of narcissism, despite the potential health implications. This study examined the role of participant narcissism and sex on basal cortisol concentrations in an undergraduate population. Participants were 106 un...

Interpersonal relationships constitute the foundation on which human society is based. The infant-caregiver bond is the earliest and most influential of these relationships. Driven by evolutionary pressure for survival, parents feel compelled to provide care to their biological offspring. However, compassion for non-kin is also ubiquitous in human...

The self-esteem movement has been around since the 1970s, and may have influenced how much value people place on self-esteem. We predicted a negative relationship between age and the amount of value placed on self-esteem boosts. We also investigated the correlates of liking versus wanting self-esteem boosts (and other pleasant rewards) on depressio...

The purpose of this chapter is to summarize changes in personality traits that have co-occurred with the rise of new social media, and to evaluate the plausibility of the hypothesis that new social media are a partial explanation for these dramatic changes. Studies have found a rise in social disconnection among recent generations of young American...

Google n-grams can be used by researchers to track changes across time in the use of specific words and phrases. N-grams includes a corpus of approximately 15 million published books (in various languages). In this chapter we use google n-grams to illustrate temporal trends in the use of the word "self-esteem" in English-language books published fr...

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of motives for volunteering on respondents' mortality risk 4 years later. Logistic regression analysis was used to examine whether motives for volunteering predicted later mortality risk, above and beyond volunteering itself, in older adults from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study. Covariates includ...

To examine the relationship between trauma history, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), coping, and smoking in a diverse sample of pregnant women, some of whom are active smokers. Secondary analysis from a prospective study on PTSD and pregnancy outcomes. Maternity clinics at three health systems in the midwestern United States. Women age 18 or o...

Recently, a number of philosophers have advanced a surprising conclusion: people's judgments about whether an agent brought about an outcome intentionally are pervasively influenced by normative considerations. In this paper, we investigate the ‘Chairman case’, an influential case from this literature and disagree with this conclusion. Using a stat...

The current study examines changes over time in a commonly used measure of dispositional empathy. A cross-temporal meta-analysis was conducted on 72 samples of American college students who completed at least one of the four subscales (Empathic Concern, Perspective Taking, Fantasy, and Personal Distress) of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI)...

In public discourse and survey research, global climate change is sometimes referred to as “global warming” and sometimes as “climate change.” An analysis of web sites of conservative and liberal think tanks suggests that conservatives prefer to use the term “global warming” whereas liberals prefer “climate change.” A question wording experiment (N...

We examine the link between self-construal and alexithymia, a personality trait related to low emotional regulation abilities. People with independent self-construals think of themselves in terms of their uniqueness from others, while people with interdependent self-construals see themselves as a part of an interconnected social context. In two stu...

Colored maps depicting electoral results may exacerbate perceptions of polarization, rather than merely reflecting them. Participants viewed maps of state-by-state Presidential election results that were either Electoral (red/Republican or blue/Democrat) or Proportional (purples that proportionally reflected each group's support). Half of the maps...

In 4 studies we examine the association between narcissism, self-construal, and cognitive-perceptual style, hypothesizing that high self-focus in combination with low other-focus (i.e., social atomization) is related to an analytic cognitive-perceptual style. Participants completed the Narcissistic Personality Inventory, the Self-Construal Scale, a...

To investigate the influence of media figures on self-perception, online gamers reported how central their main videogame character (avatar) is to their own identity and answered questions about their avatar's body size either before or after questions about their own body size. When the avatar was not central to the gamer's identity, the avatar's...

Our meta-analysis also finds no change over time in Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) scores among California college students, most likely due to the cultural and ethnic shifts at the University of California campuses over this time (especially the large increase in Asian-American student enrollment). Students in the rest of the country, fr...

A cross-temporal meta-analysis found that narcissism levels have risen over the generations in 85 samples of American college students who completed the 40-item forced-choice Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) between 1979 and 2006 (total n=16,475). Mean narcissism scores were significantly correlated with year of data collection when weighte...

Headshot portraits of all U.S. Governors, Senators, and Representatives and members of Parliament in Canada, Australia, and Norway are analyzed. In all countries, male politicians are represented with higher facial prominence than female politicians, paralleling a pervasive gender bias in media portraits. For American Congresswomen, high facial pro...

In four articles I examine changes in narcissism over time and the implications of those changes. First in the introduction I review research on the history of narcissism as a personality disorder and as a personality trait. In Article 1 my colleagues and I conduct a cross-temporal meta-analysis and find that scores on the Narcissistic Personality...

Research has found that narcissists behave aggressively when they receive a blow to their ego. The current studies examined whether narcissistic aggression could be reduced by inducing a unit relation between the target of aggression and the aggressor. Experimental participants were told that they shared either a birthday (Study 1) or a fingerprint...

(from the chapter) Twenge and her colleagues use such measurements as the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) to argue that there has been a dramatic increase in the level of college-aged narcissism in the last 20 years. With a meta-analysis of 85 studies, they evaluated data from over 16,000 American college students who took the NPI between...