The present study is under development to survey possible differences in participants' empathetic reactions to another's emotional distress dependent on the target's race (i.e., same-race vs. other race). The influence for our study came from Sessa et al. (2014), which examined differences in white participants empathetic responses to the painful experiences of same-race versus other-race individuals. Sessa et al. (2014) measured empathy implicitly. In contrast, we propose using an explicit measure of white participants empathetic responses to sadness in same-race versus other-race targets. We hypothesize that empathetic responses will vary by race, with participants displaying stronger empathy in response to same-race targets. We will recruit our sample from undergraduate psychology students at Georgia College, which will be predominately white. Participants will complete an online pretest measuring trait empathy prior to coming to the lab. In the lab, participants will listen to an audio recording simulating a counseling session with a client who is sad. Participants will respond to a survey measuring their empathetic reaction to the client, whose race will be manipulated by showing a picture along with the audio recording. Statistical analyses will be used to compare participants empathetic responses to same-race versus other-race targets. Trait empathy will be used as a control variable in the analyses. The existing body of research suggests neurological differences in reaction to race; we attempt to discover how these differences manifest themselves overtly.
