How the self guides empathy choice

Empathy can bridge the gap between self and other. Yet, people may not always be willing to cross this bridge: the motivation to view the self as moral may deter people from fostering self-other overlap with those they deem immoral. In Studies 1–3, participants selected between imagining the internal experiences of either immoral or morally neutral targets. In Studies 1–2, participants were randomly assigned to foster similarities or differences between themselves and the targets. In Study 3, similarity was contrasted against a no-instruction control. Participants in the similar condition avoided immoral targets more often than those in the comparison condition, preferring neutral targets. Participants in the different condition preferred immoral targets (Studies 1–2) while those in the control (Study 3) did not prefer either target. In Study 4, we tested whether people show similar avoidance for targets who explicitly oppose the self and compared choices between moral and non-moral targets. Participants instructed to foster similarities (vs. a no-instruction control) avoided targets who differed from themselves on moral traits as well as those who differed from themselves on non-moral traits, demonstrating that people avoid self-other overlap with dissimilar others in both moral and non-moral contexts. This avoidance effect was descriptively greater for morally dissimilar targets, suggesting that people may be particularly motivated to avoid fostering similarities to others who are morally dissimilar to themselves. These findings reveal that moral self-relevance plays a prominent role in empathic decisions, guiding whose minds people choose to imagine.