Empathic Concern is Part of A More General Communal Emotion

Seeing someone in need may evoke a particular kind of closeness that has beenconceptualized as sympathy or empathic concern (which is distinct from other empathyconstructs). In other contexts, when people suddenly feel close to others, or observe otherssuddenly feeling closer to each other, this sudden closeness tends to evoke an emotion oftenlabeled in vernacular English as being moved, touched, or heart-warming feelings. Recenttheory and empirical work indicates that this is a distinct emotion; the construct is namedkama muta. Is empathic concern for people in need simply an expression of the much broadertendency to respond with kama muta to all kinds of situations that afford closeness, such asreunions, kindness, and expressions of love? Across 16 studies sampling 2918 participants,we explored whether empathic concern is associated with kama muta. Meta-analyzing theassociation between ratings of state being moved and trait empathic concern revealed aneffect size of, r(3631) = .35 [95% CI: .29, .41]. In addition, trait empathic concern was alsoassociated with self-reports of the three sensations that have been shown to be reliablyindicative of kama muta: weeping, chills, and bodily feelings of warmth. We conclude thatempathic concern might actually be a part of the kama muta construct.