ArticleJournal of personality2026
Disentangling Counter-Empathy: Developing a Three-Dimensional Model and Measure of Dispositional Counter-Empathy.
Article in Journal of personality, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Disentangling Counter-Empathy: Developing a Three-Dimensional Model and Measure of Dispositional Counter-Empathy.Journal of personality · 2026Article
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2 authors.
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Abstract
objectivesCounter-empathy involves responding to others' assumed emotions incongruently. Research on dispositional counter-empathy predominantly focuses on specific counter-empathic constructs without clearly mapping its cardinal dimensions. We develop and test a Three-Dimensional Model of Counter-Empathy (3DCE) that includes schadenfreude, gluckschmerz, and affective sadism.
methodAcross five studies (total N = 1878), we test the 3DCE and develop the Various Indices of Counter-Empathy (VICE). Study 1a and Study 1b administered items representing the 3DCE to develop the VICE. Study 2 administered the VICE, measures of counter-empathic constructs, empathy, everyday sadism, and socially aversive outcomes. Study 3a and Study 3b administered vignettes of others' good fortunes and misfortunes, and depictions of general and social harms, and participants reported their reactions.
resultsThe 3DCE and validity of the VICE are supported by exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses; a "bass-ackward" factor analysis mapping the hierarchical structure of counter-empathy; incremental analyses predicting socially aversive outcomes beyond empathy; correlations with relevant constructs; and predicting counter-empathic reactions to specific scenarios.
conclusionsThe 3DCE and VICE can help situate prior research in the broader structure of counter-empathy, help expand the study of vicarious emotion beyond empathy, and suggest counter-empathy contributes to socially aversive outcomes beyond a lack of empathy.
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