EMPATHY AND EGOTISM IN NEW YORK TIMES OBITUARIES

TODAY’S BREAKING NEWSApril 29, 2014 $1.00

By: Sara Konrath

The IUPUI Times

Acknowledgements –This research was done in collaboration with an undergraduate student, Muneer Khalid.

Grants from the John Templeton Foundation, via the Psychology of Character (Wake Forest University) and directly from the sponsor (Grant # 47993).

BACKGROUND

•Empathy, egotism, and health•Empathy no research on longevity of empathic people, but may be linked (e.g. volunteering, giving support) (Konrath & Brown, 2013; Konrath, 2013)

•Egotism self-focus linked to higher stress responses, higher risk of cardiovascular disease, and cardiovascular-related death (Konrath & Bonadonna, 2014; Reinhard et al, 2012; Scherwitz et al)

•Measurement•Self-report scales most common limitations•Some content coding (e.g. I, me, mine), but rare

BACKGROUND

•Personality “at a distance”•Can measure trait-like tendencies of people who are not otherwise accessible, e.g. politicians, deceased, etc.•Human coding: •e.g. power, affiliation, achievement motives

•Computer coding: •e.g. count first person singular (I, me) vs first person plural (we, us) pronouns

•Relevant study:•People whose autobiographical texts had more social words lived longer (Pressman & Cohen, 2007)

BACKGROUND

•Obituaries as a data source•‘That special form of life after death’•Summaries of career and character

•Some prior research examining gender differences, and also in type and age of death based on occupation•Yet none that we know of assess traits

•Obvious sampling problems•High profile / famous, more men, etc.

•Can still be helpful for theory-building / hypothesis generation in relatively undeveloped literatures and difficult to study topics

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

•Are empathy-related and egotism-related words linked to age of death in obituaries?

•Are empathy-related and egotism-related words linked to cause of death in obituaries?

•Do people from different occupational categories have different empathy-related and egotism-related words in their obituaries?

METHOD

•Collected full texts of all obituaries in 2012 from the New York Times.

•Developed list of empathy-related and egotism-related words.

•Computerized coding via Linguistic Inquiry Word Count Program (LIWC).

•Also coded by an individual for “subjective kindness.”

•Recorded date, age, and cause of death, as well as occupation.

METHOD: LIWC CODING

e.g. empathy words e.g. egotism words

car* justice aggress* independ*charit* kind* anger insensitivecooperat* love angry pridecourtesy loving attack* prouddiversity oblig* boast* purg*emotional patient callous quarrel*empath* philanthrop* critical rudeendear* protect* criticize sarcas*forgive* provid* desert* scofffriend* rapport ego* selfgenero* reasonable elite selfishgiv* rights exploit* supremac*grace sensitive fight takehelp* serv* forc* unemotionalhold sincer* grudge unkindhug sympath* hatehumanitarian trust hithumanity volunteer* ignor*interdepend* warm* impatient

RESULTS: DESCRIPTIVES

•Total N=484 (85 female, 399 male)

•Mean age of death = 81.31 years (+4.17 years than average lifespan) Range=age 33 to 111

•No gender differences in average age of death, F(1,482)=.24, p=.62•This is because women died at about the average age (81 years), but men lived about 5 years longer than usual

•Gender: LIWC empathy: ns• but males > females in egotism words•females > males in subjective kindness

RESULTS: AGE OF DEATH

•LIWC empathy: ns•LIWC egotism: ns•Subjective kindness: associated with longer life, r=.12, p=.01

•Conclusion: Only subjective ratings predict longevity•But need interrater reliability ratings

RESULTS: CAUSE OF DEATH

Type of Death Frequency Average AgeCardiovascular 16.3% 80.15

Cancer 23.8% 74.97Infection 6.2% 85.13

Alzheimer’s / Dementia

3.7% 83.67

Injury (intentional or not)

3.7% 63.28

“Natural causes” 32.0% 88.70Other / unknown 14.3% 79.06

RESULTS: CAUSE OF DEATH

•Logistic regressions predicting the likelihood of dying from cardiovascular disease or cancer

•Cardiovascular disease:•LIWC Egotism: β=.92, p=.05, OR=2.52 [1.00,6.34]•LIWC Empathy: β=.09, p=.77, OR=1.10 [.60, 2.01]•Subjective Kindness: β=-.35, p=.03, OR=.71 [.52, .96]

•Cancer: •Egotism: β=-.73, p=.15, OR=.48 [.18, 1.29]•Empathy: β=.25, p=.26, OR=1.28 [.77, 2.14]•Subjective Kindness: β=-.02, p=.88, OR=.98 [.77, 1.25]

RESULTS: OCCUPATION

Occupation Frequency Average AgeSilent Arts

(writing, photography, visual art)24.4% 80.60

Entertainment(acting, dancing, theater, TV host,

comedy)

24.2% 79.75

Public Service (politics, military, law, religion,

activism)

17.6% 83.95

Scholar(historian, economist, scientist,

engineer, educator)

12.8% 85.32

Business(CEO, entrepreneur)

9.5% 79.46

Sports 7.2% 77.46Medicine

(doctor, psychologist, dentist)4.3% 82.00

RESULTS: OCCUPATION

Z-score

DISCUSSION

•Overview of results•Age: subjective kindness and longevity•Cause: LIWC egotism predicts higher cardiovascular, subjective kindness predicts lower•Occupation: Entertainers / sports have most egotistical profile

•Implications•Limited work on empathic / egotistical traits and age or cause of mortality•Limited work on trait-like tendencies in obituaries•Creating a computerized dictionary for other researchers to use

DISCUSSION: LIMITATIONS

•Obituary descriptions may not represent actual traits of individuals•Limitations inherent to acontextual computer coding, e.g. “He was not very caring”

•Obituaries in a prestigious national newspaper do not represent general population

•Issues of causality•Third variables such as socioeconomic status may help to explain the results

DISCUSSION: FUTURE DIRECTIONS

•Currently: Finishing 2011 obituary data collection

•Future: Other coding•e.g. Implicit motives: power, affiliation, achievement

•Refine LIWC empathy and egotism dictionaries so that they can be applied to other types of text•Could be helpful for measuring personality traits “at a distance”•e.g. Validate with high and low empathy groups

THANK YOU

Questions or comments?