Cognitive and emotional empathy in relation to five paranormal experiences

Alejandro Parra

Abstract


Empathy is an important component of social cognition that contributes to the ability to adaptively understand and respond to the emotions of others, succeed in emotional communication, and promote pro-social behavior. However, there are not enough studies on empathy in relation to psychic experiences; As a matter of fact, many psychic claimants appear to act more empathetic than telepathic. Here two specific hypotheses are tested: People who have telepathic experiences, aura vision experiences, a sense of presence, experience as healers and apparitional experiences have a greater capacity for cognitive empathy (perspective taking and emotional understanding) and 2) Empathy emotional (Empathic concern and positive empathy) than non-experimenters. The results show that the experienced group obtained higher empathy scores than the inexperienced ones. Scores on the four empathy subscales were also significantly higher for the non-experienced. Thus, people who affirm that such psychic experiences seem to have a great capacity to recognize the emotions of another, related to their imitative capacities. The ability to use cognitive and emotional empathy in an integrated way seems important in many circumstances, such as healing practitioners' experiences or aura vision experiences.

Keywords


empathy; anomalous experience

References


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