Devil in the Details: Effects of Depression on the Prosocial Response Depend on Timing and Similarity

Most accounts of empathy acknowledge the importance of shared experience, but debate continues regarding the precise mechanism and necessity of similarity for an empathic response. The perception-action model posits that empathy and understanding are processed through observers’ own internal representations for states and situations, which increase in complexity with experience and produce more accurate, prosocial responses when observers and targets experience events similarly. We tested this model by measuring the degree to which past and current depression in observers influenced the perception of sad, distressed targets and the empathic, prosocial response to them. Participants with either prior or current depression perceived a greater number of types of negative affect in distressed targets. Past depression was also associated with an increased prosocial response to distressed patients if observers viewed them as similar. However, participants with current depression symptoms felt less empathy and gave less help to distressed targets. These results highlight the importance of distinguishing between past and current shared experience, with important consequences for clinical and social interactions.