We conducted a series of meta-analytic tests on experiments in which participants read perspective-taking instructions-that is, written instructions to imagine a distressed persons' point of view ("imagine-self" and "imagine-other" instructions), or to inhibit such actions ("remain-objective" instructions)-and afterwards reported how much empathic concern they experienced upon learning about the distressed person. If people spontaneously empathize with others, then participants who receive remain-objective instructions should report less empathic concern than do participants in a "no-instructions" control condition; if people can deliberately increase how much empathic concern they experience, then imagine-self and imagine-other instructions should increase empathic concern relative to not receiving any instructions. Random-effects models revealed that remain-objective instructions reduced empathic concern, but "imagine" instructions did not significantly increase it. The results were robust to most corrections for bias. Our conclusions were not qualified by the study characteristics we examined, but most relevant moderators have not yet been thoroughly studied.

中文翻译：

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移情是对痛苦的默认反应吗？对观点采择对共情关注的影响的荟萃分析评估。

我们对实验进行了一系列的元分析测试，其中参与者阅读了采取观点的指令，即书面指令以想象受困者的观点（“自我想象”和“其他想象”指令），或者为了抑制这种行为（“保持目标”的指示），随后报告了他们在了解受苦者后经历了多少同情心。如果人们自发地同情他人，那么接受保持客观指导的参与者所报告的同情关注要比处于“无指令”控制条件下的参与者少。如果人们可以故意增加他们所经历的共情关注，然后想象自己和想象其他指令相对于不接收任何指令会增加同理心。随机效应模型表明，保持客观的指令减少了共情关注，但“想象”指令并没有显着增加共情关注。该结果对于大多数偏倚校正都是可靠的。我们的结论不符合我们研究的研究特征，但是大多数相关的主持人尚未得到充分研究。