Ruttan, R. L., McDonnell, M.-H., & Nordgren, L. F. (2015). Having “been there” doesn’t mean I care: When prior experience reduces compassion for emotional distress.
The current research found that participants who had previously endured an emotionally distressing event (e.g., bullying) more harshly evaluated another person’s failure to endure a similar distressing event compared with participants with no experience enduring the event or those currently enduring the event. These effects emerged for naturally occurring (Studies 1, 3, and 4) and experimentally induced (Study 2) distressing events. This effect was driven ...