Feeling “Lonely Together”: The Roles of Empathy and Distance in Emotional Responses to Theatre
Open Access
- Author:
- Munitz, Melody
- Area of Honors:
- Interdisciplinary in Musical Theatre and Psychology
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Fine Arts
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- Christopher Daryl Cameron, Thesis Supervisor
Kenneth N. Levy, Thesis Honors Advisor
Raymond Sage, Thesis Supervisor
Elisha Clark Halpin, Thesis Honors Advisor - Keywords:
- theatre
empathy
emotion
distance
mirror neurons
performance - Abstract:
- Transcending the qualitative nature of most theatrical research, this quantitative field study empirically assessed how spectators’ empathic tendencies and their positioning within a theater relate to their emotional responses to a theatrical piece. Participants (n = 160) attended a performance of an original one-act play, Lonely Together, seated in one of three distance conditions: close to, mid-range, or far from the stage. Following the performance, data on subjects’ emotional responses to the play and general empathic tendencies were collected via their completion of a digital survey including the Evaluation of Theater Visit Measure (Boerner & Jobst, 2013) and the Questionnaire of Cognitive and Affective Empathy (Reniers et al., 2011). Two main effects were hypothesized: (1) a positive association between reported trait empathy and emotional response such that subjects who are more empathetic would report stronger emotional responses to the performance as compared to those who are less empathetic, regardless of seat location, and (2) a negative causal relationship between distance and emotional response such that subjects seated closer to the stage would report stronger emotional responses to the performance as compared to those seated further from the stage, regardless of trait empathy. Hypothesis 1 was supported; reported trait empathy was correlated to reported emotional response to the play (r = .293, p < .001). Hypothesis 2 was not supported; no significant differences in emotional response across distance conditions were found (p = .056). Exploratory analyses revealed the relevance of identifying with the theatrical content in experiencing a strong emotional response to the play (r = .610, p < .001). This study is the first of its kind to empirically support the oft-postulated role of empathy in theatrical spectating and serves as a basis for future research exploring the features underpinning subjective reactions to theatre.