Sympathy and prejudice vary systematically with trait sympathy, mood, gender, and ethnicity

Evidence

People who are generally sympathetic tend to feel sympathy when observing the plight of others (Lee, 2009), which occurs across a number of different situations and with different targets of sympathy (Lee, 2009; Lee, Gibbons, & Short, 2010). … In previous research, women have expressed more sympathy (e.g., Lee, 2009) and less prejudice (e.g., Ponterotto et al., 1995) than their male counterparts. Similarly, non-Whites have shown more empathy toward ethnic minorities than Whites (e.g., Wang et al., 2003). Therefore, we controlled for the effects of trait sympathy, affect (i.e., positive and negative), gender, and ethnicity. — Sherman A. Lee, Chelsea A. Reid, Stephen D. Short, Jeffrey A. Gibbons, Ruth Yeh, and Matthew L. Campbell, Fear of Muslims, 118

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s interest in how out-group sympathy is measured — the same covariates would matter in any study of empathy toward a stigmatized group.