Fathers & Affect

I received the April Issue of the APA Monitor the other day. The cover story is about fathers and empathy. The article describes a study which found that women rush in to quiet a crying infant while men sit by impassively. The article then describes a later study which investigates differences in behavior versus experienced distress. Although the men sit by passively, they have much higher rates of "agitation" as measured by galvanic skin responses. Yes, the affect distress is contagious, whether the behavioral response shows it or not. What especially interests me is the equation of distress affect with empathy or affective responsiveness. What about the other 8 affects? Nobody is measuring the fathers' responsiveness to the contagion of anger, shame, or excitement. Why do so many psychologists seem to view distress (ie crying behavior) as the only affect worth looking at?

• Fathers and Affect by Margaret Blakely, 3/28/96
• Re: Fathers and Affect by Philip Cremer, 4/14/96