Is Tenderness a Basic
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RUNNING HEAD: Tenderness Basic Emotion
Is Tenderness a Basic Emotion?
Juan Pablo Kalawski
University of Louisville
This article was originally published in Motivation and Emotion: Volume 34, Issue 2 (2010),
Page 158, DOI: 10.1007/s11031-010-9164-y. The original publication is available at
http://www.springerlink.com/openurl.asp?genre=article&id=doi:10.1007/s11031-010-9164-y
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Abstract
The article presents the case to consider tenderness a basic emotion, using the criteria proposed
by Ekman (1999). The first part of the article reviews the relationship between tenderness and
the related concepts of love and empathy. The next section reviews evidence concerning whether
tenderness meets some of Ekman’s criteria. The last section reports an experiment testing
whether tenderness meets Ekman’s criterion of distinct subjective experience. Participants
watched scenes designed to induce different emotions. Results showed that a scene could induce
high levels of tenderness and low levels of joy if that scene also induced high levels of sadness.
These results suggest that the subjective experience of tenderness is distinct from that of joy.
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Is Tenderness a Basic Emotion?
Emotional phenomena are as pervasive as they are varied. Over a century ago, William
James complained that,
As far as "scientific psychology" of the emotions goes, I may have been surfeited by too
much reading of classic works on the subject, but I should as lief read verbal descriptions
of the shapes of the rocks on a New Hampshire farm as toil through them again. They
give one nowhere a central point of view, or a deductive or generative principle. They
distinguish and refine and specify in infinitum without ever getting on to another logical
level. (1890, p.448)
Since James’ complaint, several scholars have proposed theories that attempt to bridge that gap
in abstraction. Of those theories, the basic emotions approach gained increased support during
the second half of the twentieth century. There are several basic emotions theories, but they all
share some basic assumptions. Basic emotion theories propose that the array of human affective
phenomena arise out of a handful of basic emotions (e.g., Ekman, 1999; Izard, 1991, 2007).
Basic emotions are “those emotions that have been characterized as having evolutionarily old
neurobiological substrates, as well as an evolved feeling component and capacity for expressive
and other behavioral actions of evolutionary origin” (Izard, 2007, p. 261). Through their
interaction with an individual’s experiences and cognitions, basic emotions give rise to a variety
of complex and idiosyncratic affective experiences. While these complex emotional reactions
can be understood in terms of more basic components, basic emotions cannot. In this sense, they
are irreducible, and hence basic. Furthermore, basic emotion theorists proposed that most of the
daily emotional experiences of human adults are not basic emotions. “Theorists generally agree
that basic emotions are few in number, relatively infrequent, and short in duration and that
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nonbasic emotions (emotion schemas) are virtually infinite in number and usually longer in
duration (cf. Damasio, 1999; James, 1890/1950; Kagan, 1978).” (Izard, 2007, p. 265) Thus, basic
emotions include many experiences that laypeople call emotions, but not all of those
experiences. For instance, laypeople probably consider jealousy an emotion. Basic emotion
theorists would propose that, although jealousy is a real emotional experience, it is not a basic
emotion. They would argue that jealousy is a complex phenomenon that arises out of the
interaction of basic emotions (especially anger) and specific cognitive processes.
One area of disagreement among different basic emotion approaches is over the list of
basic emotions. Shaver, Morgan, and Wu (1996) have summarized the basic emotion lists
proposed by several scholars. A review of those lists shows that there is consensus that joy,
anger, sadness, and fear are basic emotions. Other emotions like shame and contempt are more
controversial. In this article, I will argue that tenderness should be considered a basic emotion.2
In order to understand what tenderness is, I will first discuss its relationships with related
concepts.
Tenderness, love, and empathy
One of the concepts related to tenderness is love. Love is conspicuously absent from
basic emotion lists. Shaver et al. (1996) have presented several arguments for the inclusion of
love as a basic emotion. However, they agreed with Ekman (1999) that the word “love” often
does not refer to an emotion but to a disposition to respond emotionally. Shaver et al. pointed
out, however, that the emotional disposition of love is punctuated by “surges” of emotion. These
surges are temporally discrete in the way other basic emotions are.
In addition, Shaver et al. (1996) noted that the term “love” means different things under
different circumstances. In other words, there are several varieties of love. Based on attachment
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theory, Shaver et al. distinguished among love as attachment, love as caregiving, and love as
sexual attraction. Each of these three types of love may occur by itself, or it may combine with
one or both other types. Shaver et al. suggested that different types of emotion “surges” may
correspond to the different types of love.
I conceptualize tenderness as the momentary experience, that is, the emotion “surge,” that
corresponds to love as caregiving. Frijda (1986) proposed that, “tenderness can be regarded as
the impulse toward tender—that is, caregiving—behavior; or else as the acute act of recognition
of an object as a fit object for such behavior” (p. 83). To summarize the conceptual relationship
between tenderness and love, whereas love is a disposition to respond emotionally, tenderness is
a momentary emotional experience. And whereas there are different varieties of love, tenderness
relates specifically to caregiving.
Another concept that is related to tenderness is the concept of empathy. Clinical and
counseling psychologists may be familiar with Rogers’ (1957) definition of empathy: “to sense
the client’s private world as if it were your own, but without ever losing the ‘as if’ quality” (p.
99). In the context of this definition, the word “sense” probably means two things: a cognitive
understanding and a feeling. Batson and Shaw (1991) suggest using the term “perspective
taking” to refer to the cognitive aspect. They reserve the term “empathy” for the emotional
feeling that may arise from taking someone else’s perspective. In this sense, Batson, Lishner,
Cook, and Sawyer (2005) state that,
Empathy (…) refers to an other-oriented emotional response congruent with the
perceived welfare of another (…). Empathic feelings for someone in need include
sympathy, compassion, tenderness, and the like. These feelings have been found to be a
potent source of motivation to help relieve the empathy-inducing need. (p.15)
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Lishner (2003) reported some evidence consistent with the idea that tenderness and
sympathy are distinct empathic feelings. In particular, his results suggest that perceiving
someone’s vulnerability elicits tenderness, whereas perceiving someone’s current need elicits
sympathy. In addition to differences in what elicits tenderness versus sympathy, it appears that
laypeople categorize tenderness apart from sympathy. Shaver, Schwartz, Kirson, and O’Connor
(1987) found that participants organized the term “tenderness” into a love category and
“sympathy” into a sadness category. To summarize the relationship between tenderness and
empathy, tenderness is an empathic feeling, but it is more specific, and distinct from sympathy,
which appears more closely related to the basic emotion of sadness.
Both love and empathy are complex reactions and therefore they would not qualify as
basic emotions. I hypothesize, however, that tenderness probably does qualify as a basic
emotion. Ekman (1999) proposed 11 characteristics that any basic emotion must have. They are:
(a) distinctive universal signals; (b) distinctive physiology, (c) automatic appraisal, tuned to (d)
distinctive universals in antecedent events; (e) distinctive appearance developmentally; (f)
presence in other primates; (g) quick onset; (h) brief duration; (i) unbidden occurrence; (j)
distinctive thoughts, memories, images; and (k) distinctive subjective experience (p. 56). Ekman
admitted that research had not yet established that any emotion fulfills all the criteria he
proposed.
The present article reports an experiment designed to test whether tenderness meets the
criterion of distinctive subjective experience. In particular, given that tenderness is a pleasant,
positive emotion (Shaver et. al, 1987), I looked into the subjective distinction between tenderness
and joy. If tenderness is not subjectively distinct from joy, that may indicate that tenderness,
rather than a basic emotion, can be explained in terms of the more basic emotion of joy. Before
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presenting the rationale for the experiment, I will review some evidence concerning whether
tenderness meets some of the other criteria for basic emotions proposed by Ekman.
Distinctive universal signals and physiology
Researchers have found evidence for the physiological and expressive distinctiveness of
tenderness in a variety of cultures. In studies with Chilean and Danish participants, Bloch and
her colleagues (Bloch, Lemeignan, & Aguilera-T, 1991; Bloch, Orthous, & Santibañez-H, 1987;
Santibáñez-H & Bloch, 1986) found that tenderness was associated with a specific breathing
pattern, body posture, and facial expression, which were different from those of joy, anger,
sadness, fear, and sexual arousal. In particular, breathing in tenderness has a slow and even
rhythm, inhalation and exhalation are done through the nose, and there is a slight pause at the
end of the exhalation. The general muscular tone is relaxed, leaning slightly forward. One of the
most distinctive characteristics of the tenderness display is that the head is tilted sideways.
Finally, in tenderness, there is a slight smile, and the gaze is directed at an object. Santibáñez-H
and Bloch (1986) also found that whereas joy, anger, sadness, fear, and sexual arousal increased
heart rate, tenderness decreased it. In another study, French observers were able to effectively
distinguish the postural and facial expressions of tenderness from those of joy, anger, sadness,
fear, and sexual arousal (Lemeignan, Aguilera-Torres, & Bloch, 1992).
Automatic appraisal tuned to distinctive universals in antecedent events
There is little on the appraisals and antecedents that elicit tenderness. Lishner (2003)
reported a reanalysis of data from a previous experiment showing that reading a story about a
human adult led to less tenderness than reading the same story about a child, a dog, or a puppy.
In two subsequent experiments, Lishner found that watching a video of a human infant led to
high levels of tenderness, regardless of the infant’s emotional display or reported health state.
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This pattern was more reliable among women than men. In a third experiment, he found that, for
both men and women, imagining a child led to more tenderness than imagining an adult. Lishner
proposed that appraising vulnerability in a target elicits tenderness and that,
Perceptions of vulnerability will likely occur when an observer makes certain inferences
about a target such as whether he or she can control his or her situation, whether the
target is naïve or not, and possibly whether the target displays heuristic vulnerability cues
(e.g., childlike features, attributes, or behaviors; Eibl-Ebesfeldt, 1971; Lorenz, 1971).
Furthermore, if current need is perceived, then the likelihood of perceiving vulnerability
increases because the existence of current need indicates that some dimension of wellbeing is not sufficiently regulated. (p.73)
The little extant evidence thus suggests that an appraisal of vulnerability is associated
with tenderness. Observing an animal, an infant, or a child appears to be a common antecedent of
tenderness. However, not all infants may elicit the same level of tenderness. Langlois, Ritter,
Casey, and Sawin (1995) reported that mothers of attractive infants displayed more interactions
that were affectionate towards their children than did mothers of unattractive infants.
Presence in other primates
As previously discussed, tenderness is related to caregiving. Caregiving behavior is
present not only among primates, but among mammals more generally. Panksepp (2000)
described a “CARE/nurturance” emotional system in mammals, mediated by the anterior
cingulate, bed nucleus of stria terminalis, preoptic area, ventral tegmental area, and
periaqueductal gray. Oxytocin, prolactin, dopamine, and opioids are the key neuromodulators of
this system. Bell (2001) proposed a theory which traces the evolution of caregiving behavior
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back to the premammalian reptiles. Bell provided an especially compelling argument for the
evolutionary primitiveness of caregiving:
Attachment theory has described how an attachment behavioral control system could
provide survival advantages to primates and humans within the environment of
evolutionary adaptedness. However, as Bowlby’s (1982) analysis showed but did not
emphasize, the evolutionary advantages of attachment can only be realized if there is a
preexisting caregiving behavioral control system (Bell & Richard, 2000). Crying, one of
the prototypical attachment behaviors, would be an evolutionary disadvantage if there
were no caregiver to respond because crying attracts predators. Crying is only an
advantage to the extent that it usually attracts the caregiver faster than it attracts the
predator. As a result, any evolutionary analysis of attachment must account for the prior
emergence of the caregiving behavioral control system as a prerequisite for the
emergence of an attachment behavioral control system (p. 226).
Bell argued that attachment theory had focused excessively on the cognitive aspects of
caregiving at the expense of the emotional impulse towards caregiving. Bell’s “caring emotion”
appears to be equivalent to tenderness.
Quick onset, brief duration, and unbidden occurrence
As previously discussed, it is important to distinguish the emotion of tenderness from the
emotional disposition of love. Tenderness probably meets the criteria of quick onset and brief
duration, although research is needed in this area. In addition, the emotion of tenderness cannot
be willed. The feeling that arises upon seeing, for instance, a cute baby, is automatic.
Distinctive thoughts, memories, images
Is Tenderness a Basic 10
As previously discussed, Bloch et al. (1987; 1991; Santibáñez-H & Bloch, 1986) found
that tenderness was associated with a specific breathing pattern, body posture, and facial
expression. These authors also discovered that they could teach participants the “effector
patterns” of each emotion, and that the voluntary reproduction of these patterns induced the
corresponding subjective feeling in the participant. In Chile, I conducted a study exploring the
use of these patterns in psychotherapy (Kalawski, 1997). In one of the sessions studied, the
client/participant was talking about a conflict with her boyfriend. Her discourse was generally
one of blaming him without understanding his perspective. Then I gave her instructions to
reproduce the pattern of tenderness, but without naming the target emotion. During this exercise,
I asked her to think about her boyfriend. After the exercise, the participant reported having felt
tenderness. She added that when I asked her to think about her boyfriend she was able to see the
whole situation in a different way, understanding his position. Also concerning thoughts
associated with tenderness, Lishner (2003) reported that tenderness was positively correlated to
feeling “protective” and to valuing the welfare of the tenderness-inducing target.
Distinctive subjective experience and the present experiment
An affective phenomenon cannot be considered a basic emotion if it “feels” like another
emotion. An example of this is jealousy, which does not have a specific subjective feeling.
Often, a jealous person may feel anger or another basic emotion, but there is no “jealous” feeling
distinct from the way basic emotions feel. With regards to tenderness, it could not be considered
a basic emotion unless it has its own, unique subjective experience. Lishner’s results suggest that
the experience of tenderness is distinct from the experience of sympathy. However, I am not
aware of any studies directly testing whether the subjective experience of tenderness is distinct
from that of other basic emotions. Given tenderness’ pleasant quality, it is possible that persons
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reporting feeling tenderness will also report feeling joy. This intuitive hypothesis may be one of
the reasons why theorists do not consider tenderness a basic emotion. I assumed that a positive
correlation between tenderness and joy would be likely. However, it is possible that this
correlation is not due to tenderness’ lack of a distinct subjective experience. Instead, a positive
correlation between joy and tenderness may reflect the fact that many situations call for both
tenderness and joy. It is also possible that people use words such as “joy” to refer to pleasant
feelings in general, but, if required, are able to tell joy from tenderness. Therefore, an experiment
that uses stimuli that selectively preclude the experience of either joy or tenderness may have a
better chance of finding a subjective distinction between the two, if such distinction exists. The
question then is what kinds of stimuli can selectively preclude either joy or tenderness. A
possible answer to this question may come from the intuitive notions that joy is the opposite of
sadness and that tenderness is the opposite of anger. Some research findings are consistent with
this possibility. Lorr & McNair, for instance, (1988) reported the discovery of six bipolar mood
factors. One factor had “elated” (joy) and “depressed” (sadness) as their poles. Another factor’s
poles were “agreeable” (tenderness) and “hostile” (anger). There are several ways to interpret
this kind of results. The first interpretation is that the two poles of each factor represent opposite
extremes of a single process. Another interpretation is that emotions such as joy and depression
result from different processes that somehow inhibit each other. Thirdly, one might view these
results as reflecting the fact that situations that induce one polar emotion normally do not induce
the emotion considered its opposite. Under this interpretation, sadness is not necessarily opposite
to joy; they just tend to occur in different situations. Whatever the interpretation, it appears that
stimuli that induce certain emotions also tend to preclude the experience of other specific
emotions. If this were the case, and in particular, if anger precludes tenderness and sadness
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precludes joy, adding anger-inducing features to a joyful stimulus and sad features to a tender
stimulus would increase the contrast between joy and tenderness. The present study employed
five types of stimuli, as presented in Table 1. The stimuli varied along two hypothetical
dimensions: sadness-inducing vs. joy-inducing, and anger-inducing vs. tenderness-inducing. For
the purposes of the present study, I called “pitiful” a stimulus expected to induce both tenderness
and sadness, whereas a “cute” stimulus would induce tenderness but not sadness. Both are
“tender” stimuli. Similarly, I called “ironic”, a stimulus expected to induce both joy/amusement
and anger, and “funny” one expected to induce joy/amusement but no anger. Both are “amusing”
stimuli. The main hypothesis was that tender stimuli would lead to higher levels of tenderness
and lower levels of joy as compared to the amusing stimuli. Another hypothesis was that tender
stimuli would lead to higher tenderness than a “neutral” stimulus would. Likewise, amusing
stimuli would lead to higher joy/amusement than the neutral stimulus would.
In addition to finding out what types of stimuli differentially induce tenderness versus
joy, it was important to know what "tenderness" meant to participants. Thus, they rated
tenderness on three dimensions: passive-active, unpleasant-pleasant, and relaxed-tense. The
research and theory previously reviewed are consistent with a view of tenderness as active,
relaxed, and pleasant. It is active as it provides the impulse toward caregiving behavior. It is
relaxed according to research on its physiology and expression. Finally, previously reviewed
research by Shaver et al. (1987) showed that people categorize tenderness as a pleasant emotion.
Method
Participants
One hundred forty seven undergraduates (86 female) from the research pool of the
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University of North Texas psychology department participated in the study. Their mean age was
22.15 years (SD = 5.92). The modal age was 19 years. Separate schedules for males and females
randomly assigned each participant to one stimulus condition (ironic, funny, pitiful, cute, or
neutral).
Design
As previously stated, the main hypothesis was that tender stimuli would lead to higher
levels of tenderness and lower levels of joy than amusing stimuli would. To test this hypothesis, I
compared emotion ratings across levels of two variables: the main emotional characteristic of the
stimuli (tender or amusing, a between-subjects variable) and the type of emotion measured
(tenderness or joy, a within-subjects variable). If joy and tenderness are in fact distinct emotions,
as hypothesized, participants in the joy-inducing conditions would score higher on the joy
measure, and participants in the tenderness-inducing conditions would score higher on the
tenderness measure. This means that there would be an interaction between the type of emotional
stimulus and the emotion measured.
An additional between-subjects factor was the presence or absence of features to preclude
either joy or tenderness. That is, sadness-inducing features in a tenderness-inducing stimulus
would preclude joy. Conversely, anger-inducing features in a joy-inducing stimulus would
preclude tenderness. There was no prediction as to whether the presence or absence of these
features would moderate the hypothesized interaction between the type of emotional stimulus
and the emotion measured. This stimulus x measure interaction could occur across the board, or
it could occur only when the precluding features were present.
Materials
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Emotional stimuli. The “cute” scene was a segment from the movie Animal Bloopers (Ingle &
Heck, 1994), lasting approximately 1 min and 45 s. In it, a zookeeper explains how he takes care
of a baby Asian otter while images show the animal in several activities. The expectation was
that this scene would elicit tenderness as the baby otter is vulnerable, and thus an object for caregiving behavior.
The “pitiful” scene was a segment from The Bear (Annaud, 1989), lasting approximately
1 min and 34 s. The scene shows a cub bear and its mother. A big rock falls on top of the mother,
causing its death. The cub tries to rescue the mother unsuccessfully. As in the case of the baby
otter, the cub is vulnerable and thus an object for care-giving behavior, which should induce
tenderness. Additionally, both the death of a family member and failure to achieve an important
goal (in this case, saving the cub’s mother) tend to elicit sadness (Izard, 1991), so if participants
identified with the cub they would experience those emotions too.
The “funny” scene was a segment from Bill Cosby: Himself (Cosby & Cosby, 1982),
lasting approximately 2 min and 13 s. In this scene, Bill Cosby humorously describes his
experiences with dentists. As this scene is from a popular comedian, the expectation was that it
would induce joy/amusement.
The “ironic” scene was a segment from the movie Brazil (Gilliam, 1985), lasting
approximately 1 min and 13 s. The character played by Jonathan Pryce is in a minuscule office
receiving documents though a tube, which he must then insert into another tube. The documents
come in faster than he can manage. When he finds a way to connect the two tubes, someone pulls
his desk from the adjacent office. Finally, the tube explodes, causing a rain of paper. The
expectation was that this ridiculous situation would elicit joy/amusement. However, participants
would also experience anger if they identified with the frustration endured by the character.
Is Tenderness a Basic 15
The “neutral” scene was from an interview with B. F. Skinner (Miller, 1977), lasting
approximately 1 min and 20 s. In it, Skinner explains operant conditioning. The expectation was
that this scene would not induce high levels of any emotion.
Before beginning the present study, I showed all the segments, except the one from Bill
Cosby, to graduate psychology students and measured their emotional reactions with the same
scales described in the Measures section, to assess whether their reactions matched the expected
ones. All of the graduate students reported the predicted pattern of emotions to the cute, pitiful,
and neutral scenes. In response to the ironic scene, one person reported feeling anger and
joy/amusement, as expected. Another one reported only anger, and a third person reported
sadness.
Measures. There was a set of standard demographic questions. The emotion questionnaire had
the following instructions: “Below are four emotions. Please circle how much of each emotion
you felt in response to the video. The number 0 means that you did not feel the emotion at all.
The number 10 represents an extreme level of that emotion. You can circle any number.” There
were four separate lines labeled “Joy/Amusement”, “Tenderness”, “Sadness”, and “Anger”.
Thus, the questionnaire yielded four separate scores, ranging from 0 to 10, for each participant
on each emotion, equal to the number circled on each scale. Following the emotion questionnaire
on a separate page, participants answered a questionnaire with the following instructions: “One
of the emotions we asked you about in the previous page was TENDERNESS. Regardless of
how much tenderness you felt, we want to know what tenderness means to you. For each item
below, please circle the number that you think represents tenderness. There is no right or wrong
answer.” After those instructions, there were three semantic differential scales. Each scale had a
0-10 range. The anchors were passive-active, unpleasant-pleasant, and relaxed-tense.
Is Tenderness a Basic 16
Procedure
Students individually participated in this experiment. After providing informed consent,
participants completed the demographic questionnaire. An experimenter then started the
videotape and then went to the back of the room to avoid giving the participant any cues
regarding reactions to the scene. Once the scene was over, the experimenter handed the
participant the questionnaires to complete. For participants watching the pitiful scene, before
starting the video, the experimenter added this statement: “The scene you will watch is not from
a documentary. It is from a fictional movie”. The reason for this explanation is that one pilot
participant reported feeling angry that someone would film the death of an animal without
intervening.
Results
Table 2 presents the mean ratings for each emotion and experimental condition.
Anger and Sadness
Before testing the hypotheses regarding tenderness and joy, the first set of analyses was a
manipulation check for the effectiveness of the features meant to preclude those emotions. The
first step in this process was testing whether the ironic and pitiful scenes had actually induced
anger and sadness, respectively. The next step was testing the correlation between anger and
tenderness on the one hand, and sadness and joy on the other. If anger precluded tenderness and
sadness precluded joy, both correlations would be negative.
An ANOVA comparing anger scores among the five experimental conditions (cute,
pitiful, funny, ironic, and neutral) yielded a significant gender main effect, F(1, 137) = 4.84,
MSE = 3.07, Partial η2 = .59,. There was also a significant scene x gender interaction, F(4, 137)
= 2.66, MSE = 3.07, Partial η2 = .07. Therefore, the next analyses were tests of simple effects
Is Tenderness a Basic 17
for males and females. Among males, the scene watched had a significant effect on anger scores,
F(4, 56) = 6.66, MSE = 3.78, Partial η2 = .32, as expected. Paired Bonferroni comparisons
showed that the ironic scene, M = 3.62 (SD = 2.90), led to the higher anger scores than the
neutral, M = .69 (SD = 2.21), cute, M = .30 (SD = .95), and funny, M = .04 (SD = .20), scenes
did. The scores from the pitiful condition, M = 1.66 (SD = 1.66), did not differ significantly from
those of any other condition. These results were consistent with my expectations, except that the
anger scores in the pitiful condition were not statistically different from those in the ironic
condition. The scene watched had a significant effect on anger scores for females, F(4, 81) =
4.29, MSE = 2.58, Partial η2 = .18. Contrary to my expectations, paired Bonferroni comparisons
did not yield a significant difference between the ironic condition scores, M = 1.17 (SD = 2.17),
and those of the other conditions. The scores for the pitiful condition, M = 1.80 (SD = 2.48),
were higher than those for the neutral, M = .22 (SD = .73), cute, M = .07 (SD = .26), and funny,
M = .07 (SD = .26), conditions, which did not differ from each other.
The next ANOVA compared sadness scores among the five experimental conditions.
Gender had no main or interaction effects, Fs < 1. Consequently, the analysis presently reported
did not include gender as a factor. As expected, the scene watched had a significant effect on
these scores, F(4, 142) = 148.50, MSE = 2.38, Partial η2 = .81. Paired Bonferroni comparisons
showed that the pitiful scene led to higher sadness scores than any of the other scenes did. The
scores of the cute, ironic, neutral, and funny conditions did not differ from each other. These
results are consistent with my expectation that the pitiful scene would induce more sadness than
all other conditions would.
The next step of the manipulation check was testing the correlation between anger and
tenderness and joy and sadness respectively. The former correlation was not significant, r = .06,
Is Tenderness a Basic 18
p = .43, contrary to the expectation. The latter correlation was negative, r = -.44, p < .01, as
expected.
To summarize, the ironic condition appeared to succeed at inducing anger in males.
However, among females, the pitiful, not the ironic, condition induced the most anger.
Furthermore, anger did not preclude tenderness, and the pitiful condition, meant to induce
tenderness, led to an unexpectedly high level of anger. The pitiful condition did appear to
succeed at inducing sadness. Sadness, in turn, had a negative correlation with joy.
Ratings of Tenderness versus Joy
The primary analysis was a 2 x 2 x 2 ANOVA according to the design previously described. As
previously explained, the dependent variable was emotion rating as indicated by the score on the
0-10 scale for the corresponding emotion. The factors were type of emotion measured (within
subjects), whether the scene was tender or amusing (between subjects), and the presence or
absence of precluding features in the scene (between subjects). A preliminary analysis yielded no
interaction effects of gender, Fs < 1. Consequently, the analysis presently reported did not
include gender as a factor. There was a significant three-way interaction, F(1, 112) = 24.50, MSE
= 3.04, Partial η2 = .18. This means that the presence or absence of precluding features
moderated the interaction between the emotion measure and the main emotional feature. Further
exploration of this interaction involved running separate tests of simple effects for the
participants who saw the scenes with precluding features and for those who saw the scenes
without those features. Again, gender was not a factor. There was a significant interaction
between the emotion measured and the main emotional characteristic of the scene, both for the
precluding features condition, F(1, 61) = 191.36, MSE = 3.73, Partial η2 = .76, and the no
precluding features condition, F(1, 51) = 73.73, MSE = 2.22, Partial η2 = .59. However, the
Is Tenderness a Basic 19
interaction took a different form depending on whether or not the scenes included a precluding
feature. In the case of the scenes with the precluding features, the ironic (amusing with angerinducing features) scene led to low tenderness and higher joy/amusement, whereas the pitiful
(tender and sad) scene led to high tenderness and low joy/amusement. In the case of the scenes
without the precluding features, the funny scene led to low tenderness and high joy/amusement,
whereas the cute scene led to high scores for both tenderness and joy/amusement. The interaction
between the main emotional feature and the emotion measured was consistent with the main
hypothesis of the present study.
Comparison among All Groups
Given an interaction between the main emotional feature and the emotion measure, a
possible next step could be to run separate tests of simple effects for tenderness and joy as the
dependent variables. As the interaction was significant for conditions both with and without
precluding features, that would yield four separate tests. An alternative, more informative
strategy consisted of running two ANOVAs comparing scores among all five experimental
conditions (cute, pitiful, funny, ironic, and neutral). The dependent variables were the tenderness
and joy scores respectively. Preliminary analyses showed no main or interaction effects of
gender on either variable, Fs < 1.
As expected, the experimental condition significantly affected tenderness scores, F(4,
142) = 93.51, MSE = 3.39, Partial η2 = .72. Paired Bonferroni comparisons showed that
tenderness scores were higher for the cute and pitiful scenes than for the funny, ironic, and
neutral scenes. These results are consistent with my hypotheses.
As expected, the experimental condition significantly affected joy scores, F(4, 142) =
61.81, MSE = 3.97, Partial η2 = .64. Paired Bonferroni comparisons showed that the funny and
Is Tenderness a Basic 20
cute conditions led to higher joy scores than all other conditions did. The ironic condition, in
turn, led to higher scores than the pitiful and neutral conditions. These results were consistent
with the hypotheses, with the exception that there was no prediction regarding how much joy the
cute scene would induce.
Participants’ Conceptions of Tenderness
The next series of analyses dealt with the participants’ responses to the questionnaire on
the meaning tenderness had for them. Participants’ responses could range from 0 (passive,
unpleasant, or relaxed, depending on the item) to 10 (active, pleasant, or tense, respectively). A
score of 5 meant “neutral”. Participants rated tenderness as neither passive nor active, t(146) =
1.40, p = .16, M = 5.26 (SD = 2.24). This was contrary to my hypothesis that they would rate it
as active. There was no correlation between this item and participants’ tenderness scores, r = .01,
p = .91. Furthermore, the answer to this question did not differ by gender, F(1, 145) = 1.06, MSE
= 5.03, Partial η2 = .01.
As expected, participants rated tenderness as pleasant, t(146) = 5.84, p = < .01, M = 6.49
(SD = 3.10). There was no correlation between this item and participants’ tenderness scores, r = .07, p = .38. The answer to this question did not differ by gender, F(1, 145) = .14, MSE = 9.64,
Partial η2 < .01. Participants also rated tenderness as relaxed, t(146) = 8.47, p = < .01, M = 3.26
(SD = 2.49). This was consistent with my hypotheses. Again, there was no correlation between
this item and participants’ tenderness scores, r = .13, p = .11. Likewise, the answer to this
question did not differ by gender, F(1, 145) < .01, MSE = 6.26, Partial η2 < .01.
Discussion
The present results may clarify the relationships of empathy, sympathy, and tenderness
with other emotional phenomena. Although I did not directly measure empathy or sympathy,
Is Tenderness a Basic 21
those feelings would be expected in the pitiful condition, as it presented a target in need (Batson,
Lishner, Cook, & Sawyer, 2005; Batson & Shaw, 1991; Lishner, 2003). The cute condition, on
the other hand, would be expected to induce tenderness but not sympathy, as it presented a target
which was vulnerable but not in current need (Lishner’s 2003). The results show that the pitiful
condition induced tenderness and sadness, while the cute condition induced tenderness but not
sadness. This pattern of results seems to suggest that tenderness and sadness are different
components of sympathy. It may also help explain why laypersons categorize sympathy along
with sadness (Shaver et. al, 1987). A sympathetic observer’s sadness is congruent with the
sadness likely felt by the target in need. Tenderness appears to provide the other-oriented,
empathic emotional component to sympathy.
The present results also show that tenderness is not simply general positive affect, as
different experimental conditions led to either tenderness with joy (the cute condition),
tenderness without joy (the pitiful condition) or joy without tenderness (the funny and ironic
conditions). If tenderness and joy are distinct emotions, they may also have distinct cognitive and
behavioral consequences. There is a wealth of research on the effects of positive affect on social
cognition and behavior (e.g., Crisp & Hewstone, 2000; Isen, 1987; Urada & Miller, 2000).
Future research may focus on the specific behavioral and cognitive effects of tenderness versus
joy.
One interesting finding of the present study was that the ironic scene induced significant
levels of anger only among males. There are several possible explanations for this. The simplest
one would be that males are more prone to experience and/or report anger. Another possibility is
that it was easier for males to identify with the male character in the scene. Finally, it is possible
that women are more likely to think of anger as negative. If this is the case, the fact that the
Is Tenderness a Basic 22
ironic scene also induced joy might have prevented them from consciously acknowledging
anger. Future research could empirically test these speculations.
With the exception of the previously discussed gender effect, gender showed no other
significant effects. In the present study, gender did not relate either to the overall level of
tenderness or to what conditions led to it. By contrast, Lishner (2003) found that women reported
higher tenderness than did men. One difference between Lishner’s studies and the present
experiment is that Lishner’s targets were human babies and children. In the present experiment,
on the other hand, the tenderness targets were animals. Women’s higher tenderness scores in
Lishner’s studies may be due to women having more extensive socialization with children and
babies. Men and women’s experiences taking care of animals may be more comparable. In the
present study, gender also did not relate to participants’ conceptions of tenderness.
Participants’ conceptions of tenderness were largely consistent with the ones predicted.
They viewed it as pleasant and relaxed. Contrary to my hypothesis, participants rated tenderness
as neither active nor passive. Tenderness may not show a consistent active/passive pattern
because it influences behavior differently depending on whether the target of tenderness has high
or low current need.3 When the target’s current need is high, then tenderness may motivate more
immediate active behavior designed to protect and promote the welfare of the target from
immediate threats to his or her wellbeing. In contrast, when current need is low, feeling
tenderness for a target may result in an impulse to simply be available for the target.
Overall, the present results suggest that tenderness is distinct from both sadness and joy,
and that tenderness may be a necessary component of sympathy and empathy. Previous studies
have also shown that tenderness appears to have distinctive signals and physiology. Furthermore,
both animal research and attachment theory suggest that tenderness is biologically primitive.
Is Tenderness a Basic 23
Together, these findings are consistent with the view of tenderness as a distinct, elementary
emotion, which can be considered in the same category as anger, fear, joy, and sadness.
Obviously, the findings presented here do not settle the issue of whether tenderness is a basic
emotion. Remember that Ekman (1999) acknowledged that research had not shown that any
emotion met all of his criteria. Fully making the case for tenderness as a basic emotion would
necessitate a replication of the present findings, as well as additional empirical and conceptual
work on whether tenderness meets the different criteria for basic emotions. With the present
article, I hope to have shown that it makes sense to think of tenderness as a basic emotion, and
that this issue deserves serious consideration. Viewing tenderness as a basic emotion would help
understand the complex phenomena of empathy and love using the same paradigm applied to
other emotional phenomena.
Is Tenderness a Basic 24
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Is Tenderness a Basic 27
Footnotes
1
Juan Pablo Kalawski, Counseling Center, University of Louisville. The experiment
reported in the present article was part of the author’s doctoral dissertation at the
University of North Texas. I thank all the members of the dissertation committee for their
input. I also thank an anonymous reviewer of a previous version of this article for telling
me about Lishner’s research. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed
to Juan Pablo Kalawski, Counseling Center, University of Louisville, 2207 South Brook
Street, Louisville, Kentucky 40292. E-mail: jpkalawski@hotmail.com
2
Of course, some scholars do not subscribe to the basic emotions approach (e.g., Ortony
and Turner, 1990). For them, the question of whether tenderness is a basic emotion would
probably be meaningless. Those scholars might still be interested in the findings on
tenderness discussed in the literature review, as well as those from the present study, even
if those findings are not interpreted in terms of a basic emotions approach.
3
This interpretation was suggested by an anonymous reviewer.
Is Tenderness a Basic 28
Table 1
Emotional stimuli conceptualized on sadness-joy vs. anger-tenderness dimensions.
Tenderness Dimension
Joy Dimension
Angry
Neutral
Sad
Pitiful
Neutral
Amusing
Tender
Neutral
Ironic
Funny
Cute
Is Tenderness a Basic 29
Table 2
Mean ratings by emotion measured and experimental condition.
Condition
Emotion
Cute
Pitiful
Funny
Ironic
Neutral
Joy
7.37 (1.88)
1.03 (1.36)
7.19 (1.90)
4.45 (2.74)
1.97 (1.82)
Tenderness
7.22 (1.93)
7.00 (2.02)
2.08 (2.38)
.90 (1.56)
.71 (1.22)
Sadness
1.33 (1.98)
8.19 (1.79)
.04 (.20)
1.16 (1.68)
.45 (1.31)
.30 (.95)
1.76 (2.18)
.04 (.20)
2.19 (.20)
.42 (1.52)
27
32
26
31
31
Anger
Sample Size
Note. Numbers in parentheses are standard deviations.