442229
da et al.Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin

PSPXXX10.1177/0146167212442229Kame

Empathizing With a Dissimilar Other:
The Role of Self–Other Distinction
in Sympathetic Responding

Personality and Social
Psychology Bulletin
XX(X) 1­–7
© 2012 by the Society for Personality
and Social Psychology, Inc
Reprints and permission:
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DOI: 10.1177/0146167212442229
http://pspb.sagepub.com

Tatsuya Kameda1, Aiko Murata1,
Choetsu Sasaki1, Satomi Higuchi1, and Keigo Inukai1

Abstract
Can we empathize effectively with someone who has a different sensitivity to physical events from ours? Or, are wesusceptible to an egocentric bias in overprojection, which may lead us to under- or overreact in such cases? In this study,
participants with normal visual and auditory capacity observed a video clip in which a sighted or blind target was exposed toa strong flash or high-frequency sound, while their physiological arousals during the observation were recorded. On average,
participants displayed a differential arousal pattern to the aversive stimuli, according to the target’s ability to perceive them.
Degrees of arousal control were also correlated with dispositional differences in empathy. Participants who scored higher on
the Empathic Concern subscale of Davis’s Interpersonal Reactivity Index were better at controlling arousals in accordancewith the Target × Stimulus interaction. The authors’ findings have important implications for helping disabled people while
respecting their inherent dignity and individual autonomy.
Keywords
sympathy, self–other distinction, executive function, physiological arousal, dispositional differences
Received August 31, 2011; revision accepted January 19, 2012
Can we empathize effectively with someone who has a different sensitivity to social/physical events from ours (e.g.,disabled people) and provide help that is truly needed by the
person? Or when trying to empathize with a dissimilar other,
are we susceptible to an egocentric bias to overproject ourselves onto the target, which may lead us to underreact (e.g.,fail to help) or overreact (e.g., provide unnecessary or
unwanted “help”) in such cases? This article reports a psychophysiological experiment to examine our ability to control the egocentric bias when empathizing with a dissimilar
other.
Appropriate self–other distinction in empathy is critical torespond to the suffering of another (Batson, 2009). Physicians
who oversynchronize with patients cannot provide effective
treatments (Cheng et al., 2007); parents who “own” problems of their child often fail to address the child’s needs
effectively (Gordon, 2000). Stotland (1969) argued that we
could employ two different perspectives in these situations—the “imagine self” or the “imagine other” perspective. The“imagine self” perspective implies putting ourselves into theshoes of the target to imagine how we would perceive andfeel about the situation, while the “imagine other” perspective maintains the self–other distinction to imagine how
the situation is perceived and felt by the target himself or

herself. Batson, Early, and Salvarini (1997) showed that participants who employed the “imagine self” perspective whenlearning about others’ urgent needs exhibited not only
empathic concern (EC; other-oriented feelings of sympathy)
but also greater personal distress (PD; self-oriented feelingsof personal anxiety) than did participants with the “imagine
other” perspective. Batson (1991) argued that PD, which
promotes self-focused attention, may prevent the observer
from fully attending to the target’s experience and providing
adequate help.
As shown in the ingroup–outgroup research (Turner,
Hogg, Oakes, Reicher, & Wetherell, 1987), a self–other distinction may be drawn naturally when we interact withsomeone “who does not feel like us.” Yet somewhat paradoxically, we often have to rely on some kind of self-projection
even more when we try to empathize with a dissimilar otherthan with a similar other (Nickerson, 1999). To illustrate,
suppose that we notice a blind person with a white cane who
1

Hokkaido University, Japan

Corresponding Author:
Tatsuya Kameda, Center for Experimental Research in Social Sciences,
Hokkaido University, N10 W7, Kita-ku, Sapporo, Japan 060-0810
Email: tkameda@let.hokudai.ac.jp

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Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin XX(X)appears to be in some distress on a dimly lit, filthy, andcrowded subway platform. Even if we may reasonably inferthat something about the external situation is causing the distress, we (as nondisabled persons) don’t know how the situation is represented by the target. In situations like this, wehave to invoke the “imagine self” perspective together withgeneral knowledge about the target’s specific condition (e.g.,
blindness), so as to activate relevant representations andemotions while inhibiting irrelevant ones. This process
involves highly cognitive, executive functions, which areconsidered to be unique to humans and possibly apes (deWaal, 2009; Preston & de Waal, 2002). There are also likely
to be substantive individual differences in our ability to
execute cognitive control (Cheng et al., 2007; Eisenberg &Eggum, 2009).
To our knowledge, there have been few studies that
addressed empathy with a dissimilar other, despite the centrality of this problem in empathy and helping (de Vignemont& Singer, 2006). A recent neuroimaging study by Lamm,
Meltzoff, and Decety (2010) is an exception. These researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to
examine how participants empathize with the feelings of“patients who reacted with no pain to needle injections butwith pain to a soft touch by a Q-tip.” Results indicated that
empathy for the pain of such “dissimilar” patients activatedthe same brain regions (the pain matrix including insula andanterior cingulate cortex) as did empathy for similar patients
who responded to the painful stimuli in the same way as theparticipants. Most importantly for our concerns, the results
also showed that empathy in the situation that was aversive
for the observing participants but was ostensibly neutral forthe patient (i.e., needle injection) required greater cognitive
control and self–other distinction for participants, as indicated by higher neural activities of right inferior frontal cortex and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex. This implies that, toempathize with a dissimilar other effectively, the preexistingemotional response tendencies (e.g., feeling pain from needle injections) must be overcome by cognitive, executivefunctions (de Vignemont & Singer, 2006; Eisenberg &Eggum, 2009).
This study aims to conceptually replicate and extend theLamm et al. (2010) experiment in the following ways. First,
different from Lamm et al.’s (2010) examination of neuralcorrelates of empathy, we focus on participants’ physiological arousals. More specifically, in the following experiment,
nondisabled participants observe a video clip in which asighted (similar) or a blind (dissimilar) target is exposed to astrong flash or high-frequency sound, while changes ofblood volume pulse (BVP) in their peripheral blood vessels
are recorded (Levenson & Ruef, 1992; Stotland, 1969). BVP
reflects acute changes in sympathetic nervous system (SNS)arousal, providing a noninvasive physiological measure of
empathy during the video presentation. The focal question iswhether participants can differentiate such physiologicalresponses during the video observation in accordance with

the Target × Stimulus-Modality interaction, that is, lower
arousal in the blind/flash condition as compared with theblind/sound, sighted/flash, and sighted/sound conditions.
Second, to highlight the expected role of executive control in
overcoming the preexisting emotional response tendency
to the aversive stimulus (strong flash), participants in our
experiment are provided additional opportunities to experience the aversive stimuli themselves prior to the video presentation. Recent direct experiences of the aversive stimuli
are expected to make the cognitive control during the video
observation even more challenging than in Lamm et al.’s
setup. Third, such cognitive control (including proper self–other distinction) may be a key to responding to the suffering of another with sensitivity and care (Batson, 2009).
Eisenberg, Valiente, and Champion (2004) argued that individuals’ tendencies to experience sympathy rather than PD(and thus respond according to others’ needs rather than theirown) may vary as a function of differences in individuals’
abilities to regulate their emotions. The following experiment thus focuses on how the degree of cognitive control, as
indexed by participants’ differential physiological responses
to the Target × Stimulus-Modality, may be related to theirdispositional differences in empathy (Davis, 1994).

MethodParticipants and design. A total of 51 female undergraduate
students with normal visual-auditory capacities were recruitedfrom introductory psychology classes at Hokkaido University. They were paid 1,000 yen (about US$12) for participation. We used a 2 (stimulus modality: flash or sound) × 2(target: blind or sighted) factorial design, in which the first
factor was within-participants and the second factor was
between-participants.
Experimental task. Participants watched a video clip about
scenes from “a previous experiment to examine people’s
psychophysiological responses to sensory stimuli.” In theclip, a female target “participant” (actress) was exposed tostrong flash or high-frequency sound. There were two video
versions in which the same actress played either a role of ablind person or a role of a sighted person. Both versions
started with a scene in which the target arrived at the laboratory. In the blind version, the target was carrying a whitecane, walking slowly into the laboratory while probing her
way by the cane, and so forth, whereas these cues wereabsent in the sighted version. After being seated, the target
was instructed verbally about procedure of the experiment.
The target responded to the verbal instructions properly,
which established the impression that her auditory capacity
was intact. After the instructions were finished, the experimenter started a countdown (“5, 4, 3, . . . ”) to the onset of therespective stimulus to the target. A photo strobe-light was
flashed 20 inches away from the target’s face, or highfrequency noise was administered through a headset that she
was wearing.1 The video stopped immediately after onset of

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Kameda et al.
the stimulus, and thus viewers did not see the target’s reactions to the stimulus.2 Presentation orders of the flash and thesound scenes were counterbalanced. (No effect involving
the stimulus order was significant in the analyses. Thus, thestimulus order will not be highlighted hereafter.) We thus
had four video-clip versions in total: the “sighted” or “blind”
target received the flash first (second) and the high-frequency
sound second (first). One of the four versions was assigned
randomly to each participant.
Index of psychophysiological arousal. Activation of the SNS,as observed when one encounters a threatening or aversive
stimulus, is known to cause increases in peripheral cardiovascular resistance through constriction of the peripheral
blood vessels (Martini, Nath, & Bartholomew, 2011). These
effects can be assessed noninvasively by monitoring theamount of blood perfusion in a peripheral region of the body.
We therefore recorded the photoplethysmographic BVP ineach participant’s fingertip using a Biopac TSD200/PPG100C.
The recorded data were transformed to BVP amplitude data.
Decrease in BVP amplitude from a baseline in response to a
stimulus implies peripheral vasoconstriction in the finger
and is known to be associated with arousal due to the stimulus (Iani, Gopher, & Lavie, 2004; Salimpoor, Benovoy,
Longo, Cooperstock, & Zatorre, 2009). We used rates of
constriction in BVP amplitude from the baseline as an index
of acute arousal due to observing the target exposed to anaversive stimulus (Allen, 2007).
Procedure. The experiment was run with one participant
for each session. Participants were ushered into a soundproof
room and were seated in front of a computer monitor at a
distance of about 20 inches. Participants were instructed thatthey would watch a videotape about “a previous psychophysiological experiment” and later be asked questions
about the “participant” appearing in the video. They were
instructed to imagine the feelings of the target so as to shareand evaluate her affective states. Participants were told that
their physiological responses while watching the video
would be recorded and that their bodily movements would
also be videotaped. The finger plethysmograph device wasthen placed on the third finger of the left hand. The experimenter then left the soundproof room, and all instructions
thereafter were given on the computer screen.
Before the video was started, participants were provided
opportunities to directly experience the same stimulus thatwas used in “the previous experiment.” The photo strobelight (32GN) was flashed, or the high-frequency noise (about
4000 Hz) was administered briefly through a headset. Afterthe direct experience, participants had a 2-min rest period,
which allowed for their BVP amplitudes to return to a normal level (Allen, 2007). Then, the first video scene wasstarted.
These steps (i.e., direct experience of the stimulus, a2-min rest, followed by the video presentation) were repeated
for the second stimulus. After both video scenes were presented, participants answered a brief questionnaire including

manipulation checks and a scale for dispositional individual
differences in empathy (Interpersonal Reactivity Index [IRI];
Davis, 1983). Participants were then debriefed, paid, anddismissed.

Results
Calculation of the acute arousal index. From the BVP amplitude data, we obtained indices for participant’s arousal levels
at two points: (a) during the rest period prior to presentationof each video scene (baseline) and (b) during the observationof the target exposed to the flash or sound. For the baseline,
we used an average of BVP amplitudes for the last 10 s of the
2-min rest period. For the arousal during observation, weused an average for 10 s after the countdown (“5, 4, 3, . . . ”)
was started in the video. Because decrease in BVP amplitude from a baseline implies peripheral vasoconstriction in
response to a stimulus, we calculated percentage constriction
from the baseline (= 100 × [1 − the average amplitude duringobservation/the baseline amplitude]) as an index of acutearousal. A larger value implies higher physiological arousal
due to observing the target exposed to the aversive stimulus.
Acute arousal in response to the observed events. To verify
that the flash and sound stimuli were in fact arousing, wechecked participants’ average BVP amplitudes during 10 safter they directly experienced each stimulus. Mean percentage constriction in BVP amplitude from the baseline was
33% for the flash and 41% for the sound, both of which weresignificantly greater than zero at p < .001 by Wilcoxon
signed-rank test. A 2 (stimulus modality) × 2 (target)
repeated-measure ANOVA on the percentage BVP constriction (after logarithmic transformation to correct skewness ofthe distribution) yielded a significant main effect for the
stimulus modality, F(1, 49) = 4.61, p < .05. No other effects
were significant. It was thus confirmed that, when directly
experienced, both stimuli were physiologically arousing,more so for the sound (M = 41%) than for the flash (M = 33%)in the current experiment.
How did participants react when they observed the target
exposed to the same sensory stimulus? If participants who
had normal visual-auditory capacities overprojected themselves in the scenes, they should be aroused irrespective ofthe target’s characteristics in relation to the sensory stimulus. Figure 1 displays mean percentage constriction in BVP
amplitude from the baseline when participants observed thetarget exposed to the flash or the sound.
A 2 × 2 repeated-measure ANOVA on the percentage BVP
constriction (after logarithmic transformation) yielded a main
effect for the stimulus, F(1, 49) = 4.20, p < .05; a main effectfor the target was also marginally significant, F(1, 49) = 3.28,
p = .08. However, these main effects were qualified by a
Stimulus-Modality × Target Interaction, F(1, 49) = 5.35, p < .05.
As seen in Figure 1, the mean percentage constriction was significantly greater than zero in the sighted/flash, sighted/sound,and blind/sound conditions (all ps < .05 by Wilcoxon

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Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin XX(X)

SightedBlind

30
Mean % constriction in
BVP amplitude

25
20
15

Table 1. Spearman Rank Correlation Coefficients Between
Participants’ Acute Physiological Arousal (Percentage
Constriction in BVP Amplitude) in Response to Observing theBlind Target Exposed to the Flash, and Their Scores on Four
Subscales of Davis’s (1983) IRI

10
5
0
-5
-10
-15
-20

flash

sound
Stimulus modality

Figure 1. Acute arousal in response to the observed events.
Note: BVP = blood volume pulse.

signed-rank test), but not in the blind/flash condition.
Participants who observed the blind target exposed to the flash
showed no increase in peripheral vasoconstriction from thebaseline.3 The overall interaction suggests that average participants controlled the egocentric self-projection bias (Batson,2009), accommodating their perspectives to the target’s characteristics in relation to the sensory stimulus.4
The self–other distinction and dispositional differences in
empathy. The self–other distinction in perspective taking as
implicated above has been considered to be a key component
that can facilitate appropriate helping behavior in a stressful
situation. Batson et al. (1997) argued that confusion between
self and other induces not only EC (other-oriented feelingsof sympathy or compassion) but also PD (an aversive, selffocused emotional reaction), which may preclude sympathetic action to help the target (Lamm, Batson, & Decety,2007). Given these points, it is important to examine how
participants’ dispositional empathy related to their physiological responses. Although average participants were able
to control the egocentric self-projection bias in the blind/
flash condition (see Figure 1), their degree of control in the
focal condition may differ in relation to their dispositional
empathy (Eisenberg & Eggum, 2009).
As a measure for dispositional differences in empathy, weused Davis’s (1983) IRI. Table 1 shows Spearman rank correlation coefficients between participants’ acute physiological arousals in response to observing the blind target exposedto the flash, and their scores on four subscales of the IRI (seeTable 1 for explanations of the subscales). Mean scores andstandard deviations of the IRI subscales were within published normative values. The observed correlation pattern
among the four subscales was also comparable with thatreported in Davis (1983). Of particular interest here is thatparticipants’ acute arousals (BVP) were negatively correlated with their scores on the EC subscale, r = −.43, p < .05,
which implies that participants who reported experiencing“other-oriented” feelings of sympathy for unfortunate others more often in everyday life were aroused less when

Physiological arousal (BVP)
Perspective taking (PT)
Empathic concern (EC)
Personal distress (PD)Fantasy (FS)

BVP

PT

EC

PD

FS

—
.03
−.43**
.19
−.40*

—
.17
−.08
.00

—
.11
.41**

—
.06

—

Note: N = 25.
*p < .10. **p < .05.
Davis (1983) defined the four components of IRI as follows: perspective
taking (PT) as the tendency to spontaneously adopt the psychologicalview of others, empathic concern (EC) as “other-oriented” feelings ofsympathy and concern for unfortunate others, personal distress (PD)as “self-oriented” feelings of personal anxiety and unease in tenseinterpersonal settings, and fantasy (FS) as the tendency to imaginativelytranspose oneself into the feelings and actions of fictitious characters inbooks, movies, and plays.

observing the blind target exposed to the flash (a negative
correlation with the Fantasy subscale [FS] was also marginally significant, r = −.40, p = .054).
To examine this relationship further, we split participantsin the blind condition by the median, those who scoredhigher (n = 13) or lower (n = 12) on the EC subscale. Figure
2 displays mean percentage constriction in BVP amplitude
when these participants observed the blind target exposed toeach of the stimuli. A 2 (EC: high or low) × 2 (stimulus: flash
or sound) repeated-measure ANOVA on the percentage
BVP constriction (after logarithmic transformation) yieldeda significant interaction effect, F(1, 23) = 4.26, p < .05, anda main effect for the stimulus, F(1, 23) = 6.32, p < .05. As
seen in Figure 2, participants who scored higher on the EC
subscale showed differential arousal levels between the flash
and the sound conditions (p < .01), whereas the lower scoring participants’ responses in the two conditions were both
positive and indistinguishable.5 In other words, participants
who reported experiencing feelings of sympathy for unfortunate others more often in everyday life seem to have controlled
the egocentric bias better, accommodating to the blind target’s
perspective more closely (Eisenberg & Eggum, 2009).6

Discussion
Empathizing with others who are not like us is of central
importance in modern societies in which people who havediverse opinions, who belong to different age cohorts withdifferent needs, and who have different ethnicities and socioeconomic backgrounds live together. This study examined
our ability to control the egocentric self-projection bias whenempathizing with a dissimilar target, whose sensitivities tosensory stimuli were different from our own.

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Kameda et al.

Higher empathic
concern

40

Lower empathic
concern

Mean % constriction in BVP
amplitude

30
20
10
0
-10

flash

sound

-20
-30

Stimulus modality-40

Figure 2. Dispositional empathic concern and acute arousal
when observing the blind target exposed to the flash or the highfrequency sound.
Note: BVP = blood volume pulse.

The results replicated Lamm et al.’s (2010) findings conceptually, revealing that average participants with normal
visual-auditory capacity reacted to the aversive situations
differentially, in accordance with the Target × StimulusModality interaction (Figure 1). It should be noted that,besides the difference in measures (neurological or physiological), there were two modifications in our procedure that
could make executive control of emotions even more challenging than in Lamm et al. (2010). First, participants in ourstudy were provided opportunities to directly experience theaversive stimuli prior to the observation phase, whereas nosuch opportunity was provided in Lamm et al. (2010). The
preceding direct experience could make the stimulusresponse association more salient in memory and make iteven harder for participants to overcome the preexistingemotional response tendency during observation. Second, inLamm et al. (2010), the target’s key dissimilarity was highlighted by instructions (“patients suffering from a rare neurological disease who feels no pain when being pricked by aneedle”). In our setting, the dissimilar features were embedded seamlessly in a sequence of the target’s actions (e.g.,entering the laboratory slowly while carrying a white cane),and participants were not prompted to make the self–otherdistinction explicitly on specific dimensions. It is thus notable that, despite these procedural changes, average participants were still able to control the self-projection bias
(Batson, 1991; Nickerson, 1999) and accommodate theirreactions to the target’s characteristics in relation to the sensory stimulus.
The results also revealed that degrees of control overemotional responses were correlated with dispositional differences in empathy (Table 1). In particular, participants

who scored higher on the EC subscale of the IRI showed
differential levels of physiological arousal in response towhether the blind target was exposed to flash or to sound,
whereas those who scored lower were equally aroused byboth scenes (Figure 2). It has been demonstrated that individuals who can regulate their emotions are more likely toexperience sympathy and interact with others in morally
desirable manners (Eisenberg et al., 1994; Ochsner & Gross,2005). Eisenberg and Eggum (2009) argued that wellregulated people who have control over their ability to focus
and shift attention are prone to sympathy by maintaining an
optimal level of emotional arousal, whereas people who areeasily aroused and unable to regulate their emotions are low
in dispositional sympathy and prone to PD. These arguments are in line with our results that participants, whoreported experiencing sympathy (EC) more often in everyday life, were actually better at controlling physiologicalarousals in accordance with the Target × Situation interaction (see also an fMRI study by Spinella, 2005, for related
results). Yet, it should also be noted that correlations
between participants’ PD scores and their arousals in theblind/flash condition failed to reach significance, although
the direction was positive as in Eisenberg’s argument(r = .19, Table 1). Decety and Lamm (2009) pointed thatscores on the PD subscale of the IRI tend to yield no significant correlations with brain activations. Although ourexperiment measured physiological responses, this point
may be relevant. Also, given the self-reporting nature,
results based on the questionnaire measures should generally be treated with some caution. A future study that combines field observations of empathic behavior by
event-sampling (Reis & Gable, 2000) with laboratory measurements of physiological and neurological responses will
be useful to better understand how individual dispositions in
empathy modulate self- versus other-centered responding instressful situations.
As exemplified by skilled physicians and other professional caretakers, making appropriate self–other distinctions
is essential to responding appropriately to the suffering ofanother. Empathy with dissimilar others provides a rich context in which the key theoretical issues about empathy,
including how the self–other distinction is maintained andhow emotions are regulated by executive functions (Batson,
2009; Decety & Lamm, 2009), can be assessed in a crystallized manner. It also provides an ecologically valid context,
as many important helping situations require understanding
others whose physical or mental conditions are different
from our own. It is critical in such situations to provide necessary help while respecting the inherent dignity and individual autonomy of those in need, and empathy plays afundamental role in this process.
Acknowledgments
We are grateful to Thomas Wisdom and Seth Frey for their helpfulcomments on an earlier version of this manuscript.

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Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin XX(X)

Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest withrespect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of thisarticle.

Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support
for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This
study was supported by the Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research17330133 from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Scienceand Technology of Japan to the first author.

Notes
1. Notice that neither of the stimuli was objectively as strong toviewers as to the (“sighted”) target in the video clip. Whenviewers watched the video, the flash light was moderated bycomputer monitor with normal brightness. The high-frequency
sound was administered to the target via the headset that she
was wearing, and was not actually heard by viewers.
2. We followed Lamm et al.’s (2010) procedure in our choice notto provide opportunities for participants to observe overt affective displays of the target. Previous research has shown that
empathic responses can be generated in the absence of directperception of the target’s emotional responses. See Decety andLamm (2009) for elaborated discussions on this point.
3. To control for potential individual differences in sensitivity/
reactivity to the aversive stimuli, we also conducted an analysis
in which participants’ blood volume pulse (BVP) constriction
during their own experiences were used as covariates. Consistent with the results reported in the main text, a 2 × 2 repeated
ANOVA on residuals, whereby effects from the covariates werepartialled out, yielded a significant Stimulus-Modality × Target
interaction effect, F(1, 49) = 5.19, p < .05.
4. An obvious strategy to regulate emotion in the aversive situations is closing the eyes or averting the gaze from the screen.
However, analysis of the videotape that recorded participants’facial movements during the critical observation period indicated that this strategy was almost never used.
5. However, in the sighted condition where cognitive control
was not especially important, this interaction pattern was notobserved. Both higher and lower scoring participants werearoused by the flash or the sound stimulus indistinguishably,in accordance with the overall pattern as shown in Figure 1;
the Empathic Concern (EC) × Stimulus interaction effect was
not significant, F(1, 24) = 0.52, ns. These statistical results areunchanged if we retain the EC score as a continuous variable in
the analysis. The EC (continuous) × Stimulus interaction effectwas significant in the blind condition, F(1, 23) = 4.35, p = .05,
but not in the sighted condition, F(1, 24) = 2.00, ns.
6. Participants’ EC scores were not significantly related to their
physiological responses when experiencing the aversive stimuli
themselves. Spearman rank correlations coefficients between
the EC score and the BVP constriction during the direct experience were r = .15, ns, for the flash, and r = .08, ns, for the sound(n = 51). Thus, the moderating effect of the dispositional differences (EC) is unlikely to be attributable to individual differences
in sensitivity/reactivity to the aversive stimuli per se.

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