Pity towards persons with disability among social workers

Pity is an emotion often associated with the negative experience of witnessing the suffering of others. Pity is often considered to have a positive impact on those experiencing it, leading them to care for others, but pity is a complex emotion and appears to have additional implications. Ben Zeev (1990) analysed the concept of pity and found that believing in the inferiority of others may lead individuals to be self-centred and to react in a passive manner to the suffering of others. Alternatively, pity may give rise to fear of suffering the same calamity, which in turn leads people to psychologically distance themselves from the sufferers (Hirschberger, Florian & Mikulincer, 2005). Encountering people with disabilities is usually accompanied by an array of emotions, including pity. People belonging to the therapeutic professions like social workers, may also experience these emotions (Livneh, 1988).

The current study was designed to examine the factors that contribute to the emergence of pity among social workers as compared to people of non-therapeutic professions.  These factors included internal resources such as attachment orientation, mental health, shame and guilt, self-awareness, and meaning in life; and social support as an external resource. 156 social workers and 117 people from professions unrelated to therapy or education were asked to complete the following questionnaires:

1. Reflection and Rumination Questionnaire (RRQ)
2. Experiences in Close Relationships Scale (ECR; Brennan, Clark, & Shaver; 1998)
3. State Shame and Guilt Scale (SSGS; Tangney & Dearing, 2002)
4. Mental Health Inventory (MHI; Veit & Ware, 1983)
5. Multidimensional Scale for Perceived Social Support (MSPSS; Zimet, Dahlem, Zimet, & Farley, 1988)
6. Pity Experience Inventory (PEI; Florian, Mikulincer, & Hirschberger, 2000), referencing the scenario involving a person with a disability.
7. Purpose in Life Test (attributed to the person with the disability) (Crumbaugh & Maholick, 1964)
8. Socio-demographic questionnaire

The results of this study suggest that there are five dimensions that expand the way in which pity has been perceived to date. The expanded construct includes the dimensions of affection and willingness to help; vulnerability; social distance; restlessness and embarrassment; and denial. The study hypothesis regarding differences in the level of pity between social workers and people of non-therapeutic professions was not confirmed for any of the dimensions identified in this study. It is possible that pity differs from other emotions in that it is universal and acquired at a young age regardless of professional socialization.

The different dimensions of pity can be categorized as “pro-social” or “anti-social”. The pro-social dimension of pity includes affection and willingness to help, while the anti-social dimension includes vulnerability, social distance, restlessness and embarrassment, and denial. While affection and willingness to help represent an active readiness to assist and get closer, social distance and denial represent an active desire to withdraw and avoid the subject of pity. Amid these two poles lie the more passive dimensions of vulnerability, restlessness and embarrassment which focus on the emotions that surface when one is faced with anguish and distress.

Additionally, no differences were found in the levels of rumination, attributed meaning in life, anxiety, shame and guilt, social support and well-being between social workers and people of non-therapeutic professions. However, the findings did show that social workers have lower levels of attachment avoidance and higher levels of reflection than people of non-therapeutic professions do. People who report higher levels of attachment avoidance refrain from closeness and intimacy, deny their need for support, externally express high levels of efficacy and low vulnerability, and tend to rely on dismissive strategies (Shaver, Schachner & Mikulincer, 2005). They regulate emotions by delaying activation of the attachment system, dismissing and suppressing any hint of distress, and maintaining cognitive and emotional distance from significant others (Mikulincer & Erev, 1991). It is plausible that people who choose to study and work as social workers, a profession that entails intense emotional bonds with others, do not maintain cognitive and emotional distance from others or delay activation of the attachment system.

Among the predictors examined in this study, meaning in life attributed to a person with disability had the highest contribution to all five dimensions of pity. Next, rumination and anxiety each contributed to four of the five dimensions. Rumination contributed positively to affection and willingness to help, but also to vulnerability, restlessness and embarrassment, and denial. Anxiety contributed positively to vulnerability, social distance, restlessness and embarrassment, and denial.

Well-being contributed positively to affection and willingness to help, and negatively to social distance, restlessness and embarrassment. Reflection contributed to the explained variance of two dimensions – positively to affection and willingness to help, and negatively to denial. Avoidance, shame and social support each contributed to one dimension only. Avoidance contributed negatively to affection and willingness to help. Shame contributed positively to social distance. Social support contributed negatively to social distance. Surprisingly, guilt did not contribute to the explained variance of any of the five dimensions of compassion. Guilt usually reflects an evaluation of one’s own actions (Findler, Jacoby- Klein & Gabis, 2016), though pity can be perceived as an attitude rather than an action. Hence, guilt may be irrelevant in this context.

The importance of this study is that pity, while present in many situations, is rarely mentioned in the professional and clinical discourse or in the professional literature. The current study focuses on this unspoken topic and is the first to examine factors that may contribute to the emergence of pity.

The insights gained from this study could contribute to the socialization process of social workers and their continued professional development after they have completed their studies. Emotions that surface when encountering patients, especially pity, should be discussed as part of the educational process and field supervision. Awareness of pity that emerges in therapeutic sessions involving people with disabilities will enable the therapist to examine this emotion and use it in an informed manner as part of the counter-transference that exists in the therapeutic space.