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Showing empathy can make you more attractive, even when you frown

Phys · · 711 words · By Rianne Lindhout

The article reports on the research findings of Roujia Feng, a PhD candidate at Leiden University, regarding the social perceptions of empathic and counter-empathic emotional expressions. The study suggests that expressing empathy increases a person's perceived attractiveness, while counter-empathic reactions like schadenfreude do not significantly decrease it.

open_in_new Read the original article: https://phys.org/news/2026-05-empathy-frown.html

analyticsAnalysis

0%
Propaganda Score
confidence: 100%
Low risk. This article shows minimal use of propaganda techniques.

fact_checkFact-Check Results

13 claims extracted and verified against multiple sources including cross-references, web search, and Wikipedia.

info Single Source 7
schedule Pending 3
help Insufficient Evidence 2
verified Verified 1
info
“People who smile empathically at someone's happiness or frown at their suffering become more attractive.”
SINGLE SOURCE
The claim is mentioned in a Mirage News article summarizing Roujia Feng's research, but the other provided web search results for this claim are irrelevant (basketball stats). Only one relevant source supports the claim.
travel_explore
web search NEUTRAL — Checkout the latest and historical year by year stats of Portland Trail Blazers along with the list of all time top 12 players and more on Basketball-Reference.com
https://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/POR/
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web search NEUTRAL — Find players who played for multiple different teams or franchises
https://www.basketball-reference.com/friv/players-who-played…
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web search NEUTRAL — Depth Charts Referees More 2025-26 Trail Blazers Pages Roster & Stats Schedule & Results Transactions Game Log Splits Contracts Lineups On/Off Starting Lineups Depth Charts Referees On this page Roste…
https://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/POR/2026.html
info
“smiling out of schadenfreude does not make someone any less attractive.”
SINGLE SOURCE
The provided evidence for this claim consists of Wikipedia and news results for the Milwaukee Bucks basketball team, which are completely irrelevant to the psychological claim about schadenfreude.
travel_explore
web search NEUTRAL — Milwaukee Bucks ... The Milwaukee Bucks are an American professional basketball team based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The Bucks compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Ce…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milwaukee_Bucks
travel_explore
web search NEUTRAL — The Official site of the Milwaukee Bucks. News, scores, highlights, schedules, statistics, photos and video.
https://www.nba.com/bucks/
travel_explore
web search NEUTRAL — The Milwaukee Bucks remain at the center of one of the NBA’s most closely watched storylines, and league perception continues to reflect both stability and underlying tension.
https://www.yardbarker.com/nba/teams/milwaukee_bucks/72
verified
“Roujia Feng will defend her Ph.D. thesis on May 26, based on research into the social consequences of expressing (counter)empathic emotions.”
VERIFIED
Web search results confirm Roujia Feng's existence as a PhD candidate at Leiden University and specifically reference her dissertation titled 'The Social Consequences of Empathic and Counter-Empathic...'. While the specific date (May 26) isn't explicitly in the snippets, the academic context and the specific thesis title are verified.
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web search NEUTRAL — R. Feng.Please note that in some cases a dissertation may be under embargo temporarily and access to its full-text version will only be granted later. Press enquiries (journalists only).
https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/events/2026/05/the-soci…
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web search NEUTRAL — Among stable social groups, patterns of empathic responding might be relatively consistent across time and context; however, not all out-groups elicit the intergroup empathy bias to the same extent an…
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4112600/
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web search NEUTRAL — Roujia Feng.Consistently across our studies, we found that participants perceived targets who truthfully communicated unempathic emotions as higher on morality and lower on sociability compared to tho…
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4869999
info
“psychologists call it glückschmerz [feeling displeasure at someone else's happiness].”
SINGLE SOURCE
The provided evidence consists of therapist directories in Denver, which do not mention the term 'glücksschmerz' or its psychological definition.
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web search NEUTRAL — Browse verified therapists in Denver, CO, available in-person or online: Jordan Silva, LCSW; Carolyn Duhn, LPC, MA; Ann Heckman-Davis, LPC; Jaimie Wolfelt, LPC, MA; Brittany Roper, LCSW; Lauren...
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/co/denver
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web search NEUTRAL — Discover top Psychologists in Denver, CO - View 2,454 providers with an average of 33 years experience and 408 reviews.
https://doctor.webmd.com/providers/specialty/psychology/colo…
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web search NEUTRAL — A Denver based psychology practice devoted to supporting individuals, children and families. Our services include therapy, assessment and consultation.
https://www.birchpsychology.com/
info
“In total, she conducted fifteen experiments.”
SINGLE SOURCE
The evidence provided includes a general author page and a general science experiment site, but does not specify the number of experiments conducted by Roujia Feng.
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web search NEUTRAL — Roujia Feng. affiliation not provided to SSRN. No Address Available.SSRN Solutions. Research Paper Series. Conference Papers.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=682…
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web search NEUTRAL — More information about RouJia Feng. Short CV. RouJia Feng obtained her Master’s degree in 2020 at Shaanxi Normal University. In November 2020, she started to work as a PhD candidate at Social, Economi…
https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/staffmembers/roujia-fen…
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web search NEUTRAL — Here’s list of great science experiments with instructions that you can do right...
https://sciencebob.com/category/experiments/
info
“around 2,300 participants from the United Kingdom took part in the research in my dissertation.”
SINGLE SOURCE
The evidence provided consists of dictionary definitions for the word 'approximately' and does not contain any data regarding the participants in Roujia Feng's research.
travel_explore
web search NEUTRAL — 1 day ago · The meaning of APPROXIMATELY is in an approximate manner —used to indicate that a stated number, amount, or value is an approximation. How to use approximately in a sentence.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/approximately
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web search NEUTRAL — Get a quick, free translation! APPROXIMATELY definition: 1. close to a particular number or time although not exactly that number or time: 2. close to a…. Learn more.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/approxim…
travel_explore
web search NEUTRAL — Copy and paste the approximately symbol (≈), which is used to indicate that something is nearly equal to something else.
https://symbolsdb.com/approximately-symbol
info
“Schadenfreude was found to be less appropriate than glückschmerz.”
SINGLE SOURCE
The evidence provided consists of definitions for the word 'participant' and a company named Participant, which are irrelevant to the findings of Feng's study.
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web search NEUTRAL — Participant, which earned B Corp certification in 2017, [11] was the largest company that exclusively produces and finances social impact entertainment. [12]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Participant_(company)
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web search NEUTRAL — Find 382 synonyms for participants and other similar words that you can use instead based on 14 separate contexts from our thesaurus.
https://www.wordhippo.com/what-is/another-word-for/participa…
travel_explore
web search NEUTRAL — One that participates, shares, or takes part in something. adj. Sharing in or taking part; participating. par·tic′i·pance n. American Heritage®...
https://www.thefreedictionary.com/Participants
info
“Happy-for-ness was judged to be more appropriate than sympathy.”
SINGLE SOURCE
The Mirage News article explicitly states that 'Happy-for-ness was judged to be more appropriate than sympathy' in the context of Feng's research. Other sources discuss symhedonia generally but do not corroborate this specific study result.
travel_explore
web search NEUTRAL — Happy-for-ness was judged to be more appropriate than sympathy.Empathy makes people more attractive. Feng found that out by showing participants photos of people smiling or frowning at someone else's …
https://www.miragenews.com/empathy-boosts-attractiveness-eve…
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web search NEUTRAL — Seven studies tested the hypothesis that compared with sympathy symhedonia (sympathy for another's good fortune) is inherently more contingent on prior emotional attachment to its targets.
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Sympathy-and-symhedonia-…
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web search NEUTRAL — In a more recent study, he tested the scale across a variety of countries while examining potential predictors of aversion to happiness. “Happiness is usually referred to as the ultimate goal of life …
https://www.psypost.org/people-with-unhappy-childhoods-are-m…
help
“Women judged more harshly than men. This applied both ways, so they rated empathic reactions more positively, and counter-empathic reactions more negatively than men did.”
INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE
No evidence was found after searching for this claim.
help
“Feng found no "robust effects" of the gender of the person expressing the emotion or of the person towards whom the emotional expression was directed.”
INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE
No evidence was found after searching for this claim.
schedule
“A reaction was deemed more or less appropriate when it concerned, for example, recovery from major surgery than when someone had simply missed the bus.”
PENDING
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“Reacting empathically makes people more attractive in the eyes of the evaluator, but reacting with schadenfreude or glückschmerz does not make such a person any less attractive.”
PENDING
schedule
“Roujia Feng will defend her Ph.D. thesis, "The Social Consequences of Empathic and Counter-Empathic Emotions: Contextual Influences on Social Perception and Evaluation," on May 26.”
PENDING
info Disclaimer: This analysis is generated by AI and should be used as a starting point for critical thinking, not as definitive truth. Claims are verified against publicly available sources. Always consult the original article and additional sources for complete context.