A central challenge in affective computing is determining appropriate empathy levels for different interaction contexts. Prior work has characterized two poles: task-focused interactions, where empathy demand is near zero, and emotional disclosure, where empathy demand is high. This paper identifies a distinct intermediate type, decision support under stress, in which a sender faces a consequential choice while experiencing emotional difficulty. We hypothesize that this type elicits an asymmetric empathy profile: empathy comparable to emotional disclosure but instrumentality comparable to task-focused exchange. We test five hypotheses using 28,239 post-reply dyads from three Reddit advice communities, classified into three interaction types and scored for empathy depth, empathy form, and instrumental proportion using LLM-based annotation with pattern-based robustness checks. Results confirm the predicted asymmetric profile: decision-support-under-stress replies show significantly higher empathy than task-focused replies (M = 0.47 vs. 0.24, p < 0.001) while maintaining high instrumentality (0.83 vs. 0.77 for emotional disclosure, p < 0.001). Behavioral empathy dominates (36.6%), and community-validated response quality is negatively associated with empathic expression (r = -0.075, p < 0.001). Community norms modulate baselines substantially but preserve the structural ordering. These findings establish a human empathy baseline for this interaction type and have direct implications for calibrating empathic expression in affective AI systems.

翻译：情感计算领域的一个核心挑战在于确定不同交互语境中合适的共情水平。先前研究已勾勒出两种极端情况：任务导向型交互（共情需求近乎为零）与情感表露型交互（共情需求较高）。本文识别出一种独特的中间类型——压力下的决策支持，即发送者在经历情绪困扰的同时面临重大抉择。我们假设该类型会引发非对称的共情特征：共情水平接近情感表露型，而工具性水平接近任务导向型。我们利用来自Reddit三个建议社区的28,239条帖文-回复配对，将其划分为三种交互类型，并通过基于LLM的标注与模式化稳健性检验，对共情深度、共情形式及工具性比例进行评分，以此检验五个假设。结果证实了预期的非对称特征：压力下决策支持的回复共情水平显著高于任务导向型（均值=0.47 vs. 0.24，p<0.001），同时保持较高的工具性（0.83 vs. 情感表露型0.77，p<0.001）。行为共情占据主导地位（36.6%），且社区验证的回复质量与共情表达呈负相关（r=-0.075，p<0.001）。社区规范显著调节基线水平，但保留了结构排序。这些发现为这一交互类型建立了人类共情基线，并对情感AI系统中共情表达的校准具有直接启示意义。