How Dispositional Empathy Influences Political Ambition

Abstract

Political representation is fundamentally about advancing the needs and interests of others. Empathy -the ability to share others' feelings and perspectives -ought to be a critical skill for effective representation. Yet, the conflict, negativity, and competition that are endemic to politics may prevent empathetic individuals from seeking office. Using an original national survey with an oversample of people who have run for office, we explore how citizens' dispositional empathy influences political ambition. We show that perspectivetaking increases ambition, while personal distress depresses ambition. By analyzing feelings towards several different aspects of running for and holding political office, we show the mechanisms through which empathy affects ambition. Finally, we demonstrate that experimentally manipulated perceptions of campaign context moderate the effects of empathy on ambition. Our results provide new insight into how psychological factors interact with political context to shape ambition and hold important implications for the quality of representation. Running Header: Dispositional Empathy and Political Ambition

How Empathic Concern Fuels Political Polarization

“…If citizens highest in empathic concern are most motivated to participate in the political process as a way to reduce harm, this would suggest a strongly altruistic motive for high levels of participation (Fowler and Kam 2007), a rather encouraging result. Such a suggestion is consistent with findings that higher levels of empathic concern are associated with a greater attraction to the more prosocial aspects of running for and holding political office (Clifford, Kirkland, and Simas 2019). However, if highly empathic individuals seek social contact with outpartisans primarily for the purpose of persuasion, censorship, or punishment, then contact may be unlikely to reduce polarization.…”

“…Thus, perspective-taking might afford better intergroup understanding without the negative emotional responses. Indeed, perspective-taking, not empathic concern, best facilitates negotiations and the ability to discover hidden agreements, and high perspective-takers are less likely to stereotype (Wang et al 2013), more likely to tolerate disagreement (Mutz 2006), and more likely to be attracted to opportunities for political debate and dialogue (Clifford, Kirkland, and Simas 2019). As such, perspective-taking could potentially reduce any of the forms of polarization explored here.…”

“… 24 Unlike empathic concern, personal distress causes people to avoid stressors to alleviate their own personal discomfort (Eisenberg and Fabes 1990). This desire to maintain personal comfort should increase forms of polarization that involve contact and do little to eliminate bias, as those high in personal distress should be more prone to dislike and avoid the politics of both parties (Clifford, Kirkland, and Simas 2019). Table 1 and analyses in Appendices B and C support this, suggesting that the only effects of personal distress are to increase social distance.…”

“Sana All” presupposed Empathy: Netizen’s General Perceived Performance of the Government responses to COVID-19

“…PERCEPTION: Individuals are doing their best to help fellow citizens in need. ATTITUDE: Can help to react to another individual suffering with feelings of sympathy and compassion (Clifford et al, 2019) In the context of extending help to those people in need during these times, the netizens know that there is the government to lead during the pandemic. Suppose that there are also citizens who do not receive help from the government, other people react to their sufferings with feelings of sympathy and compassion, called empathy (Clifford et al 2019).…”

“…ATTITUDE: Can help to react to another individual suffering with feelings of sympathy and compassion (Clifford et al, 2019) In the context of extending help to those people in need during these times, the netizens know that there is the government to lead during the pandemic. Suppose that there are also citizens who do not receive help from the government, other people react to their sufferings with feelings of sympathy and compassion, called empathy (Clifford et al 2019). The language user is hoping for all, especially to the government officials, to act and help the people in need, as this tweet expresses that there are ordinary individuals who are doing their best to help their fellow citizens who are in need.…”