The Role of Empathy and Compassion in Conflict Resolution

Abstract

Empathy and empathy-related processes, such as compassion and personal distress, are recognized to play a key role in social relations. This review examines the role of empathy in interpersonal and intergroup relations, including intractable conflicts. Despite the limitations of empathy, there is growing evidence that empathy and compassion are associated with more prosocial behavior in interpersonal relations. Furthermore, empathy and compassion have been associated with more favorable attitudes and higher readiness for reconciliation across a range of intergroup settings. This review ends by summarizing recent evidence for the beneficial effects of compassion training on interpersonal and intergroup relations and by outlining new avenues for future research on how compassion training could reduce intergroup conflicts.

The impact of empathy and perspective-taking instructions on proponents and opponents of immigration

“…Interestingly, pro-immigration participants also reported more positive emotions than did anti-immigration participants in the empathy condition, suggesting that empathy selectively promotes positive emotions in proponents of immigration. As an increase in positive emotions has been postulated to be one of the mechanisms through which empathy inductions improve interpersonal and intergroup relations (Klimecki, 2019), future research that explores these links in more depth is warranted.…”

“…Among the most prominent in interpersonal and intergroup relations are perspective taking and empathy. As described in more detail below, evidence is contradictory on whether these strategies are beneficial (Halperin, 2015;Klimecki, 2019;Ku et al, 2015;Pierce et al, 2013;Underwood and Moore, 1982). One factor that could play a role in interventions related to empathy might be political orientation, as previous research shows that people with leftist political views are more motivated to engage in empathy than are people with rightist political views (Hasson et al, 2018;Porat et al, 2016).…”

“…Similar to perspective taking, empathy has been extensively studied as a precursor of altruism and reduced aggression (de Waal, 2008;Eisenberg and Miller, 1987;Miller and Eisenberg, 1988), as well as a facilitator of interpersonal and intergroup relations (Batson and Ahmad, 2009;Dovidio et al, 2010;Klimecki, 2019;Stephan and Finlay, 1999). However, research has yielded mixed results on the usefulness of empathy as a strategy for improving interpersonal and intergroup relations (Klimecki, 2019).…”

“…Similar to perspective taking, empathy has been extensively studied as a precursor of altruism and reduced aggression (de Waal, 2008;Eisenberg and Miller, 1987;Miller and Eisenberg, 1988), as well as a facilitator of interpersonal and intergroup relations (Batson and Ahmad, 2009;Dovidio et al, 2010;Klimecki, 2019;Stephan and Finlay, 1999). However, research has yielded mixed results on the usefulness of empathy as a strategy for improving interpersonal and intergroup relations (Klimecki, 2019). Currently, it is widely recognised that certain forms of empathy, such as compassion-which denotes a positive, otherregarding feeling of concern for another's suffering (Goetz et al, 2010)-are more beneficial for interpersonal and intergroup relations (Dovidio et al, 2010;Klimecki, 2019) than are other forms of empathy, such as empathic distress, which denotes a feeling of being overwhelmed with others' suffering (Davis, 1983) and which can be associated with more aggressive behaviour (Klimecki, 2015;Klimecki et al, 2016).…”

“…However, research has yielded mixed results on the usefulness of empathy as a strategy for improving interpersonal and intergroup relations (Klimecki, 2019). Currently, it is widely recognised that certain forms of empathy, such as compassion-which denotes a positive, otherregarding feeling of concern for another's suffering (Goetz et al, 2010)-are more beneficial for interpersonal and intergroup relations (Dovidio et al, 2010;Klimecki, 2019) than are other forms of empathy, such as empathic distress, which denotes a feeling of being overwhelmed with others' suffering (Davis, 1983) and which can be associated with more aggressive behaviour (Klimecki, 2015;Klimecki et al, 2016).…”