The Social Causes and Political Consequences of Group Empathy

Abstract

Recent scholarship has discovered significant racial/ethnic group variation in response to political threats such as immigration and terrorism. Surprisingly, minority groups often simultaneously perceive themselves to be at greater risk from such threats and yet still prefer more open immigration policies and civil liberties protections. We suggest a group‐level empathy process may explain this puzzle: Due to their higher levels of empathy for other disadvantaged groups, many minority group members support protections for others even when their own interests are threatened. Little is known, however, about the unique properties of group empathy or its role in policy opinion formation. In this study, we examine the reliability and validity of our new measure of group empathy, the Group Empathy Index (GEI), demonstrating that it is distinct from other social and political predispositions such as ethnocentrism, social dominance orientation, authoritarianism, ideology, and partisanship. We then propose a theory about the development of group empathy in reaction to life experiences based on one's race/ethnicity, gender, age, and education. Finally, we examine the power of group empathy to predict policy attitudes and political behavior.

Perspective taking can promote short-term inclusionary behavior toward Syrian refugees

“…members (21). Observational work also suggests that differing levels of empathy explain varying political attitudes across racial groups (22,23). There is therefore a scientific basis for the idea that a perspective-taking treatment may result in more inclusionary attitudes toward refugees.…”

The Interplay of Empathy and Individualism in Support for Social Welfare Policies

“…One explanation for this weak association is that human empathy is subject to powerful regulation, even when empathic responses occur automatically. There are numerous factors that affect the up‐ and down‐regulation of empathy including the number of people who require help, whether the affected person is a member of one’s ingroup, one’s level of concern for members of disadvantaged outgroups, personal distress, and the anticipated pain or other negative states associated with empathy (Cameron & Payne, ; Decety, ; Sirin, Valentino, & Villalobos, ). We focus here on a belief in individualism to assess what happens when empathy and individualism conflict.…”

How Empathic Concern Fuels Political Polarization

“…For example, psychology research demonstrates that feelings of empathic concern for a member of a stigmatized group, such as a homeless person or an AIDS victim, can reduce stigmatization and prejudice (e.g., Batson et al 1997; Batson et al 2002). Other research has shown that empathy for racial and ethnic groups can generate higher support for civil rights policies that protect undocumented immigrants and suspected terrorists (Sirin, Valentino, and Villalobos 2016, 2017). Perhaps inspired by this research, then-Senator Barack Obama identified an “empathy deficit” as the root of many problems in American politics (for a scholarly take on the topic, see Ditto and Koleva 2011).…”

“…Many of the more optimistic findings regarding empathy’s utility in reducing conflict come from laboratory experiments involving direct manipulations of the experience of empathy, but the effects derived from forced exposure experiments may differ from those under self-selection (for discussion, see Gaines and Kuklinski 2011). This methodological point is crucial because people are systematically biased in how they experience empathy on a day-to-day basis (Bloom 2016) and tend to display greater empathy toward ingroup members (Sirin, Valentino, and Villalobos 2017). When given the choice, people seek out environments that minimize contact with dissimilar others and ideas (e.g., Flache and Macy 2011; Gimpel and Hui 2015; Hart et al 2009; Sears and Freedman 1967).…”