Can Empathy Actually Be Harmful?

People often say that having empathy is a good thing, but surprisingly, this isn't always the case. Empathy is a much-studied concept in psychology, and a large amount of research over the years tells us that empathy allows a person to consider other people's perspectives, motivates helping, and is even a key element in successful relationships.

However, some research shows that people do not show empathy equally to others. In fact, people often exhibit an empathy bias, meaning that they are more empathetic to those who are similar to them in some way (an ingroup member) than to those with whom they share less in common (an outgroup member). These groups can refer to any social category a person considers themselves to be a part of, some more superficial such as being a student at a particular university or a fan of a certain sports team, and some deeply defining such as race, gender, or religion. This resulting "empathy gap" is known as parochial empathy, and unlike the empathy one extends to people similar to oneself, it can have very negative consequences, especially when it goes beyond feelings and actually leads to disparities in how we treat different social groups. For instance, other research on different types of groups has shown that parochial empathy can predict things like prejudicial attitudes and discriminatory behavior towards immigrants.

In our recent article, my colleague and I reviewed the similarities and differences between empathy in general and parochial empathy, and why researchers' efforts to increase empathy towards outgroups may not always produce the intended results. Often, these efforts are focused on general principles of empathy without addressing the gap that can result from our biases. For example, if someone already has a strong existing prejudice against a particular group, trying to consider the perspective of someone from that group may not elicit strong enough feelings to result in any meaningful change in one's attitudes. And most crucially, even feeling empathy for people in other groups may not be enough to change behavior or overall attitudes towards them in a way that would result in reduced bias towards an outgroup.

Because of this, it is important to understand how the general idea of empathy and parochial empathy are alike and different. Most researchers think of empathy in general as having multiple elements—the way one thinks about other people and take on their perspectives, the way one feels when considering other people's experiences), and the way one acts in response to others' needs. Our recent article also refers to some of my other research that suggests that although parochial empathy overlaps quite a bit with these elements, it also consists of a "motivated empathy" component that involves a person's willingness to engage in more positive behaviors towards others.

Because there was not a standardized way to measure parochial empathy, I began work to develop a parochial empathy scale that can be used to measure how people feel towards different groups and includes items to measure motivated empathy. For example, there are questions such as "When I think I'm about to criticize someone who is a _____, I first try to imagine how I would feel if I was in their place" and "When I read stories about people who are ______ in the news, I try to imagine what I would feel like in their position." These items reflect how willing someone is to actively work towards being more empathetic. My preliminary findings suggest that this new scale can measure a person's parochial empathy levels while also predicting their likelihood of engaging in helping behavior towards both ingroup and outgroup members.

Additional work on parochial empathy is needed, because having a better understanding of its unique elements will help researchers better understand the differences in how people think, feel, and act towards people in ingroups versus outgroups. Most importantly, understanding the nuances of parochial empathy will allow researchers to produce more targeted interventions that can increase positive behavior while reducing bias.

For Further Reading

Behler, A. M. C., & Berry, D. R. (2022). Closing the empathy gap: A narrative review of the
measurement and reduction of parochial empathy. Social and Personality Psychology
Compass, 16(9), e12701.

Anna Maria C. Behler is an assistant professor at North Carolina State University. She studies how emotions like envy, nostalgia, and empathy influence our relationships and behaviors.