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Leftists often view empathy as a universal virtue, but it may be increasing political polarization.
A study sourced from the
American Political Science Review explored these effects.
Using data from a 2016 YouGov survey of 1,000 Americans, researchers Elizabeth Simas, Scott Clifford, and Justin Kirkland looked at empathy's impact on partisan favoritism, tolerance, and even
schadenfreude (a German term indicating pleasure in others' misfortunes).
Their first finding was that high empathy people showed a stronger bias towards their own political party.
They favored and felt much more empathetic towards in-party members.
This suggests empathy might not reduce social divides but instead heightens in-group loyalty rather than overall understanding.
At the same time, empathetic people also showed significant out-party unfavorability.
Interestingly, these effects were only statistically significant with empathetic partisan individuals.
Diving deeper, the researchers conducted their own survey to measure empathy's effect on tolerance and censorship.
A survey was given to individuals asking them to describe how they felt about certain scenarios involving free speech.
In general, empathetic individuals were much less likely to be tolerant of an individual if the views expressed were in opposition to the Democrat party. They were also more in favor of forcibly shutting down talk they disagreed with.
The study found that empathy also led to increased
schadenfreude; Democrats ranked high in empathy felt more pleasure when members of the opposing party faced misfortune, especially if those members were perceived as morally wrong or harmful.
How Empathic Concern Fuels Political Polarization - Volume 114 Issue 1
www.cambridge.org
