Earlier this week, the University of California, Berkeley, announced that a study comprising around 300 young adults from different ethnic and social backgrounds indicates that people from the “upper-middle and upper classes were less able to detect and respond to the distress signals of others”
Overall results, the news release explains, showed that when emotionally charged situations arise, the amount of empathy and compassion people show is inversely proportional to their socio-economic status. However, the researchers seemed eager to point out that this is not because richer people are bad people. Or that they are, in some way, “cold-hearted”. Instead, lead researcher and social psychologist Jennifer Stellar suggests richer people may not be capable of “recognizing signals of suffering” because they’ve seldom seen these signals.
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New research shows bonobos and chimpanzees comfort others at similar rates, challenging old beliefs about ape empathy.
Empathy is often seen as a defining human trait, woven into the fabric of our societies. It helps people cooperate, build friendships, and resolve conflicts. But empathy is not unique to humans. Across the animal kingdom, from elephants to the bonobos, behaviors hint at emotional connections that transcend species boundaries.
Recent research from Durham University in the UK delves into how two of our closest living relatives — the bonobo and the chimpanzee — express empathy, challenging long-held assumptions and deepening our understanding of emotional evolution.
A study reveals orphaned bonobos can regain social skills and empathy through rehabilitation efforts, despite early-life trauma.
Empathy in orphaned bonobos
Orphaned bonobos were less likely to show empathetic behaviors, such as comforting distressed peers.
However, their ability to console others, while reduced, remained within the range observed in mother-reared bonobos. This indicates they retain sufficient skills to function in social groups, crucial for their survival in the wild.
Beyond the primary empathy scales, the researchers tracked engagement with the training tasks across 16 time points. The data showed that empathic engagement and mindful engagement in doing the training tasks increased over the duration of the study. Conversely, the difficulty associated with empathetic task engagement decreased. These changes in engagement were most marked around the half-way mark.
The authors concluded that self-effacing empathy training may strengthen empathy among adolescents and their parents. However, they emphasized the need for further investigation into the duration of this effect after the studied eight-week period. It remains unclear whether the improvements in empathy persist once the training has ended. Additionally, the researchers noted that the findings should be replicated in other contexts and with different control conditions to confirm the robustness of the results and to determine the generalizability of the intervention.
The pendulum has started to swing back. It has become an article of faith for MAGA and, in particular, evangelical Christians, to view empathy as not a virtue but as a weak-kneed disease of the “woke” Democrats.
As David French documented in the New York Times: “Books like ‘Toxic Empathy,’ by the popular Christian podcaster Allie Beth Stuckey, and ‘The Sin of Empathy,’ by an evangelical pastor and theologian named Joe Rigney, have warned Christians against allowing their hearts to be influenced by progressive appeals to empathy.”
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In a newly published investigation examining sociocognitive processing in the general population, researchers have discovered that borderline personality symptom severity is significantly associated with reduced mentalization and affective empathy, alongside a counterintuitive reduction in the willingness to accept fair monetary proposals during social exchanges.
The investigation, led by Pascal Louis and colleagues and published in Borderline Personality Disorder and Emotion Dysregulation, evaluated how subclinical variations in borderline traits shape social decision-making when individuals face economic choices paired with varying emotional cues.
Anew survey from the Public Religion Research Institute, released October 20, has found a “partisan empathy gap” dividing Americans ahead of the midterm elections. Democrats (84%) and Independents (70%) see empathy as a benefit to society; Republicans are split, with 43% describing it as a danger — specifically, a danger “if it leads society away from God.”
The religious breakdown is equally revealing. Among white evangelicals, only 42% name empathy a “foundational moral value for a healthy society,” while 54% say it “can become dangerous when it leads people away from building a society guided by God’s truth.” White Catholics (66%) and white mainline Protestants (73%) still see it as important. PRRI president Robert Jones traces the shift to a 2019 blog post by conservative author Joe Rigney, which spread through evangelical media and eventually produced books like Allie Beth Stuckey’s Toxic Empathy and Gad Saad’s Suicidal Empathy. “They really are on an island by themselves on this question,” Jones said of white evangelicals.
The findings also highlight a disconnect between executives and employees over who is responsible for shaping workplace empathy.
A majority of CEOs and chief human resources officers (CHROs) believe that demonstrating empathy at work could undermine their authority, despite overwhelmingly recognising its contribution to business performance, according to new research by Businessolver.
How do ideas about right and wrong vary across cultures? What do researchers mean when they talk about empathy? And what questions should guide the next generation of scholars studying these subjects?
Those questions will shape "Expanding Empathy 2026," a series of four discussions in November and December bringing together researchers from psychology, philosophy and other disciplines to examine morality, human behavior and the future of empathy research.
Now in its eighth year, the series is hosted through Penn State's Consortium on Moral Decision-Making and combines in-person programs with virtual conversations among established and early-career researchers.
"I think these topics are increasingly important as people publicly debate whether empathy is a sign of strength or weakness," said C. Daryl Cameron, Rock Ethics Institute senior research associate and director of the consortium.
What if technology could help children become more empathic? That question sits at the heart of Dr. Ekaterina Muravevskaia's work.
What if technology could help children become more empathic? That question sits at the heart of Dr. Ekaterina Muravevskaia's work.
Growing up, Ekaterina was an intensely sensitive and emotional child, fascinated by something many of us rarely stop to consider: What does it actually feel like to be another person? She remembers looking at the people around her and wondering why they seemed so calm and rational when she had so much happening inside.
by Jenni Ogden Ph.D. Experiencing empathy is one of the best reasons for reading a novel.
The brain's empathy systems are a part of the concept of "theory of mind."
Mind reading is another way of thinking about theory of mind.
Our brains are wired to respond to other people’s emotions almost as if we are experiencing them ourselves; for example, studies have shown that when we observe someone else doing something or showing an emotion that engages us, the same neurons fire in our brains as would fire if we were feeling a similar emotion. These have been called mirror neurons.
Researchers describe this as cognitive empathy. Cognitive empathy means recognizing and understanding someone else’s emotions.
Another type, called affective empathy, involves actually feeling another person’s emotions. During the game, players relied more on understanding Alden’s situation than sharing his feelings.
“People knew that this was a sad situation and that’s why they wanted to help,” Lorenzo said.
Humans feel empathy for robots showing distress, revealing emotional bonds that blur human-machine boundaries."
Dilemmas of digital empathy
The findings of Wieringa’s study open a Pandora’s box of ethical questions.
If people can feel genuine empathy towards distressed robots, should robots be programmed with features that trigger such emotions? This raises concerns about consent and manipulation in human-robot interactions.
Is it ethical to design machines that can elicit empathy to influence human behavior or decision-making? As robotics and artificial intelligence technology continue to advance, these questions become increasingly relevant.
Listening, it’s said, opens the door to understanding. But what if that door doesn’t actually lead anywhere?
A new study challenges this familiar idea. While high-quality, nonjudgmental listening does improve how people feel during conversations – reducing defensiveness and enhancing their opinion of the speaker – it doesn’t make persuasive messages more effective.
In fact, the research reveals that the content of the message, especially when delivered as a powerful personal story, does all the persuasive heavy lifting.
The study, led by Dr. Roni Porat of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, calls for a rethink of how we approach difficult conversations
Empathy is one of the most important lessons you can teach the next generation. When someone is struggling, it isn’t always easy to know the right thing to say or do, and sometimes it’s even harder to recognize when support is needed. Children are still learning how to navigate those moments. In today’s digital world, where interactions often happen through screens, developing the ability to understand another person’s feelings, perspective, and experiences becomes even more essential. By teaching empathy early, you can help children build stronger relationships, show compassion for others, and contribute to a kinder world.
Aflac explains five different ways that parents can teach their children to show compassion and empathy during World Kindness Week (Nov. 9-13, 2026) and every day, and why the words you choose in daily conversations matter.
by Sheryl Anjanette Empathy is more complex than we think, more consequential than we realize, and more learnable than we have been led to believe.
I’ve spent years studying empathy, teaching it, and working to build artificial intelligence capable of practicing it. When I stood on a TEDx stage to talk about How Empathetic AI Can Change the World, I was making an argument about technology. But the years I’ve spent pursuing that possibility have also changed the way I think about human empathy.
Along the way, I’ve come to question much of what we assume about this distinctly human capacity, including whether it is as uniquely human as we believe.
Empathy includes sharing someone's joy and embarrassment. In a new study, sad stories prompted the strongest wish to help.
A friend gets good news, and you feel happy too. Someone tells you about an awkward moment, and you cringe as though you were there.
Both experiences involve empathy, but researchers have spent much more time studying how we share another person’s pain. Most lab tests focus on sad stories.
O'Reilly concludes that the central failing of the Republican Party was an inability to demonstrate genuine empathy for voters burdened by these rising living costs, which he points to as the primary reason for their election losses.
Ardern’s leadership became internationally associated with compassion following the terrorist attacks on two Christchurch mosques in March 2019.
She recalled how the attacker had deliberately sought to provoke hatred and division within New Zealand’s multicultural society. The country’s response, she argued, demonstrated that solidarity could defeat attempts to fracture communities.
As Prime Minister, she was described as the nation’s “chief mourner”, a responsibility she accepted while recognising that sympathy alone was insufficient.
“If I’m in charge of acting on behalf of others, it’s not enough just to bring empathy. Empathy is nothing without action.”
Within days of the attacks, her government moved to prohibit military-style semi-automatic firearms and introduced a weapons buyback programme.
PRNewswire/ -- The two executives most responsible for shaping workplace culture expect to pay a price for leading with empathy. In new Businessolver research, 59% of CEOs and 51% of CHROs (or Chief People Officers) say their decisions will be challenged if they lead with empathy. Yet 99% of CEOs and 88% of CHROs believe empathy contributes to business results.
The findings come from Part 2 of Businessolver's 2026 State of Workplace Empathy C-Suite Special Report, "Inside America's C-suite: What happens when executives don't feel safe?" The study of 1,000 employees and 300 C-suite executives, including CEOs, CFOs, CIOs/CTOs, and CHROs/CPOs, is part of the company's 11th annual study on empathy at work.
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What empathy activities for kids should practice Emotion researchers generally define empathy as the ability to sense other people's emotions, together with the ability to imagine what someone else might be thinking or feeling (Greater Good Science Center).
The same page says the second part, "cognitive empathy," is sometimes called "perspective taking." Sympathy is feeling for someone ("I am so sorry you are hurting"), and empathy is feeling with them ("I feel your disappointment") (Greater Good Magazine). Harvard's Making Caring Common project adds that empathy also means caring about and valuing the other person, and that children have the capacity for empathy but don't develop it on their own (Making Caring Common).
I came across a phrase recently that stopped me in my tracks: toxic empathy. I found myself wondering, how can empathy be toxic?
Apparently, the phrase describes caring so much about others that our judgment becomes clouded. I understand that compassion requires wisdom and discernment. But I wonder if, in our efforts to protect ourselves from caring too much, we are in danger of losing something essential to being human.
Empathy means "to feel with." It is about drawing close, listening, and allowing ourselves to be touched by another person's experience. Sympathy is often about feeling for someone, while empathy invites us to stand alongside them. It asks us to move beyond observation and into connection.
by Robert P. Jones If you don’t live within or adjacent to the white evangelical Protestant cultural world, you might be astonished to learn that the moral sentiment of empathy is under attack.
This well-coordinated assault was mounted by Christian nationalist theologians and influencers, and it has now been mainstreamed by established evangelical leaders.
The new “empathy gap” is not only influencing the midterm elections but is also reshaping the larger partisan fault lines in our politics.
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