As political polarization increases across many of the world's established democracies, many citizens are unwilling to appreciate and consider the viewpoints of those who disagree with them. Previous research shows that this lack of reflection can undermine democratic accountability. The purpose of this paper is to study whether empathy for the other can motivate people to reason reflectively about politics. Extant studies have largely studied trait‐level differences in the ability and inclination of individuals to engage in reflection. Most of these studies focus on observational moderators, which makes it difficult to make strong claims about the effects of being in a reflective state on political decision making. We extend this research by using a survey experiment with a large and heterogeneous sample of UK citizens (N = 2014) to investigate whether a simple empathy intervention can induce people to consider opposing viewpoints and incorporate those views in their opinion about a pressing political issue. We find that actively imagining the feelings and thoughts of someone one disagrees with prompts more reflection in the way that people reason about political issues as well as elicits empathic feelings of concern towards those with opposing viewpoints. We further examine whether empathy facilitates openness to attitude change in the counter‐attitudinal direction and find that exposure to an opposing perspective (without its empathy component) per se is enough to prompt attitude change. Our study paints a more nuanced picture of the relationship between empathy, reflection and policy attitudes.

Previous research suggests that empathy is a strong contributor to altruistic behavior. However, there is a lack of research regarding the role of empathy in long-term, effortful altruistic acts such as volunteering. In this preregistered study, we aimed to understand the moderating role of belief in a just world in the association between induced empathy and intentions to volunteer among both volunteers (N = 99) and non-volunteers (N = 203). Participants were randomly assigned to either the experimental group (N = 149) or the neutral group (N = 153). In the experimental group, participants read a text about the suffering of an individual with a chronic illness. In the control group, participants read a text about a typical Tuesday for someone. Then, all participants were asked to complete surveys regarding empathy levels, prosocial intentions, belief in a just world, and demographics. Results showed that inducing empathy did not directly affect the levels of intention to volunteer in the future. However, empathy induction was effective for non-volunteers, particularly those with lower levels of personal (but not general) belief in a just world. These results suggest that increasing levels of empathy might be ineffective when personal belief in a just world poses a barrier to displaying volunteering acts. Notably, these findings were observed specifically for non-volunteers, not for volunteers. Thus, future research should explore potential differences due to previous volunteering experiences and the levels of belief in a just world in the motivating roles of empathic concerns for displaying long-term, effortful helping behaviors.

Virtual reality (VR) can boost charitable attitudes and behavior. In an experiment with 100 participants viewing the content in VR vs. desktop computer, the VR group exhibited significantly higher levels of spatial presence (MD = 1.24, p < .001), attention allocation (MD = . 58, p < .001), spatial situation model building (MD = .47, p = .01), and empathy (MD = .46, p = .049). Donation behavior did not differ between the two groups (p = .36). Both computer and VR viewers shared similar emotions, but VR users felt greater immersion and emotional intensity, perceiving themselves as active participants, while computer viewers took a more passive role. This study generated insights for nonprofits considering VR in their marketing strategies, shedding light on the potential of VR storytelling and its effects on charitable giving.

The paper aims to test why people from the general population intend to volunteer in the future. Our study tests empathy (affective and cognitive) as the intrinsic antecedent, satisfaction with life and meaning in life as the endocentric antecedents, and social value orientation as the ipsocentric antecedent of the intention to engage in volunteering. The paper is based on a 2-wave longitudinal online, questionnaire-based study (N = 566) performed on a general sample of Polish residents in May 2022 and May 2023. Results of structural equation modeling indicated that empathy at time 1 of the study predicted subsequent volunteering intention (when controlling for other variables in the model). Moreover, the volunteering intention at time 1 predicted social value orientation at time 2, and endocentric antecedents at time 1 negatively predicted empathy at time 2. The results suggest that concern for others and their welfare is the strongest factor associated with intentions to volunteer in the general population. Practitioners should consider that people with higher dispositional empathy might be the best targets for volunteer recruitment.

In this short report, we show that some elements usually deemed as obligatory DE SE anaphors may be interpreted as NON-DE SE in certain contexts. We argue that this non-de se reading cannot be subsumed under the category of DE RE, and suggest extending Kuno and Kaburaki's Theory of Empathy (Kuno & Kaburaki 1977, Kuno 1987) to interpret these readings as Indirect De Se: namely, that the speaker empathizes with the attitude holder, helping the latter to do self-reference. Applying this idea to other anaphoric expressions like personal pronouns, we obtain a TRICHOTOMY of attitude reports—de se, de re, and indirect de se, contra the traditional de se and de re distinction. Our proposal can also help to account for Anand's (2006) observation that only firstperson attitude reports in the Past Tense may have the non-de se reading.

This study investigated the influences of resources and subjective dispositions on formal and informal volunteering. The author examined whether resources are associated with formal volunteering, while subjective dispositions are associated with informal volunteering, using data from representative national Japanese samples (SSP-P2010 data). The results suggested that socioeconomic resources (namely education) are more strongly related to formal volunteering than to informal volunteering, while subjective dispositions (empathy and religious mind) are associated with both formal and informal volunteering. The main finding of the present study was that empathy and religious mind are the essential facilitators of both types of volunteering with different characteristics.

While empathy is often seen as a resilience factor, emotional resonance with others’ suffering may increase psychological vulnerability during mass trauma exposure, particularly in youth. Since the role of early empathy as a prospective risk factor remains understudied, we used a decade-long longitudinal design to examine whether empathic reactions in childhood predicted early adolescents’ internalizing (depression and anxiety) symptoms following the October 7th attack and the Israel–Hamas war. Empathic distress was assessed at age 1.5 years and age 3 years through observational tasks. Emotional empathy and internalizing symptoms were self-reported at age 11 years, before the war, and reported again after its outbreak. Findings showed substantial internalizing symptoms during the war, with 31% of participants exceeding the clinical cutoff for anxiety and 23% for depression. Non of the empathy measures predicted internalizing symptoms before the war. However, during the war, empathic distress at age 1.5 and emotional empathy at age 11 predicted internalizing symptoms, controlling for negative emotionality and prior internalizing symptoms. Path analysis also linked empathic distress at age 3 to internalizing symptoms during war. Findings suggest that early empathic reactions may increase vulnerability to internalizing symptoms during mass trauma but not in non-traumatic contexts, aligning with a diathesis-stress model. Understanding empathy’s role in risk and resilience can inform interventions for youth exposed to war.

Virtual Reality (VR) has garnered significant attention as a potential ‘empathy machine’ for its ability to simulate firsthand experiences of others’ perspectives. However, recent research reveals conflicting evidence regarding VR’s effectiveness in fostering empathy, with outcomes ranging from strong positive effects to complete ineffectiveness. By analyzing both subjective experiences and objective measures, this study aims to elucidate the relationship between VR design and human empathy, addressing three prevalent perspectives on the field’s inconsistencies: flawed mechanisms, ineffective design, and mismatched methodology. The findings contribute to the theoretical understanding of empathic VR and provide practical implications for designing effective VR-based empathy interventions in engineering contexts.