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Empathy Unleashed: Exploring the Impact of Cultivating Unlimited Empathy Mindset on Engaging in Empathic Effortful Behaviors
by Emily Yang
Faculty Advisor: Desmond Ong, PhD
Empathy is considered a virtue, yet it can be challenging to exercise when it is difficult or distressing to relate to people in need. Building on recent research on mindsets about empathy, inducing the belief that empathy is unlimited may motivate increasing empathy in effortful situations. Undergraduates were randomly assigned to read articles portraying empathy as limited or unlimited (N = 153). They then completed the empathy selection task, a 25-trial where participants could choose whether to empathize with a target or simply describe their physical characteristics. We hypothesized that an unlimited mindset would be associated with more empathy, even when empathy is costly. Indeed, reading about an unlimited mindset increases beliefs about unlimited empathy (manipulation check on beliefs, p < .001). However, contrary to expectations, there was no main effect of the condition: the treatment did not significantly impact empathic effortful behaviors (p = .45). Nevertheless, in the unlimited condition, participants’ beliefs about empathy were more strongly related to empathic choices (a marginally significant slope, b = 1.64, p = .06) compared to those in the control condition (in which there was no significant slope, b = .51, p = .35; interaction p = .07). This study opens up additional research directions on the effect of mindset beliefs about empathy on empathic decision-making.