Empathy, friend or foe? Untangling the relationship between empathy and burnout in helping professions

ABSTRACT

The relationship between empathy and burnout in helping professions has been debated extensively, with some arguing the tendency to vicariously experience the emotions of another is a risk factor for burnout and others arguing that this disposition protects against burnout. We sought to aid this debate by assessing the relationship between two empathy facets, positive and negative, and burnout across three samples of helping professionals: practicing clinicians (N = 59), medical students (N = 76), and teaching assistants (N = 77). Results across all three samples consistently revealed that one’s tendency to share in the positive emotions of another (i.e., positive empathy) was related to lower levels of burnout, even after controlling for several potential confounding factors. Beyond discussing the utility of the emerging study of positive empathy, we offer potential avenues for reducing burnout in helping professions by emphasizing the importance of sharing in the positive emotions of others.

KEYWORDS:

• empathy
• positive empathy
• negative empathy
• burnout
• optimism
• helping professions

Author disclaimer

The views, opinions, and content of this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or policies of the Department of Veterans Affairs or the United States Government.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data described in this article are openly available in the Open Science Framework at https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/AEKYN.

Open scholarship

This article has earned the Center for Open Science badges for Open Data and Open Materials through Open Practices Disclosure. The data and materials are openly accessible at https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/AEKYN.

Notes

1. These conceptualizations, however, generally assume that the emotional reaction of the other person is negatively valenced.

2. For exploratory purposes, we also ran these same regressions replacing “cognitive empathy ability” with “positive cognitive empathy ability” and “negative cognitive empathy ability.” These two variables were created by splitting TAPPA scores according to whether the correct emotion displayed by the target in each clip was positively or negatively valenced. Similar to positive and negative affective empathy, cognitively identifying positive and negative emotions seemed to be two separate skills (r = .11, p = .37). Neither positive cognitive empathy ability nor negative cognitive empathy ability were significant correlates of general burnout or reduced compassion satisfaction in these new models. However, positive cognitive empathy ability was a significant negative correlate of secondary traumatic stress (B = −.31, p = .01), such that those who are more accurate in judging the positive emotions of others were less likely to experience the stress in response to the traumas of others.

3. For exploratory purposes, we also ran these same regressions replacing “cognitive empathy skill” with “positive cognitive empathy skill” and “negative cognitive empathy skill.” These two variables were created by splitting TAPPA scores according to whether the correct emotion displayed by the target in each clip was positively or negatively valenced. Similar to positive and negative affective empathy, cognitively identifying positive and negative emotions seemed to be two separate skills (r = .14, p = .24). Neither positive cognitive empathy skill nor negative cognitive empathy skill were significant correlates of general burnout or secondary traumatic stress in these new models. However, positive cognitive empathy skill was a significant correlate of reduced compassion satisfaction (B = −.28, p = .01), such that those who are more accurate in judging the positive emotions of others were less likely to experience the burnout symptom of reduced compassion satisfaction.

Additional information

Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Notes on contributors

Morgan D. Stosic

Morgan D. Stosic is a PhD candidate at the University of Maine. Broadly, her research interests include the expression and perception of nonverbal behavior, with a focus on how individuals use nonverbal information to make first impression judgments of others.

Danielle Blanch-Hartigan

Danielle Blanch-Hartigan, PhD, MPH is an Associate Professor of Health Studies in the Department of Natural and Applied Sciences and Director of the Health Thought Leadership Network at Bentley University in Waltham, MA. Her interdisciplinary research in psychology and public health aims to improve the patient experience and foster patient-centered care through better communication.

Tamara Aleksanyan

Tamara Aleksanyan, MS, is a Material Science Researcher and Environmentalist working in material science and green chemistry. She contributes to increased public awareness about sustainable environmental solutions and encourages implementation of said solutions.

Jennifer Duenas

Jennifer Duenas earned her Bachelor of Science in psychology at Yale University in 2021 and currently serves as a research assistant in the EPIC Lab at the University of Maine through the Social-Personality Undergraduate Research (SPUR) Program. Her research examines how individual differences affect emotion perception and the social functions of emotions.

Mollie A. Ruben

Mollie A. Ruben, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Maine. Her research examines interpersonal accuracy and nonverbal behavior as it pertains to everyday social interactions and interactions in healthcare. She also studies LGBTQ health disparities among veterans and non-veterans.