Predicting Empathy: The Role of Religion and Spirituality

Abstract

Empathy refers to the ability to enter another's frame of reference and sense the meaning in her or his inner world (Rogers, 1957). Two potential predictors of empathy are religion and spirituality, although research findings in this area are mixed. The purpose of this study was to examine whether counseling students’ religious commitment and spirituality significantly predicted empathy. Results revealed that two spiritual elements, Purpose/meaning and Unifying Interconnectedness, as well as gender and age, significantly predicted empathy among 146 graduate-level counseling students.

Keywords:

• empathy
• religion
• spirituality