How cognitive and emotional empathy relate to rational thinking: empirical evidence and meta-analysis

ABSTRACT

Empathy is frequently described in opposition to rationality. Yet in two studies, we demonstrate that the relationship between rationality and empathy is nuanced and likely context dependent. Study 1 reports correlational data from two American samples and Study 2 presents a meta-analysis of existing literature (k = 22). We demonstrate that various types of cognitive empathy (perspective-taking, emotion recognition, and fantasy) are positively correlated with self-reported rationality, but unrelated to rational performance. In contrast, types of emotional empathy (empathic concern, personal distress, and emotion contagion) are generally negatively correlated with performance measures of rationality, but their relationships with self-reported rationality are divergent. Although these results do not settle the debate on empathy and rationality, they challenge the opposing domains hypothesis and provide tentative support for a dual-process model of empathy. Overall, these results indicate that the relationship between rationality and empathy differs depending upon how rationality and empathy are measured.

KEYWORDS:

• Empathy
• rationality
• thinking styles
• need for cognition
• empathic concern
• personal distress
• perspective-taking
• meta-analysis

Disclosure statement

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

Data availability statement

Data used in these analyses are available on OSF https://osf.io/wgt39

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://osf.io/wgt39.

Supplemenatry material

Supplementary material for this article can be accessed on the publisher’s website.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. Book 2, part 3, section 3, paragraph 4.

2. We combined these datasets using meta-analysis rather than pooling them using integrative data analysis because there were significant differences in the means for each sample.

Additional information

Funding

The second author was supported by grants from AmeriCorps (formerly, the Corporation for National and Community Service: 17REHIN002) and Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R25-HD083146). The second author was also supported by the Notre Dame Institute of Advanced Study while writing this manuscript. Both authors were supported by a grant from Heterodox Academy.

Notes on contributors

Alison Jane Martingano

Alison Jane Martingano, PhD, is a post-doctoral research fellow at the National Human Genome Research Institute, National Institutes of Health. Her research interests include empathy, communication and the impact of emerging technologies on health.

Sara Konrath

Sara Konrath, PhD, is a professor of philanthropic studies at Indiana University & University of Notre Dame. Her research interests include prosocial traits, motivations, and behaviors.