A Difference Between Democrats and Republicans – The Effects of Empathy on Political Interest

12Feb/10

A Difference Between Democrats and Republicans – The Effects of Empathy on Political Interest

Below is a simple little graph of yourmorals.org data that I thought would be worth posting. Interest in politics is positively correlated with empathic concern in liberals/democrats and not in conservatives/republicans. It's somewhat self-evident in posts like this, or debates about the role of empathy from either the Democratic or Republican side.

Can this difference be used to the advantage of the Democratic party? Perhaps inspiring empathy in the electorate will motivate liberals to be politically active more than conservatives? and how exactly might one appeal to empathy? Perhaps by pushing poverty reduction programs, increases in foreign non-military aid, or putting a human face on health care reform?

btw, empathic concern is measured using Davis' Interpersonal Reactivity Index which contains questions like "I often have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me." The next obvious step is to manipulate empathy and see if it has any impact on political behavior, or at least on the intention to engage in political behavior, as there is only so much that can be inferred from this correlation. Still, it's a promising research lead with interesting potential applications toward inspiring political interest.

- Ravi Iyer

Comments

comments

Tagged as: conservatives, difference between democrats and republicans, empathy, interest in politics, liberals, political behavior, political interest Leave a comment

Old Comments (5) Trackbacks (5)

Ravi
February 20th, 2010 - 21:01

I received 2 good similar comments on this via Google Buzz and Facebook that I wanted to save here.

makes sense but what about agentic acts of kindness / saving or protecting people. wouldn’t that sound like the republican version? maybe some sort of feeling/thoughts of protecting ingroup others scale?

Hmm…that is interesting. But I wonder if it’s a function of the types of items that are on the IRI. I haven’t looked at in a while, but based on the example you gave, it seems like that result would be expected. But if you had some item about empathy for an unborn child, or empathy for someone in your ingroup (e.g., family member, fellow church member), I would think Republicans would give at least similar results to Democrats. Republicans seem to just not have as much empathy for people who are different from them (low income, or foreigners, or people of other religions). I really think it’s something about ingroup/outgroup rather than empathy in general. Maybe we need a new scale that measures the two different kinds.

Both good points that I’ll be sure to follow up on.
SK
April 30th, 2012 - 01:48

It would also be interesting to gauge self-reported religiosity. Most religions have explicit teachings on empathy towards others and one wonders if religiosity correlates with empathy.

However, reminding people of religion might prime them to report more empathy so questions about religion should probably be asked last.
Ravi
April 30th, 2012 - 14:57

great idea…we’ll try to add that analysis to the paper we’re writing on this. Thanks for your interest.
Liz
October 10th, 2012 - 12:22

Hi Ravi- I think you are on to something with your comment regarding in group/out group status. Which comes first? Is it the identification with the politial group and then a fierce loyalty and ensuing empathetic feelings (including a confirmation bias and source effect whereby members of the group reject messages from certain sources?) or identification with values and then group. What are your thoughts?
Ravi
October 13th, 2012 - 12:46

I think that effects are bidirectional. I actually think that most effects in the world are bidirectional and that the A->B causality that we often look for in psychology is a simplification of our heavily connected brains where everything influences everything else over time. Thanks for your interest!