Abstract
In three experiments, we examine parochial empathy (feeling more empathy for in-group than out-group members) across novel group boundaries, and test whether we can mitigate parochial empathy with brief narrative descriptions. In the absence of individuating information, participants consistently report more empathy for members of their own assigned group than a competitive out-group. However, individualized descriptions of in-group and out-group targets significantly reduce parochial empathy by interfering with encoding of targets’ group membership. Finally, the descriptions that most effectively decrease parochial empathy are those that describe targets’ mental states. These results support the role of individuating information in ameliorating parochial empathy, suggest a mechanism for their action, and show that descriptions emphasizing targets’ mental states are particularly effective.
Highlights
In the 20th Century alone, over 230 million people were killed in the course of genocide, war, and other forms of group conflict [1], making intergroup conflict “one of the greatest problems facing the world today” [2]
Given that parochial empathy is associated with intergroup attitudes and behaviors, understanding how to reduce the gap in empathic responding towards in-group and out-group targets may be a critical step towards mitigating intergroup conflict
We had four predictions about parochial empathy in Experiment 1: we predicted a main effect of group that would be qualified by an interaction with the presence or absence of a narrative description
Summary
In the 20th Century alone, over 230 million people were killed in the course of genocide, war, and other forms of group conflict [1], making intergroup conflict “one of the greatest problems facing the world today” [2]. One of the psychological processes most commonly invoked in the context of intergroup conflict is (lack of) empathy [3,4,5]. While trait levels of empathic concern have previously been associated with interpersonal empathy, intergroup empathy has been shown to be dependent instead on the distribution of empathy, privileging in-group members over out-group members, which we have termed ‘parochial empathy’ (or intergroup empathy bias; [6]). Given that parochial empathy is associated with intergroup attitudes (e.g. positively with prejudice) and behaviors (e.g. negatively with outgroup altruism), understanding how to reduce the gap in empathic responding towards in-group and out-group targets may be a critical step towards mitigating intergroup conflict. Few studies have examined directly the impact of interventions on intergroup empathy; previous work on stereotype reduction has shown that negative attributions
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