“I feel your pain”: A critical review of organizational research on empathy

• Author: Melissa M. Robertson,Stephen Young,Malissa A. Clark
• Published date: 01 February 2019
• Date: 01 February 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/job.2348

THE JOB ANNUAL REVIEW

“I feel your pain”: A critical review of organizational research on

empathy

Malissa A. Clark

1*

|Melissa M. Robertson

1*

|Stephen Young

2*

1

Department of Psychology, University of

Georgia, Georgia, U.S.A.

2

Global Research and Evaluation, Center for

Creative Leadership, Greensboro, North

Carolina, U.S.A.

Correspondence

Malissa Clark and Melissa Robertson,

Department of Psychology, University of

Georgia, 125 Baldwin St., Athens, Georgia

30602, U.S.A.

Email: clarkm@uga.edu;

robertsonmelissa27@gmail.com

Stephen Young, Global Research and

Evaluation, Center for Creative Leadership, 1

Leadership Pl., Greensboro, North Carolina

27410, U.S.A.

Email: youngs@ccl.org

Summary

Empathy, a multidimensional construct comprised of cognitive, affective, and behav-

ioral dimensions, has been advanced as a critical predictor of prosocial behavior and

effectiveness in the workplace. However, despite organizational interest in empathy,

there is a lack of consensus on what empathy is, how empathy should be measured,

and how empathy research can meaningfully contribute to our understanding of

organizational behavior. This paper aims to provide a roadmap for researchers and

practitioners interested in empathy in the workplace. We first provide an updated

overview of the state of the broader multidisciplinary literature on empathy. On the

basis of this literature, we outline the three dimensions of empathy, discuss the

distinctions between state/trait and observer/judged empathy, and compare empathy

with related constructs. This integrated multidimensional conceptualization provides

the basis for our critical review and recommendations. We review the organizational

research on empathy (1983–2018), identifying critical issues with how empathy has

been conceptualized, measured, and designed, and offer practical recommendations

for the advancement of organizational research on empathy. We conclude by

highlighting two fundamental questions: (a) is empathy associated with important

outcomes of interest to organizations and employees, and (b) can empathy be changed,

and if so, how?

KEYWORDS

affective empathy, behavioral empathy,cognitive empathy, empathy, judged empathy

“I believe empathy is the most essential quality of

civilization.”Roger Ebert (2010, May 19)

“Students of empathy can seem a cantankerous lot.

Although they typically agree that empathy is

important, they often disagree about why it is

important, about what effects it has, about where it

comes from, and even about what it is.”Batson (2009)

1|INTRODUCTION

For most employees, work is an inherently social activity. As such,

work often involves understanding others' mental states, experiencing

shared affective states with others, and demonstrating that one

understands and/or experiences what another person is feeling. These

experiences reflect empathy—a multidimensional construct underlying

how human beings understand and relate to one another. Empathy

has been examined in relation to a range of organizational phenomena,

such as organizational citizenship behavior (e.g., Settoon &

Mossholder, 2002), leadership emergence (Wolff, Pescosolido, &

Druskat, 2002), and interpersonal justice (Patient & Skarlicki, 2010).

In addition, recent theoretical papers have identified empathy as a

*These authors are contributed equally to the development of this article.

We would like to thank James LeBretonfor his support and helpful comments on

an earlier version of this article and Felicia Corbett for her assistance in article

retrieval. We also thankeditors Paul Harvey and Marie Dasborough andthe two

anonymous reviewersfor their constructive feedback during the reviewprocess.

Received: 16 October 2015 Revised: 14 December 2018 Accepted: 20 December 2018

DOI: 10.1002/job.2348

166 © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J Organ Behav. 2019;40:166–192.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/job

critical construct for predicting organizational behavior, including

leader–member exchange (Cropanzano, Dasborough, & Weiss, 2017),

crisis management (Kӧnig, Graf‐Vlachy, Bundy, & Little, 2018), corpo-

rate philanthropy (Muller, Pfarrer, & Little, 2014), and forgiveness

(Fehr & Gelfand, 2012). The importance of empathy in the workplace

has also been highlighted by recent popular press articles centered on

developing and managing empathy at work (Loder, 2016; Waytz,

2016) and organizational practices aimed at increasing employee

empathy (e.g., Ford's “empathy belly”; Beasley, 2016; Apple's “Genius

Manual”; Biddle, 2012).

Despite the field's interest in empathy, the organizational litera-

ture lacks consensus on how empathy should be conceptualized, mea-

sured, and studied. Although diversity of perspectives on empathy is

not inherently problematic (Cuff, Brown, Taylor, & Howat, 2016; Duan

& Hill, 1996), research in organizational behavior lacks agreement on

basic features of the construct of empathy, such as whether empathy

is a state or a trait, the dimensionality of empathy, and the extent to

which empathy is unique from other constructs. Such widespread lack

of agreement about what empathy means is a serious concern in orga-

nizational research and practice. It means that whenever we theorize

about empathy or try to measure empathy, we are thinking about

and measuring it in very different ways. As a consequence, our field

has a limited understanding of the impact of empathy on outcomes

of interest to organizations and employees.

The aims of this paper are (a) to provide an updated review of the

construct of empathy to encourage better alignment between organiza-

tional research on empathy and the broader empathy literature, (b) to

critically review organizational research on empathy in terms of concep-

tualization, measurement, and research design, and (c) to provide rec-

ommendations and priorities for future research on empathy in

organizations. To accomplish these goals, we first provide an updated

overview of the state of the broader multidisciplinary literature on

empathy. On the basis of this literature, we outline the three dimensions

of empathy, discuss the distinctions between state/trait and

observer/judged empathy, and compare empathy with related con-

structs. Drawing from the cumulative body of research on empathy,

we then critically review the organizational literature on empathy

(1983–2018), identifying critical issues in empathy research and offer-

ing recommendations for how researchers can overcome these issues.

We conclude by highlighting two fundamental questions for organiza-

tional research on empathy: (a) is empathy associated with important

outcomes of interest to organizations and employees, and (b) can empa-

thy be changed, and if so, how?

2|MULTIDIMENSIONAL CONCEPTUALI-

ZATIONS OF EMPATHY

Although the concept of empathy is said to date back to “the beginning

of philosophical thought”(Stotland, Matthews, Sherman, Hansson, &

Richardson, 1978, p. 11), Edward Titchener (1909) is credited as the first

to translate the German concept of Einfühlung to English. Since then,

thousands of research studies have examined the role of empathy in

human behavior across a wide variety of disciplines. Despite the exten-

sive amount of interest in the construct, researchers have struggled to

agree on what exactly empathy is (and is not). Conceptual confusion

has been so pervasive that scholars have lamented that there are as

many definitions of empathy as there are scholars studying the con-

struct (e.g., Decety & Jackson, 2004; Zaki, 2014). For example, Cuff

et al. (2016) identified 43 distinct definitions/conceptualizations of

empathy in their review.

Although a unified definition will likely always remain elusive,

scholars now largely recognize empathy as a multidimensional con-

struct operating at both trait and state levels (Cuff et al., 2016). With

few exceptions, scholars include both cognitive (i.e., understanding

others' internal states) and affective (i.e., feeling congruent emotions

with others) dimensions in their definitions of empathy. Some scholars

provide evidence that empathy also has a behavioral (i.e., demonstra-

tions of cognitive and affective empathy) dimension (e.g., Van der

Graaff et al., 2016).

2.1 |Affective empathy

Affective empathy, or feeling the same affective state as another per-

son, is thought to be the phylogenetically earliest system of empathy

(de Waal, 2008; Gonzalez‐Liencres, Shamay‐Tsoory, & Brüne, 2013).

For example, infants as young as 1 or 2 days old tend to cry more

loudly in response to another infant's cry than nonhuman noise (Sagi

& Hoffman, 1976). The concept of affective empathy draws primarily

from the simulation perspective (Gallese & Goldman, 1998),which

states humans instinctively respond to other people's affective states

through the perception–action mechanism (PAM). According to

PAM, when an observer perceives a target's affective state, the

observer's own neural representation is automatically and uncon-

sciously activated to match the perceived affective state of the target

(Preston & de Waal, 2002). Thus, affective states are transmitted

between people, such that the observer comes to feel the same affec-

tive state as the target. Affective empathy has also been proposed to

occur via social‐cognitive mechanisms, such as appraising a target's

situation in the same way as the target (Wondra & Ellsworth, 2015),

and through cognitive empathy (e.g., Stotland, 1969).

Many neurological studies have focused on identifying the spe-

cific brain regions associated with affective empathy (for reviews,

see Bernhardt & Singer, 2012; Fan, Duncan, Greck, & Northoff,

2011). A typical approach in these studies is to examine whether the

same neural networks are activated during firsthand affective experi-

ences and when witnessing someone else undergoing that same affec-

tive experience. For example, Singer et al. (2004) found that the same

areas of the brain were activated when women received electric

shocks and when women witnessed their partners receiving electric

shocks. These findings provide evidence that the experience of affec-

tive empathy is neurologically similar to the experience of firsthand

affective states. Importantly, these patterns of neurological activation

differ from those associated with other dimensions of empathy

(Shamay‐Tsoory, Aharon‐Peretz, & Perry, 2009).

There is some debate in the empathy literature regarding whether

affective empathy involves feeling a congruent affective state with

another person, or merely a similar affective state to another person

(Cuff et al., 2016). In our view, expanding the definition of affective

CLARK ET AL.167