Cultural background affect people's empathy

What is it about?

The literature on empathy attests to two components of empathy known as affective and cognitive. The former has been defined as a mutual feeling between two individuals who are interacting each other, whereas the latter is a cognitive process in the mind of an observer that involves understanding and imagining another individual’s thoughts and feelings. The extent to which individuals with a variety of cultural backgrounds differ in empathic responsiveness is unknown. This paper describes the cross-cultural path of empathy and its differences in two Western and Eastern societies.

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Why is it important?

Our findings based on self-reported questionnaires given by 326 individuals revealed a significant difference in the cognitive empathy with regard to participants’ affiliation to either a Western or an Eastern culture. With the increasing rate of immigration to more Westernized countries and the spread of global tendency toward ego-centric values, especially in commonly known collectivist societies, cross-cultural studies such as this one can contribute to understanding the underlying cultural and psychological factors leading to (dis)integrations of immigrants into host cultures. As immigrants enter a new country, many desire to be immersed in their new communities by adopting similar behaviors and cultural norms as the citizens of that country. Therefore, having prior knowledge about the cognitive and affective foundation of social interactions in the different culture can facilitate a successful integration process and help individuals selectively apply aspects of new culture into their own.