Overview

• The study, conducted by Dr. Hajdi Moche and her team at Linköping University, tested empathy preferences using a card-based Empathy Selection Task with 296 participants.
• Participants chose to empathize 53% of the time with group images, compared to 34% with individual images, despite both being rated as equally effortful and distressing.
• Researchers suggest that group images provide richer contextual information, which may make empathizing with groups feel more achievable or rewarding.
• Empathy was defined as understanding, feeling, and sharing another’s internal experiences, while recognizing their distinctness from one’s own perspective.
• The findings could inform future studies on empathy in large-scale social contexts, such as responses to natural disasters or conflicts.