Do your political preferences predict how empathetic you are?

Picture by George Milton

Author: Julia Wildschut

Neuroscientists have found that the brains of people on the left side of the political spectrum display more empathy to other people’s suffering than the brains of political rightists. What does this say about how political ideology and empathy relate to one another?

Over the past few years, research efforts have been made to understand the psychological root of ideological values. In general, political leftists support social policies that aim for equality, for example providing free education and healthcare for every member of society. Leftists are also more inclined to protect minorities and discriminated communities. On the other hand, the rightist group value hierarchical social structures and desire unity within society and the preservation of social traditions.

Psychological studies have reported higher levels of empathy among leftists as compared to rightists. These studies all used self-reports, meaning that participants were asked to rate their own empathic reaction. The problem with such self-reports is that they are subjective and that people are inclined to respond according to social norms.

A neuropolitic approach to empathy

In reaction to this, the research field neuropolitics has emerged. Neuropolitics studies the interplay between neuroscience and politics by investigating how brain mechanisms are involved in complex political information processes such as decision-making. Researchers in the neuropolitics field argue that measuring activity in the brain is a more objective and precise tool than self-reports to answer questions in political psychology. How ideology relates to empathetic abilities is an example of such a question.

A paper published in the most recent Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience journal used a neuropolitic approach to investigate this question. The researchers aimed to test whether the difference in empathy between political leftists and rightists that has been found in self-reports is also present in brain activity. Researchers from Aalto University in Finland and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel collaborated to set up this study.

Brain imaging experiment

The researchers used a brain imaging technique to measure the brain response during empathy to other people’s emotional suffering. They recorded brain responses while participants performed a task in which short stories about people were narrated and followed by related pictures of them. These stories and pictures were either neutral or displayed emotional suffering. An example of a sentence for emotional suffering was “The woman just heard that there was a shooting in her son’s school”, while a neutral situation could be “This woman is ironing her clothes”.

Stronger empathy response in leftists

The researchers found that leftists’ brains display a stronger empathetic response to others’ suffering than the brains of rightists. The tempo-parietal junction is a part of the brain that is important for humans’ ability to “putting yourself in others’ shoes”, also called cognitive empathy. This brain area was more active during the empathizing task in leftists than in rightists. The researchers concluded that these results support earlier observations that political leftists respond more empathetically to others’ suffering than political rightists.

What does this say about left-right empathy differences?

However, this might not paint the full picture of the difference in empathy between leftists and rightists. Other researchers suggested that rightists empathize more with smaller and close social groups while leftists empathize with larger groups. This could explain why here the researchers found that leftists’ brains display stronger empathy responses in reaction to the emotional suffering of individuals unknown to them than rightists’ brains do. Thus, the nuanced conclusion may be that political leftists are more empathetic toward individuals unknown to them than political rightists.

It is important to note that this study only shows that there is an association between political ideology and empathy towards others’ emotional suffering. “Do your empathy traits influence your choice of political ideology or does your political ideology influence your empathy traits?” is a question that remains to be answered.