Is Empathy Linked to Prosocial and Antisocial Traits and Behavior? It Depends on the Form of Empathy

Empathy is a complex behavior that is related to a variety of different social outcomes. In particular, researchers have focused on empathy's significant links to prosocial and antisocial behavior. Recent research suggests that these links may not apply equally to emerging (and diverging) forms of empathy. The literature has distinguished affective (feeling what someone feels), cognitive (knowing what someone feels), and sympathetic (caring about what someone feels) forms of empathy. The present study examined how these three forms of empathy related to prosocial and antisocial personality traits and behavior in a sample of adolescents (a developmental period when pro-/antisocial traits tend to consolidate). We found that sympathetic empathy was uniquely positively associated with each of the three traits underlying altruism of the HEXACO model-Honesty-Humility, Emotionality, and Agreeableness and prosocial behavior, and uniquely negatively related with aggression and psychopathic traits. Affective empathy was uniquely positively associated only with Emotionality, whereas cognitive empathy was uniquely positively related to prosocial (but not antisocial) behavior. Our results support viewing empathy as a multifaceted construct with sympathetic empathy being the best predictor of prosocial and antisocial traits or behavior.