By Gillian Vogl
Empathy is viewed to be an important quality for good human relationships. It is also seen to be essential for carrying out good qualitative research. As researchers, we need empathy to build a rapport/connection with our research participants.
In this blog I unpack what is meant by empathy and provide reasons why I think it is important to think critically about empathy to achieve ‘good’ and ethical research outcomes.
So, what is empathy? Empathy is in fact a very multi-layered and complex concept.
Psychologists Decety and Cowell (2014)suggest that there are three distinct strands of empathy.
- Affective empathy: attainment of another’s emotional state.
- Empathic concern: Being motivated to increase the wellbeing of another who is perceived to be in distress.
- Cognitive empathy/perspective taking: the ability to ‘put yourself in another’s shoes’ and understand what they may be thinking and feeling.
Limitations and problems with empathy
While empathy is important, it can also be problematic for the following reasons:
- We tend to connect and view people who are like ‘us’ more favourably. This may create biased research findings.
- We can never totally ‘put ourselves in another’s shoes’ as we are not that person. Therefore, we need to be aware of any differences in power and conditions between ourselves and our participants.
- In research, empathy is often about building a connection to collect others’ stories and can serve the interests of the researcher rather than the participants.
- Leake (2019) refers to “egoistic drift.” This is where researchers may become so immersed in their own emotional response to what their participants have experienced that their empathy becomes more about themselves than the participant.
- Elise Aaltola (2013) notes that while psychopaths may not be able to experience affective empathy, they are skilled at perspective taking and may use this understanding of another’s perspective for to their own advantage.
Kulbaga (2008) suggests that when thinking about empathy, it is vital to ask the question, “Empathy to what end?”
As researchers we need to ask ourselves, who gains what from the research? We cannot just assume that empathy is a positive skill/emotion. Empathy needs to be placed within an ethical and contextual framework.
Critical Empathy
Researchers need to develop critical empathy to carry out good ethical research. This involves pairing empathy with critical self-reflection. It requires:
- Recognising any power differences between ourselves and the participant and ensuring the research is being used to give the participant a voice.
- Working alongside participants in a way that empowers them to genuinely be the co-creators/evaluators of the products, programs and services that impact on them.
- Being aware of any biases that we may have toward certain groups.
- Recognising that empathy is never complete and that we may make incorrect assumptions. We therefore need to ensure that two researchers are involved in any analysis to validate/invalidate those assumptions.
Empathy is essential for connecting with other humans and for developing a rapport in research interviews. However, without critical self-reflection, empathy can be limited and problematic.
References
Aaltola, E (2014) Affective empathy as core moral agency: psychopathy, autism and reason revisited, Philosophical Explorations, 17:1, 76-92, DOI: 10.1080/13869795.2013.825004
Decety J, Cowell JM (2014) The complex relation between morality and empathy. Trends Cogn Sci. 2014 Jul;18(7):337-9. doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2014.04.008. PMID: 24972506
Kulbaga, T. A. (2008). Pleasurable Pedagogies: “Reading Lolita in Tehran” and the Rhetoric of Empathy. College English, 70(5), 506–521. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25472286
Leake, Eric (2019). Empathy as Research Methodology. In Pranee Liamputtong (ed.), Handbook of Research Methods in Health Social Sciences. Springer Singapore. pp. 237-252