The Role of Empathy in Software Engineering -- A Socio-Technical Grounded Theory

2025-04-17

AI Summary

Empathy—the capacity to understand diverse stakeholders—has long been underexplored systematically in software engineering (SE), despite its critical role in requirements elicitation, collaboration, and trust-building. Method: Grounded in socio-technical grounded theory (STGT), this study conducts in-depth interviews with 22 software developers to construct the first empirically derived empathy framework tailored to SE contexts. Contribution/Results: The resulting theory identifies empathy-triggering situations, shaping conditions, enhancement pathways, and barrier-mitigation strategies. It empirically links empathy deficits to requirement misalignment, collaborative inefficiency, and trust erosion. Furthermore, the study proposes an actionable empathy integration model that offers evidence-based guidance for requirements engineering, agile practices, and cross-role collaboration. By structurally embedding human-centered competencies into SE processes, this work bridges a longstanding theoretical and practical gap in affective intelligence research within SE.

Technology Category

• Cognitive Modeling & Cognitive Systems: Affective Computing
• Humans and AI: Emotional Intelligence
• Application Domains: Software Engineering

Application Category

• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: Practical large-scale studies of user experience
• Social Networks and Social Media: Socio-technical web-based systems
• Search and Retrieval-Augmented AI: Web evaluation methodologies and metrics

Abstract

Empathy, defined as the ability to understand and share others' perspectives and emotions, is essential in software engineering (SE), where developers often collaborate with diverse stakeholders. It is also considered as a vital competency in many professional fields such as medicine, healthcare, nursing, animal science, education, marketing, and project management. Despite its importance, empathy remains under-researched in SE. To further explore this, we conducted a socio-technical grounded theory (STGT) study through in-depth semi-structured interviews with 22 software developers and stakeholders. Our study explored the role of empathy in SE and how SE activities and processes can be improved by considering empathy. Through applying the systematic steps of STGT data analysis and theory development, we developed a theory that explains the role of empathy in SE. Our theory details the contexts in which empathy arises, the conditions that shape it, the causes and consequences of its presence and absence. We also identified contingencies for enhancing empathy or overcoming barriers to its expression. Our findings provide practical implications for SE practitioners and researchers, offering a deeper understanding of how to effectively integrate empathy into SE processes.

Problem

• Exploring empathy's role in software engineering collaboration
• Investigating how empathy improves SE activities and processes
• Developing a theory on empathy's impact in SE contexts

Innovation

• Conducted socio-technical grounded theory study
• Explored empathy role via developer interviews
• Developed theory on empathy in SE