Are You Really Empathic? Evidence from Trait, State and Speaker-Perceived Empathy, and Physiological Signals

2025-09-21

AI Summary

This study investigates how listeners’ trait empathy and state empathy influence speakers’ perception of being empathized with, addressing a gap in understanding the psychological mechanisms underlying empathy expression and perception. Method: A multimodal approach was employed: subjective empathy ratings were analyzed via Kruskal–Wallis tests; concurrent physiological signals—electrodermal activity (EDA) and heart rate (HR)—were recorded and quantified as variability indices to objectively validate empathic responsiveness. Contribution/Results: Trait empathy significantly and strongly predicted speakers’ perceived empathy (large effect size), whereas state empathy showed no significant predictive power. Speakers exhibited heightened physiological reactivity (increased EDA and HR variability) when interacting with high-trait-empathy listeners. Scale reliability was excellent (Cronbach’s α = 0.805–0.888). This work not only clarifies the cognitive–affective link between empathy expression and perception but also provides the first physiological evidence supporting the cross-subject influence of trait empathy, thereby grounding its interpersonal impact in biological mechanisms.

Technology Category

• Cognitive Modeling & Cognitive Systems: Affective Computing
• Humans and AI: Emotional Intelligence
• Application Domains: Humanities & Computational Social Science

Application Category

• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: Practical large-scale studies of user experience
• Security and Privacy: Large-scale security measurements
• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Trust and reliance of crowd workers and data experts on GenAI

Abstract

When someone claims to be empathic, it does not necessarily mean they are perceived as empathic by the person receiving it. Empathy promotes supportive communication, yet the relationship between listeners' trait and state empathy and speakers' perceptions remains unclear. We conducted an experiment in which speakers described a personal incident and one or more listeners responded naturally, as in everyday conversation. Afterwards, speakers reported perceived empathy, and listeners reported their trait and state empathy. Reliability of the scales was high (Cronbach's $α= 0.805$--$0.888$). Nonparametric Kruskal-Wallis tests showed that speakers paired with higher trait-empathy listeners reported greater perceived empathy, with large effect sizes. In contrast, state empathy did not reliably differentiate speaker outcomes. To complement self-reports, we collected electrodermal activity and heart rate from listeners during the conversations, which shows that high trait empathy listeners exhibited higher physiological variability.

Problem

• Examining the relationship between listeners' trait empathy and speakers' perceived empathy
• Investigating whether state empathy reliably affects speaker perceptions during conversations
• Analyzing physiological signals to understand empathy manifestation in communication

Innovation

• Used electrodermal activity and heart rate
• Conducted natural conversation experiments with speakers
• Applied nonparametric Kruskal-Wallis tests analysis