Empathy in the Workplace: Disentangling Affective from Cognitive Empathy

Abstract

AbstractEmpathy plays a crucial role in the workplace, associated with positive outcomes, including helping behavior and task performance. While most studies have treated empathy as a unidimensional and trait-like characteristic, empathy is best understood as a two-dimensional construct, encompassing stable and fluctuating aspects. Considering this conceptualization, our research explores the relationship between the two dimensions – affective and cognitive empathy – with well-being and prosocial behavior, both at the trait and state levels. We hypothesized that affective empathy is positively associated with fatigue, whereas cognitive empathy is positively related to provided support. Furthermore, we predicted that these relationships would be especially pronounced on days when employees witness conflicts in the workplace. Our results, drawn from two diary studies (Ns = 119 and 179), indicated that affective empathy was related to fatigue, and cognitive empathy was related to provided support on the trait level, supporting our hypotheses. However, the distinctions between the two empathy dimensions were less prominent at the state level, and these effects did not depend on observed conflicts. These findings suggest that affective and cognitive empathy have differential effects, emphasizing the need for balanced and beneficial utilization of empathy in both theoretical development and practical workplace contexts.