Psychologists at the University of Michigan presented research on college students’ capacity to feel empathy over the past thirty years. It’s gotten significant amount of press coverage, e.g., for example, in the USA Today, and PhysOrg, just to name two. Ross Douhat has a good post on the subject at his New York Times blog. The Daily Camera (Boulder, CO) also covered the story, and the Camera’s editorial advisory board weighed in on the subject. Here’s my contribution, as printed in the June 5 edition:
Hold on. Before making broad statements about today’s college students and what erodes empathy, it’s important make sure there’s supporting evidence.
The study, summarized at Professor Sara Konrath’s website, focuses on how students answered surveys designed to measure factors associated with empathy. Over thirty years, scores on the two factors best associated with empathic behavior have declined.
Surveys are one way to measure empathy. But are survey results consistent with other methods, such as peer ratings, cleverly designed behavioral tests, and measures of mirror neuron activity? Outside the lab, students volunteer for or donate to charitable causes. Has this decreased over the years?
For sake of argument, say the various methods tell the same story, that today’s students are less empathic. Many factors can be involved. These may include trends in parenting styles, prevalence of single-parent households, and how many siblings the students have. The students’ majors may also be a factor. To stereotype myself, what if recent empathy studies attracted mostly physicists and engineers? If these are relevant factors, have they changed among students surveyed over the past thirty years?
Yes, time spent on-line or playing violent video games are reasonable suspects. Surely the surveys can gather such information about the students, if don’t already. Are these and other factors correlated with how the students scored empathy-wise?
But don’t forget, correlation does not mean causation. A student’s capacity for empathy may predict whether he buys Guitar Hero or Grand Theft Auto.
Thanks to my wife, a psychologist, for her insights and for pointing out an flawed argument in an early draft.
Regarding college students’ rates of volunteering over the past 30 years, I realize that this probably is not a measure of empathy, as psychologists use the term these days. After all, people can volunteer for causes for many reasons. Still, such trends would be interesting to know in light of such research
