Hearing and Understanding the Other Side – Experimental Evidence on the Role of Empathy in Citizen Deliberation

The paper examines the role of empathy in an experiment on citizen deliberation. The participants were randomly assigned to like-minded, mixed and control groups. Only subjects in the first two took part in the deliberation event. The topic of the study was immigration. We measured willingness to participate in deliberation, general empathy and specific out-group empathy toward immigrants. The analyses show that general empathy was not connected with attrition, whereas low levels of out-group empathy decreased willingness to take part among con enclave respondents. General empathy did not change during the experiment. Overall, pro-immigration respondents showed more out-group empathy than con respondents. However, there was an increase in out-group empathy among the con participants. The connection between empathy and altruism was measured by willingness to donate money to a domestic or international cause. Participants in the con like-minded groups donated less than participants in the pro like-minded groups.