Empathy as a Cultural Process: A Critical Analysis of the Phenomenon of Empathy Through Socio-Cultural Psychology

Brief History of Empathy ¹

Vygotsky famously argued that psychology is in crisis: it lacks a common object, method, and unit of analysis, while theory and practice drift apart (Vygotsky, 1997). These fault lines are stark in debates on empathy. The slogan “put yourself in another’s shoes” captures an everyday intuition but not a scientific explanation. Empathy, as a psychological object, has been pulled apart by competing assumptions about what is primary, elements or wholes, natural-scientific measurement or interpretive understanding, and by the neglect of historical and cultural mediation. The present paper reads the history of empathy through this crisis lens: not as a tidy accumulation of findings, but as a sequence of conceptual re-definitions steered by shifting theoretical commitments and practical aims.

The genealogy of empathy begins with the ancient Greek ἐμπάθεια (“passion”), with modern roots in early 20th-century Germany, where art psychologist Theodor Lipps introduced Einfühlung (“feeling-into”) to describe projecting one’s feelings into artistic forms. American psychologists later adopted the Greek word empathy for experimental use, exploring mental imagery associated with bodily movements, while European art psychologists continued to study artistic immersion. By the 1920s, empathy entered clinical psychology, where understanding another’s psychological state became a key diagnostic tool, especially in diagnosing schizophrenia (Lanzoni, 2018). Reik observed that “the word empathy sometimes means one thing, sometimes another, and now means nothing” (Reik, 1948; as cited in Lanzoni, 2018), highlighting the lack of consensus on a precise definition. Today, empathy covers nearly ten different phenomena (Batson, 2009), with over 40 definitions in psychological literature (Cuff et al., 2016). Although it’s widely popular in public discourse, what empathy means remains elusive.

Originally, empathy was viewed as a kind of automatic feeling-transference (especially in early 20th-century psychology and aesthetics). People thought of empathy as projecting one’s own feelings into another person or object – essentially, “feeling with” others or things without much conscious control (Lanzoni, 2018). For example, early empathy theorists described merging with another’s experience or with art through inner imitation. Over time, especially by the mid-20th century, practitioners in psychiatry, social work, and psychotherapy found this notion too simplistic and potentially problematic. One reason for change was concern about accuracy and control: simply projecting your feelings could lead to errors. There was a growing realization that empathy needed to involve actively understanding the other person’s actual emotions, not just feeling one’s own emotions. This led to a shift from passive emotional contagion to a more deliberate process of perspective-taking and emotional insight (Lanzoni, 2018).

Empathy became crucial in therapeutic and caregiving fields, which required a more controlled and conscious form of empathy. Psychologists like Jessie Taft and Carl Rogers in the 1940s–1950s reframed empathy as a skill of “controlled identification” – the therapist actively imagines the client’s perspective and feelings, while maintaining self-awareness. This approach treats empathy as flexible and trainable rather than an automatic impulse. The shift was motivated by the need to avoid projection and to truly understand the client’s emotional state with accuracy. As Lanzoni (2018) notes in her historical analysis, “empathy was no longer conceptualized as transferring one’s feelings into another, but instead required flexibility and control”. Emotions explicitly entered the picture here – empathy came to mean properly grasping the other’s emotions, with the therapist using their own emotional attunement as a “conduit to others”.

After World War II, empathy gained prominence as a positive social value, which further solidified the idea of empathy as understanding others’ emotions to promote peace and mutual respect. There was a desire for better social connection and harmony in a world scarred by conflict, and empathy was seen to achieve that. Psychologists like Gordon Allport and Kenneth B. Clark advocated empathy training (e.g., role-playing exercises) to reduce prejudice, highlighting emotional understanding as key to overcoming racial and cultural divides. This context explains why empathy’s definition shifted: it needed to encompass an active emotional understanding that could be taught and applied for social good (Lanzoni, 2018).

If history explains the appeal of empathy, it also clarifies the contemporary impasse. Reviews document a proliferation rather than a convergence of definitions: “empathy” covers feeling as the other, feeling for the other (sympathy, compassion), imagining how the other feels (perspective-taking), imagining how I would feel in the other’s place (decentration), vicarious distress, motor mimicry, and even neural resonance (Batson, 2009; Cuff et al., 2016). One label, many constructs. The result is an expanding family resemblance without an articulated ontology. Operational definitions often follow instruments rather than leading them: measures are introduced post hoc to capture whatever aspect a study foregrounds, creating islands of data difficult to integrate. Similarly, Hoffman (2000) noted two decades ago that “the more we study empathy, the more complex it becomes.” And also Cuff: “there seem to be as many definitions of empathy as there are authors who study it” (Cuff et al., 2016).

Mainstream reviews of empathy (e.g., Batson, 2009; Cuff et al., 2016) reveal not cumulative clarity but a proliferation of post-hoc operationalizations that fit instruments more than they illuminate the phenomenon. Following Teo’s critique, this pattern reflects methodologism: method is treated as neutral and decisive while ontological, historical, and cultural questions are bracketed. Apparent universality is achieved by ignoring situated meaning; whatever can be variabilized and counted is reified as the phenomenon itself (Teo, 2018). Crucially, it also effaces the subject: the researching subject and the subjectivity of participants are removed from epistemic reflection, as if knowledge were produced without a knower; paradoxically, a discipline centered on mental life often excludes subjectivity through methodological strategies (including deception), thereby erasing reflexivity and the socio-historical constitution of the subject. First, subjectivity is erased twice over: the researcher’s position is rendered methodologically irrelevant, and participants’ meanings are reduced to item responses detached from contexts of use. Second, culture is relegated to a nuisance variable or a sampling stratum, rather than theorized as the medium through which empathic activity is constituted, signaled, and evaluated.

The goal of this paper is to attempt to define empathy through the conceptual framework of socio-cultural psychology and to present empathy as a semiotic activity as it advances a socio-cultural account of empathy. I offer a critical examination of mainstream (psychometric and cross-cultural) approaches and argue that they are ill-suited to the phenomenon’s contextual, historical, and semiotic specificity. Therefore, aims of the paper are: (1) To mount a methodological and conceptual critique of mainstream psychology’s treatment of empathy (methodologism, reification, and decontextualization); (2) To reconceptualize empathy as a socio-cultural, context-sensitive practice embedded in local norms, symbols, and roles; (3) To provide an analytic review of the literature across mainstream psychology and cultural-historical theory in support of this reframing. To motivate this reconceptualization, I first delineate what I term mainstream psychology on empathy, before turning to the socio-cultural framework.

Neoliberalism and Empathy

In contemporary neoliberal societies, where the focus is on market values, autonomy, and self-directed success, narratives of narcissism as a characteristic trait of people living in this system often emerge (Urošević, 2023). Narcissism, as an excessive focus on one’s own needs and desires, can act as the opposite of empathy, suppressing an individual’s ability to recognize and respond to others’ needs. However, a socio-cultural perspective suggests that neoliberal narratives transform empathy rather than simply suppressing it, aligning empathic tendencies with prevailing cultural values. If we understand empathy as a socially and culturally mediated function, as Vygotsky proposed (Vygotsky, 1987), then dominant social narratives about success, power, and individualism directly influence how people develop and express empathy. Certain forms of empathic response are favored while others are marginalized in line with prevailing power relations (Foucault, 1977).

Neoliberalism, with its ideology of individual success, can mediate the creation of a specific kind of empathy - an “instrumentalized” empathy often directed at those with whom there is direct benefit or shared interest. This means that empathy can be selective, directed toward those with whom the individual can identify based on similar goals or values. In this sense, empathy becomes shaped by narcissistic structures where others are seen as means to achieve personal goals, rather than as equal partners in social relations (Elliott & Lemert, 2006; Lasch, 1979). For example, empathy may be directed toward people who share similar ambitions or are within the same socioeconomic class, while compassion for marginalized or less privileged groups may be diminished or even absent. The dominant narratives about narcissism in neoliberalism create empathy that is conditioned to be useful or relevant (in other words, rational!) within specific social and economic relations. For instance, empathy toward colleagues in the workplace may be greater due to shared interests and direct interaction, while compassion for socially distant groups, such as the homeless or low-income people, may be perceived as less important because it does not directly impact individual progress or success (Brown, 2015). Olson (2013) argues that capitalism and neoliberalism do not completely suppress empathy but transform it, shaping it to align with narratives of individual success and market values. According to him, the brain is biologically capable of empathy, but social and cultural conditions, such as those in capitalism, suppress its broader application, limiting empathy to pragmatic and narrowly defined social relationships. With that in mind, we will slowly build our argument towards socio-cultural psychology as a better framework for understanding empathy.

Empathy and Psychometrics

Simon Baron-Cohen (2011) defines empathy as the ability to recognize another person’s thoughts and feelings and to respond to them with appropriate emotion. He adds that empathy arises when our attention shifts from a one-way focus on self to a two-way focus that includes the other’s mind. Another definition describes empathy as a complex cognitive–affective phenomenon of experiencing and understanding another person’s conscious and unconscious states, grounded in the ability to comprehend the other’s experiences (Vukosavljević-Gvozden, 2002).

Cuff et al. (2016) offer a broad definition, describing empathy as an emotional response that arises from the interaction of one’s trait capacities with situational factors. They emphasize that empathic responses include an automatic, involuntary component but are also shaped by top-down control processes. In other words, the feeling elicited in the observer is similar to what the other person is perceived to feel, while the observer still recognizes that this emotion is not their own.

Despite differences in emphasis, these definitions all distinguish between two core facets of empathy: affective and cognitive. Affective empathy is essentially “feeling into” someone else’s emotions – feeling what another person feels. Cognitive empathy is understanding another’s state and adopting their perspective (Decety & Jackson, 2004). In reality, these two facets often co-occur and can be difficult to separate, since empathic responses typically engage both at once. Consistent with this, affective and cognitive empathy tend to be moderately correlated in practice (Dimitrijević et al., 2012; Gojković et al., 2022). They also relate differently to other psychological constructs: for example, individuals with autism spectrum disorders often show deficits primarily in cognitive empathy, whereas those with antisocial personality disorder have impairments mainly in affective empathy (Dziobek et al., 2008; Smith, 2006).

Crucially, all of these definitions assume the capacity for theory of mind as a foundation for empathy. Baron-Cohen’s notion of attention becoming “bilaterally directed” explicitly involves considering another person’s mind. Likewise, understanding others’ experiences or recognizing an emotion as originating in the other person (as highlighted by Vukosavljević-Gvozden and by Cuff et al.) requires acknowledging the other as an intentional being with their own mind. In short, empathy inherently relies on recognizing that other people have minds of their own.

In summary, while aforementioned theories provide insights – from differentiating empathy’s sub-processes to highlighting its cognitive and affective elements – none fully captures the influence of socio-cultural context. This recognition reveals a clear gap in the literature. To address this gap, the present work undertakes a critical analysis of empathy through a socio-cultural lens, examining how cultural norms and social environments shape empathic processes and what this means for our theoretical understanding and practical recommendations.

Methods of Empathy Research in Mainstream Psychology

The terminological and conceptual confusion surrounding empathy is reflected in the variety of psychometric instruments created to measure it. Over 20 different empathy scales have been documented (Neumann et al., 2015), including tools tailored to specific groups (for example, separate empathy measures for teachers, for healthcare workers, and even for children). Apart from self-report questionnaires, researchers have also employed experimental tasks and neuropsychological measures to study empathy, though those fall outside our current scope.

Meta-analyses of empathy assessments highlight significant issues with their validity. Reviews of various instruments (Lima & Osório, 2021; Neumann et al., 2015; Vachon et al., 2014) find little agreement among different empathy scales. While most instruments show acceptable reliability, their structural validity is weak and different questionnaires often diverge in what they actually measure. The average correlation between scores on distinct empathy measures barely exceeds 0.3–0.4, indicating that ostensibly similar tests may not be capturing the same construct. As one review noted, a lack of solid theoretical models to ground the empathy construct likely contributes to the poor convergence among instruments (Lima & Osório, 2021).

Each major empathy test tends to presuppose—and then reinforce—a particular notion of empathy, rather than neutrally capturing a pre-existing entity. Over the years, researchers have proliferated empathy sub-dimensions almost by fiat: perspective-taking, emotion recognition, affective contagion, empathic concern, personal distress, compassion, and so on. The now-standard split between “affective” and “cognitive” empathy was cemented by Davis’s Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI; Davis, 1983), which built its subscales around that dichotomy. Subsequent questionnaires often adopted this binary framework as a given, even though its origin was somewhat ad hoc. For example, the Empathy Quotient (EQ; Baron-Cohen & Wheelwright, 2004) conceives of empathy largely as a trait-like cognitive capacity and measures it via self-report items. The IRI explicitly breaks empathy into multiple components (each measured by a subscale). In contrast, the Basic Empathy Scale (BES; Jolliffe & Farrington, 2006) and the Questionnaire of Cognitive and Affective Empathy (QCAE; Reniers et al., 2011) define “affective empathy” more narrowly by excluding compassion or concern, focusing instead on direct emotional contagion.

This exclusion reflects a deeper theoretical divide. Some scholars insist that an observer’s emotion only counts as empathy if it directly mirrors the other person’s emotion (Bird & Viding, 2014; Decety & Michalska, 2010). Others argue that non-identical but contextually appropriate emotional responses—such as feeling sympathetic concern for someone who is sad—should also qualify as empathy (Baron-Cohen & Wheelwright, 2004). The broader view is embodied by measures like the IRI (Davis, 1983), EQ (Baron-Cohen & Wheelwright, 2004), and ACME (Vachon & Lynam, 2016), which include compassion as part of empathic responding. The key point is that different instruments (and theories) implicitly set their own criteria for what constitutes an “appropriate” empathic response.

Not surprisingly, given these divergent definitions, empathy scales do not correlate highly with one another. Validity evidence tends to cluster around each test’s own conceptual framework rather than converging on a single universal construct. This fragmentation underscores the problem of methodologism in empathy research: investigators frequently assume their chosen definition (and instrument) is universally applicable, proceeding as if empathy were an invariant trait across all contexts. Questionnaires are often simply translated for use in other cultures under the assumption that they measure the same phenomenon, with little regard for conceptual non-equivalence. A socio-cultural approach, in contrast, urges us to question these assumptions and develop methods that account for social and cultural context in empathic processes, rather than relying on one-size-fits-all measures devised in Western settings.

Cross-Cultural Studies of Empathy

Many cross-cultural studies simply administer standard empathy questionnaires (like the IRI or EQ) in different countries and compare the results. Typically, empathy is treated as a general psychological trait, and researchers report differences in average scores between nations. However, such comparisons can be misleading: they may conflate an underlying capacity for empathy with each culture’s particular “scripts” for expressing concern, and they often assume that the measurement scales work the same way across all groups. Below, we summarize some reported cultural differences in empathy and explain why these findings must be interpreted with caution.

One significant dimension of these studies concerns differences in empathy expression between individualistic and collectivist cultures. In individualistic societies, such as Western countries, empathy is often viewed through the lens of individual emotional expression and understanding of others’ feelings on a personal level. In contrast, in collectivist cultures, such as those in Asia, empathy focuses more on social harmony and adjusting to the feelings of the group, where emotional reactions are often not directly expressed but are part of the implicit understanding of relationships among people (Jami et al., 2024). Studies have also shown that nonverbal expressions of empathy vary across cultures. For instance, gestures like smiles or open body posture may be universally recognized as empathic, but other signals, like eye contact or touch, can have different meanings depending on the cultural context. In Western cultures, eye contact is often considered a sign of attention and empathy, while in some Asian cultures, it can be perceived as impoliteness or aggression (Eichbaum et al., 2023). Additionally, cross-cultural studies have revealed that empathy can develop differently in people exposed to different cultural norms. For example, studies in China and Russia show that cognitive empathy may be more developed in certain cultural contexts, while affective empathy may play a greater role in others. These findings suggest that culture shapes not only the expression of empathy but also the way individuals emotionally react and understand others (Kornilova & Zhou, 2021).

Beyond such broad frames, indigenous lexicons clarify what “doing empathy” entails locally. In Japanese, omoiyari names cultivated, anticipatory sensitivity to others that preserves social harmony; amae denotes expected, even desired, dependence within close ties. In Chinese guanxi practice, ganqing (affective bond) and renqing (reciprocal obligation) specify how emotional ties and moral exchange shape appropriate other-orientation. In Korean, jeong captures deep, enduring relational connectedness accruing through shared practice. Together, these terms indicate a value orientation in which empathic conduct is role-bound and harmony-preserving rather than a free-standing intrapsychic trait (Chung & Cho, 2006; Doi, 1971Doi; Hara, 2006).

Comparing empathy across cultures also raises the issue of measurement equivalence. Often, an empathy scale’s assumed structure (for example, the IRI’s four factors) does not fit other cultural samples well, and full measurement invariance is rarely achieved (Grevenstein et al., 2020; Lucas-Molina et al., 2017). Without ensuring at least partial metric invariance, differences in mean empathy scores are hard to interpret — they could reflect an artifact of the instrument rather than a true difference in empathy. Furthermore, people in different cultures may use rating scales differently. Response biases such as modesty (avoiding extreme ratings) or acquiescence can systematically vary between cultural groups (Heine et al., 2002), complicating direct comparisons. For instance, members of a culture that prizes humility might consistently underrate their empathic tendencies on a questionnaire, whereas those from a more self-expressive culture might give higher ratings, regardless of actual empathy.

Another concern is cultural bias in what is being measured. If a questionnaire defines empathy in terms of behaviors valued in Western settings (for example, making eye contact or verbally acknowledging another’s feelings), it may mischaracterize people from cultures where empathy is shown in more restrained ways as being “low empathy.” To avoid such biases, cross-cultural psychologists emphasize testing for measurement bias and equivalence and incorporating culturally relevant indicators of constructs (He & van de Vijver, 2012). Empathy researchers are encouraged to adopt these practices. For instance, by routinely conducting invariance analyses, using a mix of universal and culture-specific items, and pretesting for interpretive differences to ensure they are truly capturing empathy in each cultural context.

As currently practiced, many cross-cultural comparisons of “empathy” are interpretively fragile: they often treat country means on translated self-reports as trait differences while ignoring construct non-equivalence (meaning drift, partial invariance), response-style artifacts (reference-group, modesty/extremity), and imposed-etic item content that codes local restraint as deficiency. Read this way, results mostly map norms of appropriateness - when, to whom, and how one ought to respond, rather than a culture-free capacity. Without an explicit theoretical framework and cultural sensitivity to emic meanings, such findings are easy to overread and hard to generalize. For that reason, the next section adopts a socio-cultural approach, which treats empathy as a learned, culturally mediated practice acquired through guided participation and internalization of semiotic cues, providing stronger conceptual and methodological grounds for interpreting differences as scripts and moral orders, not as global ability gaps.

In summary, many cross-cultural comparisons of empathy are interpretively fragile. They often treat survey-score gaps as differences in empathy itself, while neglecting definition, measurement equivalence, and culturally patterned response styles. In effect, such studies frequently index local ethics of care, the normative rules about when, how, and toward whom one ought to display concern, rather than a uniform, innate capacity. These ethics are not neutral: they are produced and policed within power/knowledge regimes, classed and gendered hierarchies, and institutional governmentalities that define “appropriate” feeling and its display. What registers as “low empathy” may reflect a moral economy of restraint, symbolic boundaries around status and intimacy, or a habitus that codes tact, deference, and role-appropriate distance as virtue. Conversely, Western-liberal expressivity can be imposed etic, elevated to a universal standard that enacts symbolic violence by pathologizing other moral grammars. Without an emic account, thick description of local meanings, obligations, and scripts of other-orientation, findings are easy to overread and hard to generalize. This is why we turn to a socio-cultural approach. Rather than a fixed trait one simply has more or less of, empathy is a learned, culturally mediated practice embedded in moral orders, regimes of value, and relations of power. From this view, between-group variation is best understood as differing social scripts, obligations, and authority structures, not deficits or surpluses relative to a single universal ideal.

Theoretical Framework of Socio-Cultural Psychology

At its core, socio-cultural psychology examines how individual minds are shaped by interaction with others and by the cultural tools, symbols, and norms of their community (Valsiner, 2007). This tradition originates with Lev Vygotsky, who argued that human psychological development cannot be isolated from its social and historical context (Vygotsky, 1997). Vygotsky’s general law of development states that every higher mental function appears twice: first between people as an interpsychological process, and then within the person as an intrapsychological process (Vygotsky, 1972, p. 41). In practical terms, complex abilities like reasoning, self-regulation, or empathy are first learned through social interaction – e.g. through dialogues, shared activities, or guidance – and only later internalized as individual capabilities.

Building on Vygotsky’s legacy, later theorists expanded the socio-cultural framework. Jaan Valsiner emphasizes how individuals are not passive recipients of culture but active participants in creating and transforming meanings – his theory of cultural development highlights a dynamic process: people internalize cultural symbols and practices, yet also modify and reinterpret them based on personal experience (Valsiner, 2007). He introduced concepts like the boundary between personal and cultural – the idea that while we are shaped by social norms, we also act creatively to produce new cultural patterns (aligning with earlier Marxist activity theory perspectives; Popović, 2002). Valsiner underscores processuality, meaning there is constant change in the interaction between individual and culture, rather than a one-way absorption of culture by the individual (Valsiner, 2001). This view will be important when we consider how empathy norms can change and differ across communities.

Another key contributor, Barbara Rogoff, focuses on learning as a communal process. Rogoff’s research on learning through participation shows that children (and adults) develop skills and understanding by actively engaging in the activities of their community, not in isolation (Rogoff, 1990). She introduced the concept of guided participation, where more experienced members (parents, elders, mentors) guide novices by collaborating on tasks or routines. Through such guided involvement, individuals pick up not only practical skills but also the values and social cues of their culture (Rogoff, 2003). This perspective broadens our view of learning and development: children learn by observing and helping in real-life tasks rather than through formal instruction, yet they are highly adept at absorbing social-emotional norms. Rogoff’s work reminds us that what counts as “proper” empathy (how we show care or concern) may be taught informally as children participate in everyday social life.

In summary, socio-cultural psychology provides a framework where mind and culture are inextricably linked. Rather than treating psychological phenomena as purely inside the head, it sees them as emerging from interaction – people use cultural tools (like language, symbols, shared activities) to mediate their thinking and feeling (Cole, 1996). With theorists like Vygotsky, Valsiner, and Rogoff, we have a foundation to explore empathy not as a fixed trait, but as a capacity that is developed and expressed within specific social contexts and cultural traditions.

Empathy as a Higher Mental Function

Viewing empathy through Vygotsky’s principle of development offers fresh insight into how empathy originates and grows. According to Vygotsky, for any complex ability to become part of a person’s mental repertoire, it must first exist between people. Empathy, fundamentally, has a communicative and interactive function – it is something that happens in the space between individuals – it is a dialogical function (Main & Kho, 2020). A child cannot learn to empathize in a vacuum; it emerges in the context of dialogue and shared emotional experiences with others. For example, when a parent responds to a baby’s cries with comfort, a rudimentary empathetic interaction occurs. Over time, the child learns what responses from others mean and begins to mirror them. In Vygotskian terms, empathy starts as an interpsychological phenomenon (between people) and later becomes an intrapsychological one (within the child) (Vygotsky, 1972). We only become capable of understanding others’ feelings because we experience caring or emotional attunement from others first.

It’s important to note that a Vygotsky’s approach does not deny biological or evolutionary bases for empathy; rather, it integrates them into a larger social development process. Researchers have observed precursors of empathetic behavior in animals, suggesting an evolutionary root for basic empathy or altruism (de Waal, 1996). For instance, primate mothers will comfort distressed offspring, elephants may form protective circles around vulnerable members, and animals often help kin even at personal risk – these behaviors hint at an innate capacity for attuning to others’ states. Human infants, too, show early social responsiveness: newborns are drawn to faces and voices, and they will reflexively cry when other babies cry, suggesting a primitive form of emotional contagion. Studies have shown that infants imitate facial expressions (sticking out tongue, smiling) and follow the gaze of adults from the first months of life (Meltzoff & Moore, 1977). By about 8–12 months, infants engage in joint attention and social referencing – checking a caregiver’s emotional reaction to understand an ambiguous situation (Trevarthen, 1979). These early behaviors indicate that children are born with an innate social orientation that sets the stage for empathy.

However, empathy as a mature capability – understanding not just that someone is upset, but why they feel that way and how best to respond – requires cultural learning. As Vygotsky (1972) would argue, the child’s initial empathic responses (like distress when others are distressed) are gradually transformed through guided experience. Caregivers don’t treat infants as passive organisms; they engage them as if the child is an intentional being, which creates a dialogue long before the child has language. For example, a parent might say, “Oh, you’re sad because your toy broke,” effectively labeling the child’s internal state and modeling a caring reaction. Through countless episodes of such interaction, children learn the cultural symbols of empathy: they pick up on what situations call for concern, how to express care appropriately (e.g. with words, tone or a comforting gesture), and who the community expects them to be empathetic toward (perhaps family, friends, even pets). In short, the social environment “teaches” empathy by enacting it with the child. Over time, the child internalizes these patterns – the external dialogue becomes an inner capacity to perspective-take and to feel concern for others.

By conceptualizing empathy as a higher mental function, we recognize it is built through social cooperation and communication, much like skills of reasoning or language. This socio-genetic view expands empathy beyond a personal trait: it’s not just in the child, but between the child and others from the very beginning. It also implies that empathy can be cultivated (or hindered) by cultural practices. Different societies might encourage empathic responses to different beings or in different ways – for instance, one culture might emphasize empathy toward elders and respect for their feelings, while another highlights empathy with peers and equality. Understanding empathy in this way underscores that to truly “have empathy” is to participate in a community’s way of caring. Empathy develops from a rudimentary social reflex into a nuanced personal ethos through the guidance of those around us and the values they impart.

Cultural Mediation of Emotions and the Internalization Process

A central idea in socio-cultural psychology is that culture mediates our psychological functions – and emotions are no exception. Although emotions have biological underpinnings, the ways we recognize, express, and manage emotions are profoundly shaped by cultural context. As Vygotsky pointed out, we should not separate intellect and affect; thinking and feeling are intertwined in every human experience (Vygotsky, 1987). In his early work (e.g. The Psychology of Art), Vygotsky explored how emotions are elicited and expressed through cultural products like art and literature (Vygotsky, 1972, as cited in González Rey, 2011). He argued that every feeling is “embodied” in ideas and expressions – implying that our emotional life is given form and meaning through cultural artifacts and interactions. Modern cultural psychologists have built on this, rejecting the notion that we have a set of “hardwired” emotions that operate independent of context. Instead, they view emotions as socially constructed and interpreted experiences.

To understand how empathy becomes part of a person’s repertoire, we can look at the work of Manfred Holodynski (2013), who explicitly applied Vygotsky’s cultural-historical approach to emotional development in children. Holodynski’s model provides a useful template for how external social processes become internal emotional functions. He draws on three key Vygotskian principles in analyzing emotion development: development, mediation, and internalization.

Principle of Development: Emotions (and by extension empathic responses) originate through social interaction. In infancy, emotions serve an interpersonal regulatory function. For example, a baby’s crying elicits care from adults – at first, this is simply a reflexive signal with physiological roots, but it quickly becomes a social tool. The infant learns that certain emotional expressions (like crying, smiling) reliably bring about responses from others. According to Vygotsky’s principle, these early socially guided emotional exchanges are the foundation upon which higher emotional understanding is built. The caregivers’ consistent responses help the child start to organize their feelings (e.g. “If I’m upset, someone will help me; if others look sad, maybe something is wrong”). Thus emotional life begins between people, as a series of exchanges and co-regulations.

Principle of Mediation: Cultural symbols and norms provide the tools that shape emotional development. Holodynski emphasizes the role of sign systems – socially constructed expressions like facial expressions, gestures, words, and rituals – in giving form to what we feel. From very early on, children are in a semiosphere (Valsiner, 2007), a rich symbolic environment where they see smiles, hear soothing tones, observe rituals of comfort or sympathy, etc. These emotional “signs” carry meaning; a smile signifies joy or approval, a gentle touch signifies reassurance, tears often signify distress. Each culture has its own emotion language – not only spoken language (how we label feelings, like “sad” or “proud”) but also rules about display (when it’s appropriate to cry, how to show sympathy). Children learn these mediated meanings through interaction. For instance, a child might learn that saying “sorry” and giving a hug is how to show empathy when a playmate is hurt. Such norms and symbols mediate the child’s understanding of what empathy looks and feels like. Without cultural mediation, emotions would remain raw and unrefined; with mediation, they become intelligible and communicative. This is why a gesture as simple as a thumbs-up or a pat on the back can reassure someone – those signs are loaded with shared meaning.

Principle of Internalization: Over time, and with repeated social experiences, children internalize these external forms of emotional regulation, transforming them into tools for self-regulation. Holodynski describes how a child moves from interpersonal emotion regulation (relying on others to help manage feelings) to intrapersonal regulation (managing feelings on their own). For example, a toddler initially might need a parent’s comforting words to calm down after falling. But gradually, the child learns to use internal speech or recall (“It’s okay, I’ll be fine” or remembering that “Mom said it’s okay”) to comfort themselves, even when the parent isn’t present. What was once a dialog between two people becomes an inner dialogue. In terms of empathy, a young child might first need an adult to prompt them to empathize (“Look, your friend is crying, how do you think he feels? Maybe give him his toy back”). Later, having internalized the idea of considering others’ feelings, the older child will on their own recognize someone’s distress and feel compelled to help. This is empathy becoming an intrapsychological function – the person can generate an empathic response without any external cue because they have internalized the value and process of caring about others’ emotions.

Holodynski’s cultural-historical analysis shows that even something as personal as our emotional life is co-constructed with others and shaped by cultural meaning. Emotions start as socially communicated signals and end up as internal experiences imbued with those same meanings. In short, we learn how to feel. Empathy, seen through this lens, is not an automatic reflex we are born with, but a skill and disposition cultivated through social practice. Children learn when to be empathic, how to express empathy, and whom to empathize with based on what their culture teaches them. For instance, some cultures may encourage children to openly console peers in pain, while others might teach reserving emotional expression for close family. These learned norms become part of the child’s own repertoire of emotional responses.

Crucially, this means empathic behavior is always tied to a specific social context. Empathy is situated within particular moral orders, not a context-free trait. What one community considers a proper empathetic response might differ in another community. For example, in certain collectivist cultures, empathy might involve sensitivity to social harmony and adjusting one’s behavior to not upset others, whereas in some individualist cultures, empathy might focus on acknowledging individual feelings and personal validation. There is no single universal script for empathy; there are many culturally patterned empathies. Yet, underlying all is the common process: we grow into these patterns through guided participation in social life.

Mainstream Perspective on Empathy

In mainstream psychology, empathy is typically conceived as an innate capacity or trait (though not necessarily only a trait) that manifests in social interaction, allowing one person (the empathizer) to respond appropriately to another (the person being empathized with). It is viewed as a universal human characteristic that everyone possesses to some degree (Cuff et al., 2016). Moreover, individuals vary in their level of empathy, and these differences are often attributed to genetic and biological factors. Whether an empathic reaction is actually expressed in a given situation depends both on the person’s disposition and on situational factors. For instance, Baron-Cohen (2011) describes how even a generally empathic person might not stop to help a collapsed stranger if they are rushing to catch a train, highlighting how context can modulate empathic behavior. Mainstream researchers typically use quantitative measures (surveys, questionnaires) to assess empathy as a stable trait, assuming it has the same meaning across different populations (Lima & Osório, 2021).

This approach, however, raises a fundamental question: what exactly does “empathy” encompass? To answer this, we first have to define which behaviors or responses count as empathic. Initial answers might seem straightforward, but the picture becomes more complicated upon closer examination. Consider, for example, a psychotherapy session in which a client is discussing a deeply personal issue and is showing signs of resistance. The therapist might realize that offering a direct interpretation or confronting the issue head-on, could overwhelm the client. The therapist instead chooses to simply listen and withhold an interpretation for the time being. On the surface, such inaction might appear non-empathic. In reality, however, it is an empathic act: the therapist is attuned to the client’s need for psychological safety and refrains from forcing an interpretation until the client is ready. This example illustrates the difficulty of determining what counts as empathic behavior and what our instruments are actually measuring. Notably, most standardized empathy measures were developed in Western cultural contexts, which means they may not fully capture what empathy means in non-Western cultures. What is considered an appropriate empathic response in Germany may not be viewed the same way in Indonesia, for instance, due to different cultural norms.

Socio-Cultural Perspective on Empathy

A socio-cultural approach offers a different framework that explicitly accounts for context. If we understand empathy as a phenomenon that unfolds between people – a symbolic act of “putting oneself in another’s shoes” – then cultural and situational variations must be front and center. Empathic behavior is mediated by local norms, values, and shared understandings, and thus it can look very different across societies and subgroups. From this perspective, researchers are not bound to instruments that assume a universal definition of empathy. Quantitative tools can still yield insights, but only if their results are interpreted cautiously, not taken as literal readings of a universal trait. Researchers must maintain a critical stance in how they use psychometric measures and statistical analyses for empathy.

One methodological tool that underscores the need for cultural caution is the analysis of measurement invariance (Bowen & Masa, 2015). By testing for metric invariance in an empathy scale across different groups, researchers can determine whether people from different cultures or contexts interpret and respond to scale items in the same way. It is very likely that an average score of, say, 3.5 on a particular empathy questionnaire item does not signify exactly the same thing in two different countries. Measurement invariance analysis can reveal which items function differently across cultures and which are interpreted similarly. This kind of analysis shows that the meaning behind a number (a score) is more important than the number itself. Fundamentally, the socio-cultural approach reminds us that we must always consider the context in which a psychological phenomenon occurs if we want to truly understand it.

Understanding empathy as socio-culturally constructed changes how we might approach developing empathy or researching it. For one, it suggests that if we want to foster empathy, we should pay attention to the social environments and cultural narratives children (and adults) are exposed to. Schools, families, and communities play a role in modeling and reinforcing empathic values (Kohn, 1991). For example, programs that pair up children from different backgrounds to collaborate can broaden their empathic understanding by exposing them to diverse perspectives in a supportive setting. Cross-cultural education can make people aware that what counts as empathy in one context may look different in another, fostering more adaptable and respectful forms of empathy across differences.

In research and practice, a socio-cultural view cautions us not to treat empathy as merely a score on a personality test or a static trait. Instead, it encourages looking at interactive processes: How do people show empathy in real conversations? What cultural stories or role models influence their understanding of compassion? It also highlights the importance of history. Today’s empathy norms are part of a historical continuum – for instance, the rise of global human rights discourse in the 20th century has gradually expanded the circle of empathy for many people to include distant others, not just family or tribe (Lanzoni, 2018). Socio-cultural psychology prompts questions like, “How do societal changes (technology, migration, conflict, cooperation) influence our collective empathic tendencies?” In a globalized world, we regularly encounter others with very different life experiences, which makes the ability to understand others’ perspectives both more challenging and more crucial.

By viewing empathy as a product of cultural participation, we also recognize that it can be relearned or reshaped. If a particular environment has failed to nurture empathy (for example, contexts of trauma or extreme competition might blunt empathic responses), interventions can potentially cultivate it by establishing new patterns of social interaction that model understanding and caring. This might include community dialogues, storytelling, or other culture-building activities that re-norm empathic listening and responding.

Finally, this approach underscores empathy’s role in moral and social order. Empathy is not just an emotion but is linked to values and ethics of a group. It is part of “being a good person” as defined by one’s culture – whether that means being considerate, showing generosity, respecting others’ inner worlds, etc. Therefore, to promote empathy is also to engage with the cultural values that support cooperation, altruism, and social connection. Socio-cultural psychology reminds us that to fully understand empathy, we must see it as embedded in a web of social relationships and cultural meanings rather than as an isolated spark inside an individual.

Revisiting Universalism

Despite these considerations, it is not entirely wrong to discuss empathy in terms of human universals. If we regard empathy as serving a communicative and social function (a point on which even mainstream researchers would agree), we could argue that empathy is indeed a basic characteristic of the human psyche. Human beings are inherently social (Kelly, 1955): across all cultures, people seek connection, understanding, acceptance, and love. In this light, a moderate form of the universalist hypothesis holds some appeal.

The real issue arises when universalism is taken as an unexamined assumption. An overly rigid universalist stance can be critiqued from a contextualist or constructionist perspective. Extreme social constructionists might claim that everything about empathy (or any psychological phenomenon) is purely a product of culture and socialization. I find this extreme position unconvincing. I align instead with Vygotsky’s perspective that certain basic mental functions are universal to all humans, forming a foundation upon which cultural differences build. As mentioned earlier, rudimentary forms of empathic-like behavior can be observed in other mammals as well as across diverse human societies. Moreover, we should not ignore the neuropsychological evidence for an “empathy circuit” in the brain (Baron-Cohen, 2011). Demonstrating that a psychological function has identifiable biological underpinnings does not mean that function is only biological or impervious to culture—it simply indicates that biology provides a capacity which is then shaped by social interaction. The essence of empathy may lie in dialogue and intersubjective experience, but this does not contradict the fact that it is grounded in our neurobiology. In Vygotsky’s (1987) words, cultural development does not run parallel to biological development as an independent track; rather, the two are deeply intertwined.

Our research goals also matter: focusing only on similarities may obscure important differences, and vice versa. We should make our assumptions explicit. Universalism as a hypothesis is not inherently objectionable, it depends on how we apply it. A nuanced universalism (acknowledging a basic human capacity for empathy that is shaped by culture) is generally reasonable. Problems arise when researchers assume strict universalism without reflection. Using identical measures worldwide to “prove” a construct is universal can be misleading. Early cross-cultural intelligence research, for instance, used one-size-fits-all tests to claim certain groups were more intelligent – an assumption now recognized as biased and false (Howe, 1997). In empathy research, methodologies must be adapted. Administering a Western-designed empathy scale in Serbia and in Finland and treating the scores as directly comparable will likely mislead. We should supplement such instruments with qualitative approaches that illuminate what empathic behavior means in each culture. Empathy in Serbia will share some features with empathy in Finland, but it also carries distinct connotations and manifestations in each context.

Cross-Cultural Research Challenges

We will return once again to the already mentioned cross-cultural studies. Most of these studies rely on quantitative measures, such as questionnaires and self-assessment scales, which often do not consider cultural variations in how people understand and describe their own empathy. For example, using standardized instruments developed in the West in cultures with different social norms can result in inaccurate or biased outcomes. However, this raises the question of how much these measures truly capture the essence of emotional processes in different cultural contexts and how much they impose Western paradigms on other cultures. Another important aspect is the critique of the neutrality of researchers in cross-cultural studies. Researchers often come from Western, individualistic cultures and may unconsciously project their own values onto subjects from other cultures, interpreting their responses through the lens of their own cultural norms. This “cultural blindness” can lead to phenomena like empathy being viewed as lacking in cultures that value less open expression of emotions, instead of recognizing their different but equally complex patterns of emotional regulation. The issue of empathy, especially in the context of global crises, is extremely politically charged. For example, studies on empathy in intergroup relations often focus on how cultural stereotypes and prejudices affect our ability to empathize with people from other groups. However, these studies often do not question the deeper political and historical causes of such prejudices. Instead, empathy is often treated as a trait that individuals must develop regardless of broader social injustices, overlooking structural factors that shape empathic capacities.

While mainstream psychological research has generated potential valuable taxonomies – such as the affective/cognitive empathy split or Baron-Cohen’s (2011) typology – these contributions remain limited when stripped of cultural grounding. The socio-cultural critique aim to offer a conceptual reorientation. Empathy is not a fixed psychological capacity variably distributed across individuals, but a social function – it is a practice developed through interaction, normatively governed, and mediated by symbols. Its form, meaning, and value shift across historical periods, cultural settings, and relational contexts. To treat empathy as a universal “trait” measurable by context-free instruments is to abstract it from the very social life that gives it meaning.

From a socio-cultural standpoint, empathy must be studied as a historically and culturally contingent phenomenon that emerges within systems of meaning, power, and obligation. It is not simply something individuals “possess,” but something they do – within social roles, toward culturally recognized others, and in response to situated expectations. What empathy is, who deserves it, and how it ought to be expressed are questions answered not by biology or trait theory, but by moral economies and symbolic orders. Accordingly, mainstream psychometrics and trait taxonomies fail to capture empathy’s dialogical, relational, moral, and ideological embeddedness. These models obscure more than they clarify when divorced from context.

We can conclude our discussion by emphasizing the need to focus on the cultural context in which empathy occurs. To adequately understand empathy, we must first define it. It seems to me that empathy in mainstream psychology is rather loosely defined, depending on methodological requirements to define a psychological measurement instrument. Authors mapped potential behaviors that could be characterized as empathic according to their own discretion. Such instruments were then distributed to the wider population to determine the psychological characteristics of empathy, even among respondents from other countries and cultures. I believe it is valid to ask—what is the essential psychological significance of these studies? Lost in methodology, we risk compromising our critical consideration of psychological phenomena. I call for awareness of what we aim to investigate in our research. The problem is not with the instruments per se; what matters is how they are used and how the results obtained are interpreted. I believe it is important to take a step back – to critically examine the phenomena we study and consider our cultural-historical context in which we operate. No psychological function exists in a vacuum and by itself. It always carries meaning and serves to increase predictability and anticipation of the world people live in (Kelly, 1955). Also, as we have noted, there is significant conceptual confusion regarding this psychological construct. This is undoubtedly a consequence of empathy’s long history, where different authors used the same term to explain phenomena that were sometimes contradictory. Therefore, I believe it is necessary to define what we mean by empathy and to understand how it manifests in the culture in which we study it as one of the more important communicative functions.

Methodological Implications

A socio-cultural approach to empathy calls for qualitative, context-sensitive research (Willig, 2016). Rather than rely solely on surveys or lab tasks, researchers would study empathy as it happens in real interactions and narratives. For example, one might use:

Practical Implications

Viewing empathy as culturally mediated has important real-world consequences. First, it reminds us that empathy education must be context-sensitive. Programs that work in one culture may not translate directly to another if they ignore local norms. For example, Western-style role-play exercises may need adaptation in collectivist societies where indirect communication is valued. Recognizing these differences can make social-emotional learning more effective across diverse classrooms. Second, empathy can be harnessed to strengthen social cohesion and moral action. Cultivating empathy in schools and communities encourages solidarity and prosocial behavior (Cooper, 2011). For instance, perspective-taking exercises (discussing others’ feelings in literature or history) have been linked to greater student cooperation, reduced conflicts among peers, and higher motivation to help others (Barton & Levstik, 2004). In this way, empathy training supports not only emotional development but also academic success (Zhou, 2022). Third, empathy is key in addressing social challenges. When communities face inequality or tension, teaching empathy (often through storytelling or dialogue) could possibly promote understanding and tolerance. By framing empathy as a social skill, initiatives (e.g. social justice education or conflict-resolution programs) can explicitly teach youths how to feel with others whose backgrounds differ from their own.

In summary, a socio-cultural perspective sees empathy not as a fixed attribute, but as a learning process shaped by culture. This view highlights that empathy can be taught and nurtured – through family and school practices that model caring, through cultural stories that emphasize others’ perspectives, and through community involvement that values cooperation. Emphasizing empathy’s social roots suggests practical steps: for example, integrating empathy training into curricula, using culturally relevant materials, and encouraging dialogues across diverse groups. These steps can help children and adults alike become more attuned to one another’s experiences, fostering a more harmonious and just society.

Within socio-cultural psychology, we can understand empathy not as a static or innate trait of an individual, but as a higher mental function that dynamically develops through processes of social interaction, cultural mediation, and internalization of norms and symbols specific to a given society, i.e., the semiosphere. According to Vygotsky, every higher mental function (including empathy among higher mental functions) first appears at the social level—as an interpsychological function—before being internalized and becoming intrapsychological, i.e., part of individual psychology (Vygotsky, 1972). This definition implies that empathy is not merely a natural reaction to others’ emotions; its formation and manifestation occur within the framework of social and cultural conditions. Specifically, empathy develops through interaction with others, whereby individuals learn to recognize, interpret, and respond to others’ emotional states through a set of culturally mediated signs and symbols, such as facial expressions, gestures, or language (Holodynsky, 2003). For example, the way people express sadness or compassion depends on cultural norms that shape their affective repertoire.

Additionally, socio-cultural psychology emphasizes that empathy is neither universally defined nor equally expressed across all societies. The cultural framework in which an individual is situated shapes not only how they experience empathy but also how they express and use it in social interactions. This distinction further suggests that empathy, as a higher mental function, is not just a response to emotional stimuli, but a tool for navigating complex social dynamics and interactions. In this way, empathy within socio-cultural psychology can be recognized as a key process for maintaining social cohesion, enabling individuals not only to understand others’ emotions but also to act in accordance with socially accepted norms of solidarity, moral action, and collective goals. Therefore, from this perspective, empathy becomes a culturally mediated and socially constructed function, with its development depending on interactions with the environment that shape patterns of interpersonal relationships.