Empathy in Adults and Social Class

Abstract

A group of 341 parents making up 215 different families were tested during home interviews with Mehrabian and Epstein's emotional empathy scale. Significant differences in empathy were not found between social classes among the mothers, although Class I mothers seemed to be somewhat more empathetic than Class II and III mothers. Significant differences between social classes were noted among the fathers. Fathers of Class II (middle-class) were most empathetic. Results support earlier findings of the positive relationship between empathy and middle-social class only for the fathers but not for the mothers.