Investigating the Relationship Between Empathy and Personality Traits

This report investigates the relationship between empathy and various personality traits, primarily focusing on the Big Five personality model: agreeableness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism. The study analyzes a provided dataset and reviews existing literature to explore the correlations between these factors. The findings indicate a significant positive correlation between agreeableness and empathy, a moderate positive correlation between conscientiousness and empathy, and a significant negative correlation between neuroticism and empathy. The report discusses how agreeableness, with its emphasis on interpersonal behavior, is a strong predictor of empathy, while conscientiousness, reflecting organization and consideration, also plays a role. Neuroticism, characterized by emotional instability, is shown to negatively impact empathic abilities. The report also explores the influence of openness and extraversion, while providing insights on the cultural impact on empathy measurement.

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN EMPATHY AND PERSONALITY TRAITS
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Abstract
Empathy as defined by Bandura is the successful control of aggression during adolescence and
childhood and a very important predictor of Prosocial behavior. Empathy is a vicarious
emotional response which is congruent to the emotional responses of another individual. Big five
personality factors consists of the personality factors namely Openness, conscientiousness,
extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. The present report is about investigating the
relationship between agreeableness and empathy with the help of a given data set and past
literature. The association of two other personality factors, conscientiousness and neuroticism
with empathy has also been explored. The analysis of the provided data set suggested that
agreeableness is the most important factor related to empathy, conscientiousness also has a
moderate positive correlation with empathy. Neuroticism has a high negative association with
empathy as suggested by the analysis of the data set.

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................5
Discussion........................................................................................................................................6
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................11
References......................................................................................................................................12
Appendix........................................................................................................................................13

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Introduction
Personality of an individual is essentially their characteristic pattern of behavior, feelings and
thought processes that differentiate them from other individuals. The Big Five personality model,
which is also known as the Five Factor inventory model is based on the basic five personality
descriptors. The five factors defined in this model include Conscientiousness, agreeableness,
neuroticism, openness and extraversion (Cobb-Clark & Schurer, 2012). The characteristics
associated with the personality factors are-
 Conscientiousness- Individuals with a high conscientiousness score have the tendency to
be organized and efficient, to exude planned behavior; show self-discipline and aim for
achieving their goals Individuals with low conscientiousness are usually easy going,
careless, spontaneous, flexible, sometimes sloppy and unreliable (Goldberg, 1993).
 Agreeableness- High agreeableness score suggests that the individuals are friendly,
compassionate, cooperative, well tempered, and can be sometimes perceived as
submissive. Low agreeability suggests that individuals can be challenging, competitive,
detached and can be sometimes perceived as untrustworthy (Goldberg, 1993).
 Neuroticism- High neuroticism suggests tendency to be prone to anger, depression,
anxiety, vulnerability and psychological stress. Low neuroticism suggests a calm, stable
and well- adjusted individual (Goldberg, 1993).
 Openness- High openness suggests that individual would be more appreciative toward
art, adventure, emotions, unusual ideas, creativity and a number of experiences. High
scores usually reflect the higher intellectual curiosity of individuals. Low scores suggest
consistent and cautious behavior. They are usually perceived as closed minded and
dogmatic people (Goldberg, 1993).

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 Extraversion- High scores suggest energetic, outgoing, attention seeking, talkative and
loud behaviors. Individuals with lower scores prefer to be solitary, are reserved, shy and
have reflective personalities (Goldberg, 1993).
The experience of understanding an individual from their perspective and thereby understanding
the way they feel is known as empathy. Empathy is an experience that facilitates prosocial or
helping behaviors (Graziano et al., 2007). The present report is about the relationship between
empathy and the various Personality traits, mainly agreeableness, conscientiousness and
extraversion.
Discussion
The Big Five Model has been an effective way to explain differences between individuals
in terms of behaviors and experiences; however, the relation between empathy and these
personality traits are still not clearly understood and this is the reason for numerous research in
this field. Empathy is a very important ability possessed by individuals, which effectively
facilitates social interaction . However, optimal measurement of the emphatic processing of
individuals is still unclear. A study by Melchers et al, (2016) was designed in order to investigate
the relationship between empathy and the Big Five Personality factors from samples from four
different countries, China, Germany, Spain and the United States of America. This study was
conducted to find the association between personality factors and empathy from a cross cultural
perspective. The results suggested that agreeableness was the most important predictor of
empathy, conscientiousness was also important, but the other subscales showed no relevant
relationship with empathy. According to the researchers, agreeableness was found to the best
predictor for empathy as this dimension mainly concerns interpersonal behavior and better
social interactions. Individuals with low agreeableness score lack prosocial motivation or the

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affect of empathy and therefore do not report less empathy (Graziano et al., 2007). The results in
this research that concerned the empathy and personality differences with respect to the countries
did not show any particular trend and the analyses suggested that there were homogeneous
associations across the different cultures. This therefore means that empathy can be successfully
measured across cultures with the IRI and EQ questionnaires (Melchers et al., 2016).
Eunice Magalhaes, Patricio Costa and Manuel Joao Costa (2012) conducted a study to
test the relationship between Personality traits and Empathy in a Portuguese Medical school
conducted another study. A self-reported measure of Undergraduate students for empathy and
the NEO FFI personality questionnaire were used. The results showed a significant and positive
correlation but in lower magnitude between empathy JSPE-spv and the personality traits of
agreeableness, conscientiousness and openness. MANCOVA was conducted with Gender as a
co-variate in order to clarify the relationship between the three dimensions and it was found that
the there was a significant positive correlation between empathy and personality traits of
agreeableness and openness but not for conscientiousness. Therefore, it was concluded that
medical students with higher scores of agreeableness and openness to experience were more
likely to have more empathy towards others. According to the researchers, it was an expected
outcome, given that the attributes relating to both agreeableness and empathy included
interpersonal skills like pro-social behavior and altruism. Therefore, medical students who are
more agreeable would tend to understand the perspectives of the patient better and thereby have
an improved communication ( Magalhaes, Costa & Costa, 2012). The researches state that the
association between empathy and openness was also expected as high openness scores suggests
the predisposition to understand and meet new people and to be able to grasp the emotional state
of individuals sooner. There was however the researcher hypothesized no correlation between

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neuroticism and empathy, which was unexpected as a negative correlation between the two
factors. However, the major limitations of their research were that they conducted the study on a
small population, used self-reported measures.
Graziano et al. (2007) conducted numerous studies to find out if agreeableness and
empathy had any relationship. In one such study which he conducted on 622 students in Texas,
the results showed that individuals with high agreeableness scores were more likely to risk
various negative outcomes to help other people in both ordinary and extraordinary situations. It
was found that people high on agreeableness scale would more readily risk their lives to save
their friends as well as strangers. According to the researchers, helping is more closely related to
prosocial emotions and various empathic concerns than to the personal distresses of the
individuals. Also they have tried to explain why people low on agreeableness have low empathic
feelings, according to them, there might be possibility that interpersonal learning is less positive
in comparison to their peers. They also found out in their studies that the induction for empathy
increases even in people with low agreeableness, if the helping cost is low This means, if the
stakes or risks are lower, individuals are more likely to lend a hand for help. However, low
agreeable people definitely experience more conflict in their motives for helping other
individuals unlike people with high agreeability (Graziano et al., 2007).
Another study conducted by a Victoria Del Barrio (2004) explored similar topic. The
study was conducted on 832 Spanish adolescents and this study too had similar outcomes. It was
found that Empathy had the strongest correlation to agreeableness and positive correlations with
conscientiousness and openness was also observed. Empathy has been a central temperamental
feature of the temperament of individuals since childhood and adolescence and a number of

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research shows that empathy has a positive correlation with the personality trait of agreeableness
(Barrio, 2004).
In case of the present Data Set, Neo FFI Personality Scores and empathy scores of 90
individuals have been provided and after analysis it was found that there is a significant positive
correlation between agreeableness and empathy, 0.399; a significant positive correlation between
conscientiousness and empathy, 0.14 and significant negative correlations with neuroticism,
extraversion and openness. It has been seen from past literature that there are numerous
evidences suggesting a positive relationship between empathy and agreeableness. There can be
and has been numerous explanations to such repeated results. It is obvious that there would be a
positive correlation between agreeableness and empathy because agreeableness essentially
suggests the capability of people to agree more to the surroundings while forming social bonds.
People with high agreeableness score are usually more compassionate towards other people, they
tend to understand why another person is behaving the way that they are, or how much of
emotional pain the individual might be going through. Highly agreeable people are more
cooperative and have the capability to handle situations with a lot of calmness and composure.
These are the people who are mostly mistaken to be naïve or submissive, however, they just try
to make others more comfortable. The phenomenon in which an individual is capable of seeing
the situations from the other person’s perspective is called empathy. Empathic individuals have a
predisposition towards pro-social behavior and past studies have shown that there are higher
chances for highly agreeable people to risk their own selves to help others in ordinary as well as
extraordinary situations. However, it has also been found that if the risk or cost of helping is less,
people with low agreeableness would also agree to help, however they would face a lot more

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dilemma in making the decision than a person with high agreeableness would (Graziano et al.,
2007).
It has also been found that there is a low but positive correlation of empathy with
conscientiousness. Highly conscientious individuals have the tendency to be very organized,
dependable, disciplined and dutiful. These individuals usually have a plan of action and are very
considerate about feelings of other people which maybe the reason for a positive correlation with
empathy (Joireman et al., 2006). The relationship between conscientiousness and empathy has
not been very clear in past literatures and further research in this field is required. Some Studies
showed positive correlation however, some did not. Conscientiousness is usually high among
young adults. Individuals with low conscientiousness are usually easy going, laid back and
spontaneous in their behavior.
There has been a high negative correlation between empathy and neuroticism (-0.826),
which is quite an expected result. Individuals with high scores of neuroticism have a lower
threshold for tolerating stress and tend to get anxious, angry or stressed easily. These individuals
have a tendency to experience negative emotions easily and can be highly unstable in terms of
emotions. Individuals who find it difficult to manage their own emotions are not likely to
empathize with other individuals. Even if they do, there are higher chances for them succumbing
to negative emotional states. Individuals with high neuroticism have higher chances of falling
into clinical depression. These individuals even perceive ordinary situations as highly stressful
events and these emotionally heightened phases keep lasting for a long time. Therefore, people
with higher neuroticism would definitely be unable to empathize with the feelings of other
individuals as they already have a low threshold for stress tolerance. There are not many past
literature relating neuroticism and empathy but there are studies that link neuroticism and

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Prosocial behavior negatively. A study conducted by Guo, Q., Sun, P., & Li, L (2018) was based
entirely on theories about the effects of personality traits on essential outcomes of life, which
adopted a number of analyses to figure out the various mechanisms in which neuroticism and
Prosocial behavior are negatively related. The results of the study had a clear suggestion of
negative relationship between prosocial behavior and neuroticism and the factors accounting for
such an association might be lower social self-efficacy levels, Lower emotional intelligence, low
empathic concern and unhealthy perspective taking. It was also found that Neuroticism can
facilitate (Guo, Sun & Li, 2018). Prosocial behavior by inducing high stress levels in individuals
and if increasing the social self-efficacy and empathy can be elevated in highly neurotic
individuals, they might behave prosocially too. Although Prosocial behavior and empathy are not
interchangeable words, empathizing with a different person is definitely facilitates Prosocial
behavior (Song & Si, 2017).
Conclusion
It can hence be concluded from the following report that, the present data set as well as
past literature suggests that the main personality factor linked with empathy is agreeableness.
Individuals who are more agreeable tend to be more compromising, understanding and try to
understand the perspectives from the other person’s point of view. Another personality factor
that can be positively associated with empathy according to the given data set is
conscientiousness and although there is not much literary evidence, analysis of the data has
shown a low but positive correlation between the two variables. Neuroticism is another
personality factor which is worth mentioning as it has a high negative correlation with empathy.
Like conscientiousness, the relationship between neuroticism and empathy require further

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research, however there have been studies which have hypothesized a negative relationship
between the mention two variables, neuroticism and empathy.

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References
Barrio, V. D., Aluja, A., & García, L. F. (2004). Relationship between empathy and the Big Five
personality traits in a sample of Spanish adolescents. Social Behavior and Personality: an
international journal, 32(7), 677-681.
Cobb-Clark, D. A., & Schurer, S. (2012). The stability of big-five personality traits. Economics
Letters, 115(1), 11-15.
Goldberg, L. R. (1993). The structure of phenotypic personality traits. American
psychologist, 48(1), 26.
Graziano, W. G., Habashi, M. M., Sheese, B. E., & Tobin, R. M. (2007). Agreeableness,
empathy, and helping: A person× situation perspective. Journal of personality and social
psychology, 93(4), 583.
Guo, Q., Sun, P., & Li, L. (2018). Why neurotic individuals are less prosocial? A multiple
mediation analysis regarding related mechanisms. Personality and Individual Differences,
128, 55-61.
Magalhães, E., Costa, P., & Costa, M. J. (2012). Empathy of medical students and personality:
evidence from the Five-Factor Model. Medical teacher, 34(10), 807-812.
Melchers, M. C., Li, M., Haas, B. W., Reuter, M., Bischoff, L., & Montag, C. (2016). Similar
personality patterns are associated with empathy in four different countries. Frontiers in
psychology, 7, 290.

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Appendix
Analysis of the Data set.