FEELING YOUR PAIN AND FEELING YOUR JOY: A DAILY INVESTIGATION OF THE COSTS AND BENEFITS OF EMPATHIZING AT WORK

Abstract

Empathizing with others is commonly thought to be beneficial for employees and their organizations. However, research on empathy is still in its infancy, and there remains much that we do not know about how empathy, particularly state empathy, affects employee outcomes. In this dissertation, I draw on Conservation of Resources theory to propose that daily empathizing can simultaneously enrich and deplete employee resources, which in turn have consequences for their end-of-day work outcomes and well-being. Further, I posit that levels of empathizing on one day can alter the intensity of employees’ affective reactions from empathizing, and thus moderate the relationships between empathizing and employee affect on a subsequent day. Specifically, I propose that high levels of empathizing on one day can desensitize employees to the positive emotions associated with empathizing, thus attenuating resource gains, whilst strengthening their sensitivity to others’ negative emotions and amplifying resource losses. In this dissertation, I designed and conducted three studies to develop and validate a scale of daily empathizing, and to test the hypotheses of the dissertation. My dissertation seeks to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the effects of daily empathizing on employees’ psychological states and outcomes at work.