Saudi Gazette report
Riyadh — Saudi Arabia figures among top 10 countries as the most empathetic in the world, according to a new study.
The study — based on online survey of over 104,000 people from 63 countries — was conducted by researchers from Michigan State University, the University of Chicago, and Indiana University.
Saudi Arabia was placed second to Ecuador.
It is a first-of-its-kind study that ranks nations by empathy (the ability to understand and share the feelings of another).
The survey measured people’s compassion for others and their tendency to respect others’ point of view. Countries with small sample sizes were excluded (including most nations in Africa).
The study, published online in the Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, was co-authored by Ed O’Brien of the University of Chicago and Sara Konrath of Indiana University.
Michigan State University’s William Chopik, lead author of the study, said that it is the first to look at empathy on a country-by-country level. And while it “only grabbed a snapshot of what empathy looks like at this very moment,” Chopik noted that cultures are constantly changing.
Ecuador was the most empathetic country, followed in order by Saudi Arabia, Peru, Denmark, United Arab Emirates, Korea, the United States, Taiwan, Costa Rica and Kuwait.
The least empathetic country was Lithuania. In fact, seven of the 10 least empathetic countries were in Eastern Europe.
