How do empathy, accountability and fairness interact to result in preferential treatment (but with the best of intentions)? You know we are looking at this with an eye toward litigation implications and it isn’t even that much of a stretch. The researchers are looking at the workplace supervisor/supervisee relationship to assess how knowing that an employee is having a rough time might result in differing (i.e., preferential) treatment to a “needy employee”.

What they find is that when someone is “needy” and the supervisor is aware of this, the needy employee is given preferential treatment over other employees who don’t present as being in special need. When supervisors knew others would find out what they had done, they were less preferential to the needy employee. The researchers called this condition “high accountability”. However, when accountability was low (i.e., the supervisor thought no one would know what they had done), the needy employee received preferential treatment. And here’s the surprising part, the reason research participants made that choice was because they wanted to be fair. If someone is having a tough time, isn’t it more fair to cut them some slack? Empathy would say it is. Justice would beg to differ.

The researchers refer to this as the chronic tension between empathy and justice. We want to alleviate the distress someone we have warm feelings toward is having. But we also need to consider fairness for all in the group or situation. How can we be both empathic and just?

The researchers suggest we need a “more nuanced and complex understanding of the relationship between empathy and fairness”. They refer to the Sonia Sotomayor Supreme Court nomination hearings and the controversy over her remarks on empathy. The researchers conclude with an eloquent turn of phrase:

“The tension between empathy and justice represents a tug of war between head and heart, two noble yet complex bases of motivation. We feel it important to recognize this tension, and to appreciate that empathy may come with pitfalls and that acts regarded as unjust may be rooted in the best of intentions.”

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