Abstract
The relationship of individualism and collectivism, empathy dispositions, and empathic experiences among college students in the United States was examined. First, 121 participants completed a survey that measures individualism-collectivism and empathy dispositions. Four weeks later, 74 of them participated in the second part of the study, a laboratory session, in which they were presented with a transcript of a counseling session. Their experienced empathic emotion and intellectual empathy toward “the client” in the session were assessed. The survey results showed that collectivism was correlated positively with dispositional intellectual empathy and empathic emotion. The laboratory session revealed that collectivism predicted experienced empathic emotion and that individualism predicted intellectual empathy. In addition, dispositional intellectual empathy and empathic emotion predicted experienced intellectual empathy and empathic emotion respectively. Implications of the findings in counseling across cultures were discussed.
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