The US election was defined as much by candidates’ perceived ability to empathise as economic policy, argues Mark Honigsbaum.
When Mitt Romney was caught on camera writing-off 47 per cent of Americans as tax avoiders, Democrats were quick to jump on his remarks as an example of the Republicans’ ‘empathy deficit’. Since Barack Obama identified a lack of empathy as the cause of America’s bitter partisan divides, a series of studies have shown that politcally engaged conservatives score lower on empathy than their liberal equivalents.
By Mark Honigsbaum
