Eroding Student Empathy

College students today are not as empathetic as college students were in the 1980s and 1990s, according to an analysis by the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research. The study -- based on an analysis of student surveys over a 30-year period -- was presented last week at the annual meeting of the Association for Psychological Science. Students were categorized based on how the responded to statements such as "I sometimes try to understand my friends better by imagining how things look from their perspective" or "I often have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me."