Sara Konrath is afraid. She’s afraid that the world is becoming a less empathetic place. She’s particularly afraid that young people are becoming less empathetic.

In fact, she knows they are becoming less empathetic.

Konrath, who is the director of the Interdisciplinary Program on Empathy and Altruism Research (iPEAR) and assistant professor in the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy at Indiana University in the US, has been tracking empathy levels back to the 1970s. She has witnessed a significant decline in the amount of empathy displayed by young people. And while this has slowed in recent years, it shows no signs of stopping.

The drivers for the decline, she says, are complex. But schools may be part of the problem as well as the solution.

Konrath was drawn to empathy as an academic subject as a result of her upbringing. Her mother was a single parent tasked with bringing up eight children, so as a child Konrath received care support from a wide range of sources - including from one individual called Ruth, who volunteered for an organisation that helped single parents.

Ruth became like a grandmother and, as Konrath got older, she started thinking more and more about what drove Ruth - and people like her - to volunteer to help others and show such empathy towards them.

“I was interested in the line between the self and the other, and why some people see themselves as including other people. They don’t see themselves as independent and individualistic - they see themselves as really connected,” explains Konrath.

A study of compassion

So it was only natural that as she embarked on her academic career, she began to look at empathy in more depth. As a result, she managed to track down 72 different studies of American college students - stretching from 1979 to 2009 - that measured empathy levels in almost 14,000 individuals.

“One of the most frequently used measures of empathy is Mark Davis’ Interpersonal Reactivity Index, which asks people to what extent they agree with statements related to cognitive aspects of empathy [ie, perspective taking] and emotional aspects of it [ie, empathic concern],” says Konrath. “This measures people’s general tendencies to be understanding of and care about others.”

She highlights the potential in such research for people to agree with statements just to look good - this is called “social desirability”. However, she says that “there tends to be a range on these scales”, and cites other established ways of measuring empathy, including observer reports (asking teachers or parents how empathic or caring a child is); “situational empathy” (asking people how much compassion they feel when they see someone in need); examining physiological responses to others in pain or distress; and inferring levels of empathy based on someone’s behaviour.

The data she analysed showed that among college students empathy levels have fallen by around 40 per cent since the late 1970s, with the biggest drop-off in levels occurring after the year 2000.

Konrath suspects that this isn’t a problem specific to the US. She thinks it is an issue that is also being played out in other parts of the world and she has seen research from the UK that was taken at a single point in time - rather than over an extended period of time - that showed the same pattern.

She has a number of theories as to why this has occurred, but she says it is difficult to pinpoint a single factor behind the decline.

“When you’re doing studies of social change, it’s hard to isolate a specific cause,” says Konrath. “If you look at the US and what’s changed since the late 1970s, there is a lot of ‘overparenting’ now. I wouldn’t necessarily guess that would lead to a decline in empathy, but some might think that.”

It’s not just parents to blame, though. The school system may be a factor too, with Konrath echoing fears among teachers that the focus on high-stakes attainment testing is having a negative impact on young people.

“There have also been changes in schools and what we expect in schools, with a lot of achievement focus. Then you have the self-esteem movement, which started in the 1980s, and you also have to look at political changes and economic changes. There have also been changes in technology and media use, so it’s really hard to sit down and say, ‘This is the one thing responsible.’”

While it is difficult to identify a single factor that has negatively impacted on the levels of empathy displayed by young people, Konrath says it’s equally hard to determine why the rate of decline slowed down between the years 2009-2015 - a period that she has just finished the data collection and preliminary analysis for.

“The work is not peer-reviewed yet, but what we’re finding is the decline we’re seeing in empathy is slowing down,” she explains. “It is very hard to find causality, but when you see a pattern is going one way and then there is this break and the pattern changes, you have to look at some of the other indicators in society, such as the impact of the financial crisis [from 2007-9].”

For Konrath, it’s important to try and understand some of the drivers behind this behavioural shift. In the US, there is a significant debate taking place about empathy at the moment, thanks to a book released late last year by author Paul Bloom called Against Empathy - in which he argues that empathy impairs an individual’s moral sensitivity.

The definition of empathy

Konrath disagrees with Bloom’s conclusion, largely because she disagrees with his interpretation of empathy. For her, it’s crucial that we agree on the definition of what empathy is and what it means before we decide whether or not it’s important.

“I think empathy is a two-part thing - it’s both emotional and cognitive,” she says. “At the emotional end, it is the feeling of compassion for others; the cognitive part is imagining other people’s perspective.

“If you take those two things together, the research finds that, generally speaking, people who say they care more about others and are good at taking on board their perspective are the same people who are helping more when people are in need: they’re donating more to charity and they’re volunteering their time, so they’re pretty good citizens. We want empathic citizens in our society because these are the people who help us to build a better society.”

She adds that we also need greater levels of empathy in society because there is an established link between a decline in empathy and a rise in mental health problems.

“That’s not a coincidence, because if we are not socially connected, both in terms of caring for and being cared for by others, then we are going to feel anxious, isolated and depressed,” says Konrath.

So how can we arrest the declining levels of empathy among younger people and teach them to be more empathetic?

The good news is that there is a host of resources out there to help to increase empathy in children and adults, including two mobile device-based programmes that Konrath has personally helped to develop. Teachers can pick out some of the techniques in these to use in the classroom.

The first is called Text to Connect and is targeted at people aged 18 to 25. Those who sign up for the service receive regular text messages throughout the day offering simple tips on how to be more empathetic.

“For instance, these tips might include, ‘The next time you’re talking to someone, try to think about what they want and need, or try to focus on their body language and really understand them,’” says Konrath. “Or, ‘Think about a friend who has recently gone through a difficult time. What are they feeling right now and what can you do to support them?’”

She says that during trials, evidence showed that the programme helped people to be more caring towards others.

There’s an app for that

The second solution she’s developed is an app called Random App of Kindness. It’s free to download and is targeted more towards secondary-level children.

“We tested it and we found that the kids who were randomly assigned to play with this app for two months, compared with the kids who played a controlled game, were more likely to help a person in need,” she says.

The app is based on nine different ways in which, according to research, we can help to build empathy levels in individuals, and it features a series of short games. Konrath recognises that there is a certain irony in the fact that she’s trying to build empathy via a device that to some extent has played a role in empathy levels deteriorating in society, but she sees it as a necessary compromise.

“If the mobile phone is one of the causes behind declining empathy, then maybe it needs to be part of the solution, too,” she says. “Having said that, there is no substitute for face-to-face contact, working out difficulties in person and going through the process of living in a community with other people, but it is really easy to not do that now.”

Konrath adds that being connected to other people is a fundamental human need that cannot be replaced by technology, and she fears that there are emerging themes in the US and other parts of the world that threaten the existence of empathy. Schools need to be part of the fight against that.

“If we get to a point where our society continues to decline in empathy, I would be very concerned, especially when you think about other demographic trends like the ageing population, because somebody needs to care for older adults and historically it has been younger adults,” she says. “As a society, if we really aren’t interested in what some people would call ‘softer skills’ like empathy, I don’t think we can function. I don’t think people realise how much of our everyday life involves caring for others.”

Simon Creasey is a freelance writer. He tweets @simoncreasey2