Empathy Development from Childhood to Adolescence Predicts COVID-19 Health Guideline Adherence in Young Adulthood

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic launched global public health campaigns designed to inform the public and enforce strategies aimed at curbing the virus's rapid spread. These campaigns required individuals to act not only in self-interest but also in consideration of others. Personality traits such as empathy may shape how such strategies are perceived and, consequently, whether they are followed. To gain insights into how personality may influence adherence to COVID-19 mitigation strategies, trajectories of empathy from ages 11 to 16 were used to predict the likelihood of following public health recommendations such as hand washing, cancelling travel, avoiding crowds, taking care of cleanliness, and avoiding public places at age 23 when the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic took place. The role of gender was also explored, given well-documented differences in empathy and compliance with public health guidelines. Participants (N = 361) completed annual self-report measures of empathy from ages 11 to 16 and later reported on their COVID-19 preventative behaviour at age 23. As expected, most participants followed a moderate increasing empathy trajectory (53.5%), followed by a high increasing trajectory (33.5%), and a low stable trajectory (13%). Gender significantly predicted adherence, with women reporting greater compliance than men. Additionally, individuals in the high increasing empathy group reported more adherence than those in the low stable group. However, when gender was accounted for, empathy trajectories no longer significantly predicted adherence. A marginally significant interaction between gender and empathy trajectory emerged: among men, those with higher empathy in childhood and adolescence reported greater adherence to COVID-19 guidelines than those with moderate or lower levels of empathy. These findings underscore the value of fostering empathy in childhood and adolescence and suggest that promoting empathy may enhance future public health compliance, particularly among men.