Scientists have ranked 63 nations by the level of empathy demonstrated by their people, the data collected through an online survey included the answers of 104,365 adults in 63 different countries, the survey measured people’s compassion for others and their ability to identify with or understand another`s situation or point of view. Costa Rica ranked in the 9th position.

The study, “Differences in Empathic Concern and Perspective Taking Across 63 Countries”, published online on the Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, gave Ecuador the top spot, the nine other nations in the top ten are:

2. Saudi Arabia
3. Peru
4. Denmark
5. United Arab Emirates
6. Korea
7. United States
8. Taiwan
9. Costa Rica
10. Kuwait

According to the study headed by Dr. William J. Chopik, assistant professor of psychology at Michigan State University “Higher empathy countries also have higher levels of collectivism, agreeableness, conscientiousness, self-esteem, emotionality, subjective well-being and prosocial behavior”.
The least empathetic country was Lithuania, others that ranked low are: Venezuela, Estonia, Poland, Bulgaria and several Eastern European countries (7 out of bottom 10).

Countries with small sample sizes were excluded from the study, among these all other Central American countries.
“Given the important role of empathy in everyday social life, we hope that the current study will stimulate research examining how empathy is expressed in different cultures and social settings, and help inform future research on the relationship between empathy and culture from a broader and a more representative perspective”, state the researchers (William J. Chopik (Michigan State University; Ed O’Brien from Univesity of Chicago, IL and SaraH. Konrath from Indiana University, Indianapolis)

Researchers also clarified that the survey did not distinguish between empathy for people in other countries or empathy in one’s own country.