Extremism and Empathy
By Steve Lemeshko
Antifascist graffiti. Credit: damian entwistle, CC BY-NC 2.0.
With the rise of the far right—both globally and in the U.S.—understanding how extremist ideologies relate to empathy has become more urgent than ever. Empathy is often framed as an inherently prosocial force, a key ingredient for compassion and cooperation. But is all empathy "good"? History suggests otherwise—in the lead-up to the World War II, the Nazi regime intensified its propaganda against Poles by reinforcing the narrative of Germans as victims. Empathy itself can be used to invoke strong feelings toward the "rightful us" while portraying the "sinful them" as oppressors. Empathy is not just an internal moral compass; it is also a powerful psychological tool that can be weaponized to reinforce division.
At the heart of this is a paradox: extremist ideologies often cultivate high levels of empathy—but only for those inside the in-group. This selective empathy fuels polarization, making it easier to dehumanize those outside the ideological bubble. However, well before violence is enacted, policies of exclusion take hold, propaganda spreads, we can spot a widening empathy gap.
To understand this mechanism, it’s important to distinguish between the two primary types of empathy:
Affective empathy is our instinctive emotional response to others, often described as "emotional contagion."
Cognitive empathy is our ability to engage in perspective-taking, to intellectually grasp and predict the emotions and thoughts of others.
Effective empathy for diverse groups often depends on balancing both the emotional component (feeling for others) and the cognitive component (knowing how their experiences differ from ours).
Throughout this discussion, I use the definition of extremism proposed by Berger (2018) as “the belief that the in-group’s success or survival requires hostile action against the out-group.” The key here is exclusivity. In everyday life, we juggle multiple overlapping in-groups and out-groups—nationality, language, profession, interests. These identities are fluid, not mutually exclusive. But extremist ideologies reduce this complexity, simplifying identity into rigid binaries: us vs. them. The two groups are perceived to be locked in a zero-sum conflict, unable to coexist. Actual violence need not be present; the threat of violence toward the designated out-group is enough to classify a movement or ideology as extremist.
Research by Lavenne-Collot et al. (2022) suggests that when individuals become a part of the radicalized identity, a “double dissociation” of empathy occurs:
Affective empathy increases while cognitive empathy decreases – Followers develop deep emotional attachment to the in-group but lose the ability to critically engage with competing perspectives. This creates an emotional but uncritical attachment to radical belief systems.
High in-group empathy with low or nonexistent out-group empathy – In-group members receive abundant empathy; out-group members receive little to none. Essentially, what Bruneau et al. (2017) call parochial empathy, where empathy exists but is distributed unevenly.
Cikara et al. (2011) provide neurological evidence of this effect. In a study on Red Sox and Yankees fans, researchers found that people experience increased brain activity in reward centers when members of a rival group suffer. This mechanism—empathy for one’s group and schadenfreude for outsiders—maps directly onto extremist ideologies.
This selective empathy is what allows for dehumanization. It explains how propaganda turns people into less-than-humans, stripping them of individuality. This psychological distance fosters indifference—or outright hostility—toward those labeled “others.” Tutsis were labeled as “cockroaches” during the Rwandan genocide, Ukrainians as “neo-Nazis” during Russia’s invasion, and migrants as “animals” in U.S. nationalist discourse. Once the out-group is stripped of humanity, brutal violence becomes easier to justify. You can’t kill a person, but you can kill a monster.
If a lack of empathy makes extremism possible, does increasing empathy offer a solution? Possibly—but not just any empathy. The kind of empathy that counters extremism must be both affective and cognitive. Emotional empathy alone can be co-opted; cognitive empathy is what disrupts binary thinking. Research on dehumanization by Markowitz and Slovic (2021) suggests that people who dehumanize do not always think of their targets as entirely non-human; rather, they view them as lesser humans whose suffering is justified. It is not enough to remind people that others can feel pain. Rather, familiarizing people with the lived experiences of those they dehumanize—through, for example, narrative-based interventions—can be more effective than abstract statistics or moral appeals. Encouraging perspective-taking through storytelling or direct contact creates an opportunity to challenge the rigid binaries that extremist ideologies rely on and to prevent the dehumanization that paves the way for hatred and violence.
Empathy, when directed exclusively inward, can become a weapon. The same force that drives human connection can also drive dehumanization. Extremist ideologies thrive on this imbalance, cultivating deep in-group empathy while systematically eroding empathy for the out-group. But empathy properly understood is also a strong tool for fighting against extremism. The challenge is making sure that empathy is not just emotional, but also critical and cognitive. Because in the end, the greatest defense against dehumanization is simple: remembering that they are human, too.
Full citation of the resources:
Berger, J.M. Extremism. MIT Press, 2018.
Bruneau, Emile G., et al. “Parochial Empathy Predicts Reduced Altruism and the Endorsement of Passive Harm.” Social Psychological and Personality Science, vol. 8, no. 8, June 2017, pp. 934–42. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550617693064.
Cikara, Mina, Matthew M. Botvinick, and Susan T. Fiske. “Us versus Them: Social Identity Shapes Neural Responses to Intergroup Competition and Harm.” Psychological Science, vol. 22, no. 3, 2011, pp. 306–313, Sage Publications, https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797610397667.
Lavenne-Collot, Nathalie, et al. “Sympathy-Empathy and the Radicalization of Young People.” Children, vol. 9, no. 12, Dec. 2022, p. 1889. https://doi.org/10.3390/children9121889.
Markowitz, David M., and Paul Slovic. “Why We Dehumanize Illegal Immigrants: A US Mixed-methods Study.” PLoS ONE, vol. 16, no. 10, Oct. 2021, p. e0257912. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0257912.
For further reading, see the following articles:
The Builders' Movement: Breaking Through Political Polarization / May 24, 2024
Understanding Habituation: Why We Overlook Horrors / March 27, 2024
Rehumanizing the War in Ukraine with the “Three Names” Cards / March 2, 2024