ABSTRACT
Describing empathy as the capacity to step into another's shoes, this idea highlights the dyadic nature of empathy. It implies that empathy occurs between two people, rather than three, four, or a whole group. The relatively simple exercise of learning empathy by experiencing it in relation to a steadfast, caring human being becomes complicated by increasing numbers of social and environmental factors over time. This chapter describes each of these levels of influence in sequence: family/small group, community/organization, and country/culture, along with evidence of their connection to the capacity for empathy. Depending on how these various groups are organized, they can either support cooperative, empathetic behaviour or fuel rivalry and competition. The chapter illustrates how the addition of a third party can affect empathy in dyadic relationships using a very common example: sibling rivalry.
