Empathy as the critical link between self-compassion and social dominance orientation

Objectives According to social dominance theory, intrapersonal and interpersonal mechanisms reciprocally influence social hierarchy through institutional behavior and social structure. The relationship between self-compassion and intergroup attitudes such as social dominance orientation (SDO), or the preference for inequality among social groups, remains unclear. Empathy as an interpersonal construct could represent the bridge between intrapersonal concern and broader social attitudes. This study explored the relationship between self-compassion, empathy, and SDO using psychometric network analysis in diverse college student samples collected before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, a major social disruption that intensified intergroup tensions. Method This study included two independent undergraduate student samples (total n = 1034) collected before (n = 578) and during the COVID-19 pandemic (n = 456). Psychometric network analysis estimated connections between self-reported levels of self-compassion, empathy, and SDO, network centrality indices, and network stability, and compared the pre- and during COVID networks. Results Within both samples, SDO had the strongest connection to empathy, which was in turn connected to the self-compassion sub-network. Empathic concern showed a stronger relationship to SDO than perspective-taking. Findings from this study advance the notion that empathy may be a critical part of SDO theory building. Invariance analysis confirmed that network structure, global strength, and strength and expected influence of the individual variables remained notably similar despite a major social disruption due to COVID-19. Conclusions Empathy is a critical link between self-compassion and social dominance orientation. The preference for social equality is related to intrapersonal and interpersonal traits, such as self-compassion and empathy. Preregistration This study is not preregistered.