Dealing With the COVID-19 Pandemic : How Defense Strategies Relate to Empathic Reactions During Lockdowns

The COVID-19 pandemic with its substantial changes to social life affects social cognitions, which are important for solidarity during a global crisis. We investigated how distal defense strategies for dealing with threat, perceived threat, and contact experiences relate to people’s empathic reactions during lockdowns in two countries. In three studies ( N = 1,332), we found that more experienced threat is associated with higher personal distress. In Germany, but not in the United Kingdom, people who applied social defenses reported more empathic concern. Additionally, general positive contact experiences related positively to empathic concern and perspective taking. These other-directed empathic reactions correlated highly with solidarity with others across all studies. The findings indicate that people’s empathy changes with their social experiences during this global crisis.