Surprisingly, even given all these considerations in favor of finding an effect, there isn’t much of one. There have been hundreds of studies, with children and adults, and overall the results are: meh. Some studies find some small relationship; others find none or yield uncertain and mixed findings. There are meta-analyses that put together studies to see what the big picture is, and some of these come to the conclusion that there is no effect of empathy and others that there is one, but it’s weak and hard to find.
