Paths to Empathy: Heterogeneous Effects of Reading Personal Stories Online

Every day people share personal stories online, reaching millions of users around the world through blogs, social media and news websites. Why are some of these storiesmore attractive to readers than others? What features of thesepersonal narratives make readers empathize with the storyteller? Do the readers' personal characteristics and experiences play arole in feeling connection to the story they read? Experimentalstudies in psychology show that there are several factors thatincrease empathy in the aggregate, but there is a need for deeperunderstanding of empathetic feelings at the individual level ofstoryteller, story, and reader. Here, we present the design andanalysis of a survey that studied the impact of story featuresand reader predispositions and perceptions on the empathy theyfeel when reading online stories. We use causal trees to find theindividual-level causal factors for empathy and to understand theheterogeneity in the treatment effects. One of our main findingsis that empathy is contextual and, while reader personality playsa significant role in evoking empathy, the mood of the readerprior to reading the story and linguistic story features have animpact as well. The results of our analyses can be used to helppeople create content that others care about and to help themcommunicate more effectively.