Description: What causes some people to stand in solidarity with those from other races, religions, or nationalities, even when that solidarity does not seem to benefit the individual or their group? Seeing Us in Them examines outgroup empathy as a powerful predisposition in politics that pushes individuals to see past social divisions and work together in complex, multicultural societies. It also reveals racial/ethnic intergroup differences in this predisposition, rooted in early patterns of socialization and collective memory. Outgroup empathy explains why African Americans vehemently oppose the border wall and profiling of Arabs, why Latinos are welcoming of Syrian refugees and support humanitarian assistance, why some white Americans march in support of Black Lives Matter through a pandemic, and even why many British citizens oppose Brexit. Outgroup empathy is not naïve; rather it is a rational and necessary force that helps build trust and maintain stable democratic norms of compromise and reciprocity.
Brief description: Cigdem V. Sirin is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Texas at El Paso. Her research interests center on examining the microfoundations of interstate and intrastate conflict processes and outcomes.
Review Quotes: 'In Seeing Us in Them, Sirin, Valentino, and Villalobos develop a theory of group empathy-the ability and motivation to care about members of outgroups. The authors carefully construct and test a new measure of the central concept, the Group Empathy Index, which consists of cognitive and affective elements (extant), catalyzed by the motivation to care (novel). They then examine the new concept in seven nationally representative studies as well as a number of smaller studies, employing survey experiments on the topics of discrimination in airport security, maltreatment in immigrant detention, and humanitarian intervention against repressive authoritarian governments. The experiments are carefully carried out and demonstrate that group empathy shapes how people think about policies that might help outgroup members in distress. Importantly, while group empathy is a key driver of policy attitudes across the board, members of minority groups are substantially more likely to extend it.' 2022 Experimental Political Science Section Best Book Award Committee, American Political Science Association