Looking Beyond the In-Group: Attentional Allocation as a Modifiable Mechanism for Enhancing Intergroup Empathy

Empathy plays a crucial role in fostering prosocial behaviour. However, empathic processesare influenced by in-group bias, such that individuals tend to empathise more with their in-group members. This study aims to test if training individuals to look longer at out-groupfaces can help reduce in-group bias in empathy by improving attention to out-groupmembers' suffering. Four lab-based experiments (N = 240) assessed the training's impact onvisual attention, implicit bias, and empathic selection. Gaze training successfully increasedattentional focus on out-group members' pain expression and reduced implicit racial bias.Furthermore, pupil dilation—a marker of emotional engagement—toward out-group painincreased post-training. No significant changes occurred in explicit or motivational empathicchoices. The findings suggest that attentional allocation is a crucial early-stage mechanism inempathy that can be modified through gaze-training. However, to achieve broader empathicoutcomes may require additional interventions targeting motivational components ofempathy.