Unpacking two sides of empathy in friendships: Understanding and feeling understood as resources for sociocultural adaptation and psychological well-being

Cross-group friendships can help young immigrants and refugees adapt within the receiving culture. But how can these friendships facilitate sociocultural adaptation and psychological well-being? Prior research has investigated the beneficial role of showing empathy (perceived understanding), and – less intensely studied – receiving empathy (feeling understood) in intergroup relations. Drawing on the cultural learning framework, adapting to a new context requires the integration of immigrants’ heritage culture and the receiving culture during everyday interactions. Following this interactive approach, we exploratively investigated the two sides of empathy in cross-group friendships in two samples of young adult (18–38 years) refugees ( n S1 = 114, n S2 = 119), other immigrants ( n S2 = 117), and non-immigrant peers (n S2 = 256) in Germany. We expected to find a positive association between the number of cross-group friendships and sociocultural adaptation, and for the overall number of friendships on psychological well-being. We hypothesised to find an indirect effect via perceived understanding and feeling understood within friendships on the two outcomes. In line with our expectation, there was a significant positive association between intergroup friendship and sociocultural adaptation in both samples. We found small yet significant indirect effects via perceived understanding in cross-group friendships on sociocultural adaptation in Sample 1, and via feeling understood in Sample 2. We further detected a positive link between feeling understood in friendships and psychological well-being in Sample 2. Our findings highlight the importance of considering reciprocity within cross-group friendships, especially within acculturation frameworks. We discuss ways to further develop methodology in this direction.