A team of Stanford researchers has identified another possible barrier to young people feeling connected to those around them: They don’t believe other people care. But according to the data, that’s just not true.

A new paper published Oct. 16 in Nature Human Behavior highlights findings from several studies of how perceptions of others’ empathy – defined as “the ability to share, understand, and care about others’ experiences” of others – influences feelings of social connectedness.

In a survey of more than 5,000 Stanford undergraduates, students who perceived their peers as more empathic reported better psychological well-being and more friends. But researchers uncovered an “empathy perception gap” in which students consistently viewed their peers as less empathic and caring than those other students saw themselves.

“Stanford students are overwhelmingly friendly,” said Rui Pei, a postdoctoral scholar in the Stanford Social Neuroscience Laboratory and lead author of the paper. “At the same time, we find students are underestimating how willing their peers are to make new friends and help each other out.”

The studies were conducted through the Stanford Community Project, an initiative founded in 2018 by psychology Professor Jamil Zaki, director of the Stanford Social Neuroscience Lab, in collaboration with communication Assistant Professor Gabriella Harari and economics Professor Matthew Jackson. The project, which is supported by the vice provosts for undergraduate education and student affairs, assesses well-being and social connection among Stanford undergraduates, with the aim of helping students thrive.

Correcting the misperception

Perceiving others as unfriendly may lead students to withdraw, researchers said, creating a negative cycle that over time could increase feelings of loneliness and isolation.

Pei and her co-authors found that correcting students’ misperceptions about how much their peers care disrupted the cycle and helped them connect with one another.

One successful intervention involved a poster campaign in residence halls, using real statistics based on data gathered during the previous quarter. 

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The simple messages made a big impact. Students living in the residence halls where the posters were displayed viewed their peers as more empathic than students in a control group, who did not regularly see the messaging campaign. Participants in the experimental dorms also reported initiating more social interactions with uncertain outcomes – what the psychologists called “social risk behaviors” – such as striking up a conversation with a classmate they didn’t know or sharing their struggles with another student.

Another successful intervention was a series of prompts delivered through a phone app. Students received practical suggestions for how they might connect with their peers, such as complimenting a stranger or reaching out to a friend they hadn’t spoken to in a while.

Those who received the prompts were more likely to perceive their peers as caring, and after three weeks, they were nearly 90% more likely to step outside their comfort zones and reach out to others.

Taken together, Pei said, these findings emphasize the importance of helping students recognize the social support that surrounds them.

“The next time a student hesitates over whether to reach out to a new person or an old friend, I hope they think about this study and it nudges them towards taking that social risk,” Pei said. “There's a campus full of students wanting to make friends.”

Pei hopes to expand on these findings and deliver interventions to a wider population.

“This points to a really simple and scalable way that could be incorporated into institutional programs,” Pei said.

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