Firefighters and Empathy: Does It Hurt to Care Too Much?

Abstract

Firefighters (N = 186) from two urban centers completed a set of questionnaires measuring empathy, traumatic stress, mental distress, aggression, world assumptions, and personality. Response rate was 81.5%. Both traumatic stress and mental distress were associated with higher use of emotional empathy. Emotional empathy was also related to anger, aggression, and sense of self-worth, as well as worldviews that included benevolence and meaningfulness. Of the big five personality traits, only neuroticism was associated with emotional empathy. Emotional empathy appears to be a substantial contributor to increased traumatic and general mental distress in firefighters.