Ignoring others for your phone? Research links phubbing to lower empathy

A study conducted in Israel suggests that when people are ready to engage in phubbing, they experience a slight reduction in empathy. When empathy declines, individuals become somewhat less willing to act prosocially. The paper was published in Psychological Reports.

The term “phubbing” is a blend of “phone” and “snubbing.” It describes the act of ignoring people in social situations by focusing on a smartphone instead. Phubbing commonly occurs during conversations, meals, or gatherings. Individuals who engage in phubbing are physically present in social settings but are not fully mentally engaged, as their attention is split between their smartphone and live interactions. This behavior can make others feel unimportant or excluded.

In this way, phubbing can harm relationships by reducing face-to-face communication and emotional connection. Studies suggest that phubbing is linked to lower relationship satisfaction and increased feelings of loneliness. It can also negatively impact mental health by reinforcing social isolation and diminishing meaningful interactions.

The rise of social media and smartphone addiction has made phubbing increasingly common in everyday life. In a 2015 survey, 90% of respondents reported using their phones while engaging with others socially, while 86% reported observing others doing the same.

Study authors Tomer Schmidt-Barad and Lily Chernyak-Hai sought to explore the relationships between proneness to phubbing, empathy, and prosociality. They were also interested in whether self-control might play a role in the connection between phubbing and prosociality. Prosociality refers to the tendency to engage in behaviors that benefit others, such as helping, sharing, or cooperating.

The researchers conducted two studies. The first was an online survey designed to examine the relationship between trait phubbing—i.e., the habitual tendency to engage in phubbing—and prosociality. The study included 220 adult English speakers recruited via Prolific, with an average age of 33 years. Participants completed assessments of phubbing habits (the Generic Scale of Phubbing), empathy (the Measure of State Empathy Scale), prosociality (the Prosocial Behavior Intentions Scale), and self-control (the Brief Trait Self-Control Scale).

The second study was an experiment involving 362 Hebrew-speaking participants, 199 of whom were female. Their average age was 47 years. Participants completed a phubbing priming task and were divided into two groups. One group was asked to recall an instance where they used their phone while engaged in a face-to-face interaction. The other group was asked to recall a situation where they refrained from using their phone during a face-to-face interaction. The goal of these tasks was to prime participants into a state of either high or low personal power, making them more or less likely to engage in phubbing throughout the rest of the study. The researchers conducted a pilot study to verify that this manipulation was effective, and the results confirmed that it was.

After the priming task, participants completed an online survey containing the same assessments of prosociality, empathy, and self-control used in the first study.

The results of the first study showed that individuals more prone to phubbing tended to have slightly lower self-control and prosocial intentions. However, phubbing was not associated with empathy. The researchers tested a statistical model suggesting that phubbing leads to lower self-control, which, in turn, leads to lower empathy. According to this model, lower empathy results in reduced prosociality. The findings supported the possibility of such a relationship between these psychological characteristics.

The results of the second study showed that individuals who recalled a situation in which they had phubbed someone reported feeling slightly less empathy on average than those who recalled a situation in which they had refrained from using their phone. Empathy was positively associated with greater self-control and higher prosociality.

The researchers also tested a statistical model proposing that engaging in phubbing leads to reduced empathy, which, in turn, results in fewer prosocial behavioral intentions. The results supported the plausibility of this relationship.

“Our results offer preliminary evidence that phubbing has a causal negative impact on pro-social intentions, and that empathy consistently mediates this effect. Our results also suggest a differential effect to habitual versus momentary phubbing, suggesting that the former predicts deficits in self-control, while the latter does not,” the study authors concluded.

The study contributes to the scientific understanding of the psychological underpinnings of phubbing. However, it is important to note that neither of the two studies was based on observations of actual phubbing behaviors. Additionally, the associations between phubbing assessments and the other psychological characteristics were all relatively weak.

The paper, “Phubbing Makes the Heart Grow Callous: Effects of Phubbing on Pro-social Behavioral Intentions, Empathy and Self-Control,” was authored by Tomer Schmidt-Barad and Lily Chernyak-Hai.