The intergroup empathy bias among incoming medical students

Background: Previous studies revealed a significant empathy decline over time among medical students. Scientific literature also supports the influence of group belonging on the empathy expression. Objective: Through this study, we aimed to demonstrate whether group belonging (peers or patients) significantly influences empathy levels before students undertake their education in medicine. Design: A total of 194 incoming medical students participated in our study. All participants filled-in the Interpersonal Reactivity Index under three primed situations (a general; a peers’ one; a patients’ one) at three different points in time during a session of information. Results: Analyses revealed significant main effects of: gender; situations; and empathy dimensions. We also obtained a significant interaction effect between dimensions and situations. Conclusions: We showed that empathy levels were modulated by group belonging (25% of the variance was explained by group belonging). Post hoc analyses showed that the differences between the peers’ and patients’ situations tend to reveal an appropriate professional attitude with regard to patients because they displayed: (1) lower scores on personal distress and fantasy; (2) higher scores on perspective taking (as for peers); (3) stable scores on empathic concern in peers’ and patients’ situations. However, integrating empathy lessons in the educational program of medical students remains a priority. In a long-term perspective, these findings suggest an investigation of the impacts of group belonging on the evolution of students’ empathy scores through their medicine studies.