Manifestations of Empathy in Software Engineering: How, Why, and When It Matters

TL;DR

This paper investigates how empathy manifests, what motivates it, and its impact in software engineering through interviews and surveys, providing insights and practical guidance for integrating empathy into SE practices.

Contribution

It offers a comprehensive analysis of empathy in SE, including its expressions, drivers, influencing factors, and practical implications based on empirical data.

Findings

Empathy manifests in various ways during SE activities.

Motivations for empathy include collaboration and understanding.

Factors influencing empathy include team dynamics and organizational culture.

Abstract

Empathy plays a crucial role in software engineering (SE), influencing collaboration, communication, and decision-making. While prior research has highlighted the importance of empathy in SE, there is limited understanding of how empathy manifests in SE practice, what motivates SE practitioners to demonstrate empathy, and the factors that influence empathy in SE work. Our study explores these aspects through 22 interviews and a large scale survey with 116 software practitioners. Our findings provide insights into the expression of empathy in SE, the drivers behind empathetic practices, SE activities where empathy is perceived as useful or not, and the other factors that influence empathy. In addition, we offer practical implications for SE practitioners and researchers, offering a deeper understanding of how to effectively integrate empathy into SE processes.