Empathic people have more friends: Empathic abilities predict social network size and position in social network predicts empathic efforts

The social brain hypothesis explains the evolution and function of social cognitive abilities in terms of maintaining extensive social relationships. To extend those findings we explored the role that social emotional abilities play in human sociality, and investigated how empathic abilities shape the social network. In line with the social brain hypothesis the findings show that dispositional empathic abilities (IRI), and empathic concern specifically, predict how many close relationships people maintain. Also, the study found that emphatic abilities are unevenly distributed in people’s social network, with more empathy exercised in the inner network layers with closer relationships. The findings further demonstrate empathy’s social function and highlight the importance of understanding empathy in terms of its distribution between social