How Empathic Are War Veterans? An Examination of the Psychological Impacts of Combat Exposure

How empathic are battle-experienced war veterans and demobilized ex-combatants? Individuals who have participated in war-related violence tend to show an increased risk of mental health problems, which makes their readaptation to postconflict civilian life much more difficult. This study is the first systematic attempt to evaluate whether war experiences are potentially related to empathic deficit among veterans. Based on a sample of 624 demobilized ex-guerrillas and ex-paramilitaries from the Colombian armed conflict, we identify 3 clearly distinct empathic profiles, suggesting that, while lack of empathy is not generalized among ex-combatants, there is an important subgroup of veterans who present such a dispositional profile. Identification of this critical subgroup will be crucial to policies aimed at assisting postconflict reintegration efforts. Public Significance Statement Empathy is a social dimension that plays a crucial role in the process of understanding other people's misfortunes, as well as in the generation of concern feelings toward counterparts. Subjects with limited levels of empathy tend to show atypical social behavior such as aggression. We suggest that the effect of exposure to war experiences has an impact on the empathic profiles of former combatants. Our study shows that ex-combatants' abilities to evaluate feelings of displeasure, associated with observing or hearing stories of others in unfortunate experiences, show low scorings in around 70% of the sample. These results suggest a potential causal relation between combat exposure and diminishing empathic levels, which demands a systematic evaluation in further studies.