“Today, I cared about how a classmate felt”: Fluctuations in empathy are linked to daily mood in adolescence

According to dynamic, relational developmental systems-based theoretical perspectives, empathy is fundamental to understanding fluctuations in adaptive functioning. Most studies measuring empathy focus on group-based statistics, assuming short-term stability and developmental equivalence across people in empathy. The present research examined person-specific short-term fluctuations in empathy and their potential relations with well-being, indexed by mood and sleep. Collecting approximately 1260 observations nested in 35 adolescents (M age = 15.91, SD = 1.69) across 16 to 18 weeks, dynamic structural equation modeling identified person-specific fluctuations in empathic concern and perspective taking. On average, fluctuations in empathy were associated with daily mood but not daily sleep. However, the relations between empathy, mood and sleep differed across participants, and age moderated the within-person relation between empathic concern and sleep. The results contribute to our understanding of person-specificity in empathy variability and highlight that adolescents' capacity for empathy may vary across time and places.