This paper examines linkages between empathy and salaries of recent college graduates. While it has been suggested that greater empathy enhances performance because empathic individuals work well with others and are good leaders, it is also possible that they will be less productive due to lower motivation to compete for pecuniary rewards or because they are considered to be too accommodating. Also, more empathic individuals may choose occupations that are more socially oriented and less well paid. We find a large, significant negative relationship between empathy and earnings for both men and women. While we cannot pinpoint the cause for this strong correlation or reach conclusions about causation, we find that empathic individuals choose college majors and sectors of employment that pay less. However, gender, major, and sector together do not account for the full negative relationship between empathy and salaries. While it seems likely that preferences lead more empathic people to choose lower paying occupations, we cannot eliminate the possibility that greater empathy has a negative effect on productivity.

中文翻译：

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同理心支付吗？应届大学毕业生的同理心和薪水的证据

本文研究了同理心与应届大学毕业生的工资之间的联系。虽然有人建议，因为有同理心的人与他人合作得很好并且是优秀的领导者，所以更大的同理心可以提高绩效，但也有可能由于竞争金钱奖励的动机较低或因为他们被认为过于随和而导致他们的工作效率较低. 此外，更有同理心的人可能会选择更注重社会和报酬较低的职业。我们发现，男性和女性的同理心与收入之间存在巨大而显着的负相关。虽然我们无法确定这种强相关性的原因或得出因果关系的结论，但我们发现有同理心的人会选择薪酬较低的大学专业和就业部门。然而，性别、专业、和部门加在一起并不能解释同理心和薪水之间的完全负相关关系。虽然偏好似乎可能导致更多有同理心的人选择薪水较低的职业，但我们无法消除更大的同理心对生产力产生负面影响的可能性。