Disciplining Empathy in Frontline Encounters: Learning to Handle Emotion Norms in Practice

Empathy is considered essential in the work of many frontline professionals where it is a critical ingredient in their efforts to help other people. Frontline professionals use their empathy to accomplish emotion work and to make fair decisions, enhancing citizen justice and public service. Empathy therefore has a positive reputation in public administration literature. Because most existing research focuses primarily on the desirable nature of empathy, this idealization of empathy can blind us to the potential ‘dark side’ of empathy. In this paper, we provide insight into the under-explored realities of how empathy works in practice by examining how early-stage frontline professionals handle empathy work and what implications this have for their relationships with those they serve. Drawing on a longitudinal interview study with 22 Danish police trainees, we show that trainees enter the police profession expecting to use their empathy to exercise discretion and respond effectively to citizens’ needs. However, during practical work experience they begin to discipline their empathy to protect their professional identity. We find three intersubjective processes that influence the disciplining of empathy: blinding-, eroding-, and conflicted empathy. Our contribution suggests a more nuanced understanding of empathy in public administration.