Perspective-Taking or Feeling? The Role of Cognitive and Affective Empathy for Adolescents’ Social Entrepreneurial Intentions

Given the world’s current challenges, including poverty, health care, and migration, adolescents will most likely play a critical part in the development of social entrepreneurial solutions that affect their own futures. Nonetheless, previous research mostly overlooks adolescents as prospective founders. This paper analyses how cognitive and affective empathy can affect adolescents’ intention to create a social enterprise. Data from 343 adolescents show that respondents are more prone to start a social venture if they have a high level of cognitive empathy. Affective empathy, however, plays a minor role in this regard. This indicates that perspective-taking abilities (i.e. cognitive empathy) are advantageous for the formation of social entrepreneurial intentions in adolescence, while emotional responses (i.e. affective empathy) may be less meaningful. We discuss implications for future research, policy making, and importantly, education to identify and support future social entrepreneurs at an early age.