Summary: A new study shows that people rate empathic responses as more supportive and emotionally satisfying when they believe they come from a human—even if the same response is AI-generated. Across nine experiments with over 6,000 participants, responses labeled as human were consistently seen as more genuine, especially when they involved emotional sharing and care.
Participants were even willing to wait longer for a human reply rather than receive an instant message from an AI. These findings suggest that perceived authenticity plays a crucial role in how empathy is received and highlight the emotional limitations of AI in sensitive settings.
Key Facts:
- Same Words, Different Impact: Identical messages were rated as more empathic when thought to be from a human.
- Authenticity Matters: Belief in human authorship enhanced emotional satisfaction and perceived sincerity.
- Emotional Trade-Off: People prefer slower human empathy over fast but emotionally flat AI responses.
Source: Hebrew University of Jerusalem
A new international study led by Prof Anat Perry from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and her PhD student – Matan Rubin, in collaboration with Prof. Amit Goldenberg researchers from Harvard University and Prof. Desmond C. Ong from the University of Texas, finds that people place greater emotional value on empathy they believe comes from humans—even when the exact same response is generated by artificial intelligence.
Published in Nature Human Behaviour, the study involved over 6,000 participants across nine experiments.
The researchers tested whether people perceived empathy differently depending on whether it was labeled as coming from a human or from an AI chatbot. In all cases, the responses were crafted by large language models (LLMs), yet participants consistently rated the “human” responses as more empathic, more supportive, and more emotionally satisfying than the identical “AI” responses.
“We’re entering an age where AI can produce responses that look and sound empathic,” said Prof. Perry.
“But this research shows that even if AI can simulate empathy, people still prefer to feel that another human truly understands, feels with them, and cares.”
The preference was especially strong for responses that emphasized emotional sharing and genuine care—the affective and motivational components of empathy—rather than just cognitive understanding. In fact, participants were even willing to wait days or weeks to receive a response from a human rather than get an immediate reply from a chatbot.
Interestingly, when participants believed an AI may have helped generate or edit a response they thought was from a human, their positive feelings diminished significantly.
This suggests that perceived authenticity—believing that someone genuinely invested time and emotional effort—plays a critical role in how we experience empathy.
“In today’s world, it’s becoming second nature to run our emails or messages through AI,” said Prof. Perry.
“But our findings suggest a hidden cost: the more we rely on AI, the more our words risk feeling hollow. As people begin to assume that every message is AI-generated, the perceived sincerity, and with it, the emotional connection, may begin to disappear.”
While AI shows promise for use in education, healthcare, and mental health settings, the study highlights its limitations.
“AI may help scale support systems,” Perry explains, “but in moments that require deep emotional connection, people still want the human touch.”
The study offers key insights into the psychology of empathy and raises timely questions about how society will integrate emotionally intelligent AI into our daily lives.
About this AI and empathy research news
Author: Danae Marx
Source: Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Contact: Danae Marx – Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Image: The image is credited to Neuroscience News
Original Research: Closed access.
“Comparing the Value of Perceived Human versus AI-Generated Empathy” by Anat Perry et al. Nature Human Behavior
Abstract
Comparing the Value of Perceived Human versus AI-Generated Empathy
Artificial intelligence (AI) and specifically large language models demonstrate remarkable social–emotional abilities, which may improve human–AI interactions and AI’s emotional support capabilities.
However, it remains unclear whether empathy, encompassing understanding, ‘feeling with’ and caring, is perceived differently when attributed to AI versus humans.
We conducted nine studies (n = 6,282) where AI-generated empathic responses to participants’ emotional situations were labelled as provided by either humans or AI.
Human-attributed responses were rated as more empathic and supportive, and elicited more positive and fewer negative emotions, than AI-attributed ones.
Moreover, participants’ own uninstructed belief that AI had aided the human-attributed responses reduced perceived empathy and support.
These effects were replicated across varying response lengths, delays, iterations and large language models and were primarily driven by responses emphasizing emotional sharing and care.
Additionally, people consistently chose human interaction over AI when seeking emotional engagement.
These findings advance our general understanding of empathy, and specifically human–AI empathic interactions.
