Disciplining empathy in frontline encounters: learning to handle emotion norms in practice

Empathy is essential for many frontline professionals, with public administration and management research often focusing on its positive aspects. However, this idealization can blind us to the potential ‘dark side’ of how empathy works. We integrate research on empathy and emotion work to introduce the concept of empathy work to explore the adverse effects of empathy. Presenting a longitudinal study with Danish police trainees, we show that while they expect empathy to guide fair and responsive discretion, they begin to discipline empathy in practice to protect their professional identity. We identify three intersubjective processes that shape their disciplining of empathy: blinding-, eroding-, and conflicted empathy. Based on these findings, we develop a model of disciplined empathy and offer a more nuanced understanding of empathy in public service delivery, highlighting its emotional complexity and potential adverse effects for professionals and their encounters with citizens.