Empathy
Definition
Adam Smith, 1790: “the ability to understand another's perspective and to have a visceral or emotional reaction”
Types
Affective (emotional) empathy is feeling another’s emotions
Cognitive empathy is understanding another’s perspective
Neurobiology
Ten brain parts
Affective empathy centered in the insular cortex
Cognitive empathy centered in the cingulate cortex and adjacent prefrontal cortex
Starts very young
Babies crying together in hospital nursery
Toddlers comfort a crying baby
Absence causes problems
Psychopaths and bullies have cognitive empathy but lack affective empathy for others
Borderline personalities have active affective empathy but lack cognitive empathy
Non-human Species
Rats
Free albino rat in pen with albino cagemate trapped in a tube and chocolate chips trapped in a different tube. Free rat typically ignores the chips, figures out how to open the tube door to release the cagemate, then opens the door to the chocolate chip tube and shares chips with cagemate.
Same result even if trapped albino rat is a complete stranger.
Replace albino trapped rat with a black-hooded stranger; most of the time free albino rat ignores him. And eats the chips.
House albino rat with a black-hooded rat for 2 weeks, then rehouse with only albinos. Repeat experiment. Free albino rat will now ignore chips and free the trapped, black-hooded stranger.
Albino baby rat raised in segregated black-hooded rat family. Ignores albino stranger trapped in tube.
Bonobos and Chimpanzees
Bonobos raised by their own mothers were more likely than orphaned bonobos to comfort others.
Chimps and bonobos – blue token gets holder a treat, red token gets holder and friend a treat. Once the chimps and bonobos understand the system, they prefer red tokens.
Elderly, arthritic chimp wants to join others on climbing frame. Younger females come down and push her up to the frame by her rump. Water fountain is long walk away, so they bring her water in their mouths.
Advantages of empathy
Vital first step toward compassionate action, fairness and altruism
Basis of morality/do unto others/golden rule
Supports conflict resolution
Allows vital connection with others
Boosts relationship satisfaction
Decreases sick days (when shown by managers)
Improves patient health (when shown by doctors)
question: is religion necessary for ethical behavior?
Limitations of empathy: Personal
It is exhausting
Work that demands high empathy – caregiving, caring professions, good managers – easily leads to burn out.
The more is expended in towards one person or cause, the less is available towards another person or cause.
Feeling too much of a partner’s pain can lead to an unhealthy imbalance of what is given and what is taken.
Common in abusive relationships
Feeling deep empathy for another’s pain can be distressing and paralyzing, leading to avoidance.
Physician fails to talk openly with dying patient
Parent fails to set limits on child
Limitations of empathy: societal
It is far easier to be empathetic with one’s inner circle, and progressively more difficult as the circle widens. Inner circle may be delineated by family, work group, religion, race, sexual orientation, socioeconomic class, geography, disease. See rat studies.
Empathy for those within one’s immediate circle frequently conflicts with justice for all.
Save the Children’s “Still the Most Shocking Second a Day” video portrays a British child in order to help Anglo-Saxon people overcome tendency to ignore Syrian children.
1000 children 5 – 12 years old, US, Canada, Joran, Turkey, South Africa, China played “Dictator Game” in which they could anonymously share favorite stickers with other children. Religious upbringing negatively correlated with sharing.
Wealth is inversely correlated with empathy and empathy motivated behaviors.
Wealthiest 20% of Americans donate 1.3% of their income, the poorest 20% donate 3.2% of their income.
Worse if the wealthiest live in homogeneously affluent areas.
Drivers of luxury cars much more likely to cut off pedestrians at crosswalk than drivers of lower status cars.
The empathy people feel towards their inside group reduces their ability to confront lapses of ethical judgement within that group.
People are more likely to cheat, lie, or steal to benefit people with whom they empathize
People resist blowing the whistle on their inside group
Empathy with one’s inner circle facilitates hostility towards outsiders. Being empathetic with outsiders is rarely automatic and may be seen by insiders as treasonous.
Merely sitting in a room with a friend significantly increased people’s willingness to torture and dehumanize.
Palestinian professor who took students to Auschwitz to help them empathize with Israelis was severely criticized and lost his job.
The Israeli government bans schools from teaching about or commemorating Nakba.
Enhancing healthy Empathy
Read literary fiction (genre fiction doesn’t work)
Practice active listening. Paraphrase what you think the speaker just said, without judgment or approval, while remaining open to correction.
Tweak the golden rule; treat others as they would like to be treated. Then ask if you got it right.
If you don’t understand why a person behaves in a certain way, try to imagine yourself in their place until you spot the benefit of their actions. Then ask if you got it right. Once you have it right, you can say – and feel – “I understand now”. It doesn’t mean you approve.
Identify the fears you have in common with your enemy. Unless your enemy is a psychopath or borderline personality, consider sharing your fears with him or her.
Practice mindfulness meditation. It reduces the empathic distress that comes from facing another’s pain, in favor of enhancing compassionate affiliation.
Take a Palestinian to Auschwitz, and commemorate Nakba with an Israeli.
Play with a rat of a different color.