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You can't fake empathy unless you have the skill of empathy in the first place. Otherwise your fake empathy will be seen through and won't be useful.
by meric 11y ago
You can't fake empathy unless you have the skill of empathy in the first place. Otherwise your fake empathy will be seen through and won't be useful.
- TeMPOraL 11y agoI agree. Judging by my personal experiences, I think "faking empathy" is really mostly about compartmentalization - and so it actually is real empathy, but only applied when you chose to. Real skill of empathy is a prerequisite here.
- danieltillett 11y agoI am not too sure about this. I have met quite a few people in my life with zero real empathy, but boy can they fake it.
- yummyfajitas 11y agoIt might be useful to distinguish two concepts, which I think are being conflated here: Cognitive empathy: I can accurately predict the feelings/experiences of another person. This can't be "faked" - if your predictions are accurate, you have it. Affective empathy: I experience similar feelings to another party (perhaps weakened) as a result of observing them experiencing it. This can be faked, and it can also cause problems for the person who has it. Affective empathy seems like the thing which you describe as causing problems, while cognitive empathy seems like the thing which is useful for building better products.
- danieltillett 11y agoThis is quite a good split between the rather ambitious concepts of empathy, but I rather feel that "real" empathy is more than just cognitive empathy. If the other person's hurt does not hurt you then it is being faked. One thing that can always make me feel real empathy with a complete stranger is sunburn. I am not sure why this is (I don't feel the same way about broken bones for example despite having had them myself), but everytime I see someone badly sunburnt I really feel it as though it was me that was burnt.