11 ms·

What is empathy?

112 points by Vigier 9y ago

ThomPete 9y ago
This is an ongoing discussion I have with many people. There is a weird idea that empathy is something that makes you good. In reality what it is is neither good nor bad. It's the ability to put yourself in the emotional state of someone else to understand things not only from their rational point of view but from the point of view of them as humans with both irrational (emotional) and rational perspectives. It can be used for good or bad not just good and it's doesn't mean that just because I can put myself in their position I agree with their pov (which many people will claim i.e. "you have no empathy")
- awat 9y ago
  This is a really good point. Empathy can be applied to judging moral crimes such as stealing food becuase you are starving. Although anctedotally I find that people who come from the exact background/situation tend to have less empathy even though they understand the context more.
  - slavik81 9y ago
    Your experience seems to match the research. People who faced a challenge and succeeded in overcoming it tended to judge people who failed more harshly, but tended to judge people who succeeded more favourably. https://hbr.org/2015/10/its-harder-to-empathize-with-people-if-youve-been-in-their-shoes https://hbr.org/2015/10/its-harder-to-empathize-with-people-...
    - amag 9y ago
      That makes sense because of the "if I did it, you should be able to"-fallacy that fails to take into account that people are different, even coming from identical backgrounds.
- slx26 9y ago
  I think in general we take the "understanding" part in empathy too lightly. I would say we use "empathy" a lot when we are actually talking about compassion. Since the inner experience is never completely shareable, it's hard to talk about real understanding. Not trying to get philosophical here, we will probably agree that a reasonable level of understanding is both possible and sufficient. But I feel like too often there's way more "rationalization" than actual understanding, and we make the (in my opinion) mistake of calling that "empathy". With this in mind, I would say empathy is always socially positive. If we were talking about compassion, I would share more your opinion, but I'd still say it's positive as long as we do not completely swap it for empathy.
- whytaka 9y ago
  The difference is between empathy and compassion. Just because I understand doesn't mean I care.
  - sjclemmy 9y ago
    And the opposite is true; I can care without understanding.
- projektir 9y ago
  > There is a weird idea that empathy is something that makes you good. It's a pretty heavy prerequisite. A lot of bad things can be traced to people not understanding other people, or refusing to understand them (dehumanization). It's sufficiently fundamental and a common problem that I'm not sure how big the cohort of emphatic-but-manipulative people is. It certainly exists, but there are other issues mixed in there, such as moral detachment (i.e., people who decided they're not interested in being good). I believe pretty much all of your typical -isms (sexism, racism, homophobia) are rooted in lack of empathy towards groups that one is physically unable to be part of. Most people don't have active empathy ability (i.e., modeling people not like them), they just empathize with their own experience only. That's why your otherwise normal people can end up with very problematic beliefs. Empathy also requires you to understand the world in a more complete way, which also tends to break down quite a range of rationalizations, and rationalizations can lead to a lot of evil, as well. So while you're technically right that empathy is merely a tool, it's a very major tool, and I've found people with relationship problems who are telling me they have no empathy, don't know how to do it, don't want to do it, are pretty much a dead end. If I had a button that could suddenly make lots of people more empathetic, I would absolutely press it and be convinced that it'd make the world a much, much better place.
  - ThomPete 9y ago
    The problem with your belief is that you are assuming that it's easy to define sexism, racism, homophobia. The reality is that what a lot of people think are ex one of those three just aren't. Very few people are any of those things in any meaningful way. In fact I would claim that your belief is exactly part of the problem in that you confuse empathy with some ethical/moral idea and end up thinking that you have the right interpretation and can judge whether someone is racist, sexist etc.
    - ben_w 9y ago
      It’s very easy to define sexism, racism, homophobia. I think the thing which makes it hard to spot is that we normally treat questions as boolean yes-or-no things. For example, a police department which is 10% more likely to let one race off with warnings than another race is racist (and that’s not a moral judgement: if warnings are effective everyone should get them), but it’s also an example deliberately chosen to be as far as possible from racially motivated genocide as I could manage without the risk of people denying it was racism. It’s a spectrum. How much do you empathise with $person, not do you.
- baddox 9y ago
  I think when most people talk about empathy as a good attribute, what they really mean is the capacity for empathy.
  - chiefalchemist 9y ago
    I think what they real mean is to have empathy, and uae it for good. I can put myself in your shoes...and then use that against you. Empathy doesn't promote nor prevent that.
    - jm__87 9y ago
      I think in most people it would, though? Imagine if you were harming someone and you're imagining what they would feel like as you're doing the harming, you're going to feel badly. Not harming someone will help you avoid these negative feelings.
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Puer 9y ago
Empathy isn't the ability to say "I understand." Empathy is admitting that, sometimes, you don't understand, but you'll still try and be appropriately supportive.
- slx26 9y ago
  I think that should have been more discussed in the article. What is empathy? I'd say empathy involves understanding ("I know how you feel"), and I would call what you talk about "compassion" or goodwill/being supportive/caring for someone ("I can't say I know how it's like to be in your situation, but I can see you are suffering and I'll be there for you")
- slavik81 9y ago
  You state a position, but don't present any argument to support it. You seem to contradict the dictionary definition[1], so what are you basing your definition on? Why is that a better definition and how does that relate to the research in this article? [1] "the ability to understand and share the feelings of another"
  - Puer 9y ago
    I don't agree with the notion that you need to "understand" to be empathetic. If a friend tells me that they're going through a rough time I feel like it's disingenuous for me to tell them that I understand their situation, even if I myself have been through difficult periods. I can't and don't feel like I should give the impression I can understand the nuance of their situation. I've found it's much more productive to be supportive in situations like that by saying things like, "I know I can't understand fully what you're going through right now, but that sounds really hard and if I can help in any way please let me know" versus "Yeah, I understand what you're dealing with." If empathy is putting yourself in another person's shoes and that's the understood general definition... I don't think it's genuine to say that, "Yes, in these few seconds/minutes/hours since you've told me your problem I have gone through the effort of visualizing life from your perspective and I now understand all of your issues." Even if "I understand" is communicated with good intentions I feel like it rarely looks to productive discussion.
classics2 9y ago
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1Evwgu369Jw https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1Evwgu369Jw
- ptrincr 9y ago
  Thanks for sharing, powerful stuff. Reminded me of the film "Waking Life" a little.
  - pzone 9y ago
    Brene Brown has some pretty great books as well.
    - pks016 9y ago
      Can you suggest any book ?
- cko 9y ago
  I used to think I had empathy. I mean, when I see someone being taken advantage of, I tear up immediately. Until one day my mentor straight up told me “you have no empathy.” Which didn’t really bother me, since I’m pretty sure I’m not a sociopath. (Though that probably wouldn’t bother me either, by definition.) Watching that video made me realize that what I usually feel is sympathy. I think I’ve been so fortunate (or complacent) that I can’t really say to someone “I’ve been there. I know how it feels.” I mean I have been sad and depressed and lonely, don’t get me wrong, but overall I’m like “holy shit why am I so lucky?” Feelings are icky. If a close friend suffers a loss, I just want to do something practical. Help them move furniture, or babysit their kid or something. I don’t want to “get down to their level.” So yeah. No empathy here.
  - jehlakj 9y ago
    I believe that nobody can “have” empathy. Putting yourself in someone else’s shoes is still you who’s in their shoes. It’s just impossible to share the same emotions as someone if you’ve lived a different life, different experiences. When we see a teen yelling, “You don’t understand!”, we really don’t understand even when we were teens ourselves. I’m not a huge fan of the word because I think the first step to true connection is to admit that you in fact do not understand, but you’re there for them. Like the video suggests (which in my opinion isn’t really talking about empathy).
ptrincr 9y ago
"But an empathy box," he said, stammering in his excitement, "is the most personal possession you have! It's an extension of your body; it's the way you touch other humans, it's the way you stop being alone." Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Philip K. Dick
edhelas 9y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empathy_(software) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empathy_(software)
9a89df7a09sdf8 9y ago
to recognize reality as the extension of the self, maybe. dunno. tough to think about.
platz 9y ago
https://imgur.com/a/5RGnstB https://imgur.com/a/5RGnstB
- jetrink 9y ago
  Via OCR: "Let us imagine for a moment that people have attained happiness — a state of complete human freedom of will in the widest sense: at that very instant personality is destroyed. Man becomes as solitary as Beelzebub. The connection between social beings is cut like the umbilical cord of a new-born infant. And consequently, society is destroyed. With the force of gravity removed, objects go flying off into space. (Of course some may say that society ought to be destroyed so that something completely new and just can be built on the debris! I don’t know, I am not a destroyer ...)" Andrey Tarkovsky, Sculpting in Time
pilijupetur 9y ago
People always confuse sympathy with empathy. That's the reason why a lot of think that we are showing empathy when we are not. In fact, being empathetic is difficult. Very few times in our life are we truly empathetic
- jm__87 9y ago
  Personally I think affective empathy is extremely common, but we just construct strategies to avoid experiencing it too much. Most people are going to experience some level of suffering if they directly witness another person suffering. It's just that no one likes that feeling of suffering so we say smth like "that's too bad but there is nothing i can do here" so we can feel better and move on with our lives. This is I guess what we call sympathy, but really I feel it's just a strategy to reduce the impact of the empathy reflex most of us feel. Imagine what your life would be like if you couldn't get over the feeling you get when you witness someone else suffering - you would constantly be suffering yourself and be totally useless to yourself and others. Strong feelings of empathy aren't necessarily a good thing. Compassion would be what I think is the difficult thing. Whether you fully understand what someone else is going through or not, you have an intention to help them feel better. To actually act in a compassionate way you need to first feel that others are deserving of your compassion and that can be a very tough thing to develop for anyone but those who are the very closest to you.
- siddboots 9y ago
  > People always confuse sympathy with empathy. One side of this is just shifting of meaning over time. As this article points out, Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) gives the term "sympathy" a very central role, but his meaning is much closer to what we now call empathy.
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hliyan 9y ago
Having witnessed many cases of individuals who help the poor, donate to cancer/heart patients and then turn on a dime and advocate the carpet bombing of rebel held civilian areas, I'm starting to feel empathy is not the issue. The empathy circuits are intact in most human beings. The problem is dehumanization. Empathy is proportional to how "human" we perceive someone/something to be. We experience the most empathy for close family, friends and individuals we have met in person. As the distance grows the empathy response reduces. It further reduces if the victims are portrayed as uncivilized or savage. It further reduces when the victims are numerous (hundreds of thousands).
- nils-m-holm 9y ago
  In addition to dehumanization, which is a huge problem, there are also people who just want to be perceived as being empathic and charitable. There is a couple in my neighborhood that makes a big point out of helping people in poor countries, sending toys to their children on Christmas, hosting all kinds of charity events, etc, but on a personal level, they behave like the numbest troglodytes and could not care less about anybody's needs. In some people, empathy is a carefully crafted facade without any substance behind it, which might also be a reason why they are in favor of carpet bombing.
  - gxs 9y ago
    You know, I’ve always felt that the Bay Area, ironically, has a disproportionate number of these people. I’m from LA, but live here in the bay, and people often will tell me how fake Angelinos are. For my perspective, people in LA might be ostensibly more superficial, but at least it’s authentic and in general people don’t try to hide it. Contrast to the Bay Area, it seeems like having a cause is trendy here, which is superficial in its own way. I went to cal and ended up staying for friends/work so don’t get me wrong, I love it here. But like all places, it has it’s own nuances.
- lsd5you 9y ago
  I would disagree. The problem is the unnatural, ever expanding range of concern for the entire human population as it increases and as things globalise. We in general get no additional happiness from remote billions of people and only added risks and concerns. It is hardly surprising that the natural empathy capacity is being exceeded. Worse the limited amount we do have is manipulated. As remote concerns are selectively beamed into our consciousness via the media.
jm__87 9y ago
Seems this thread is full of varying definitions for various concepts. I've posted a few comments in this thread myself assuming my own definitions without really reading a dictionary first, so I'll leave my definitions here for anyone who might be interested: Affective empathy: experiencing some level of suffering or discomfort when visually seeing someone else suffering. This is just a reflex for most of us that scales with how obvious and immediate the other person's pain appears to be. Seeing someone get hit by a car or cry will cause this feeling whereas seeing a depressed person will not as they do not obviously appear to be suffering. Cognitive empathy: thinking about someone else's circumstances and thus feeling some level of shared suffering. This form of empathy does not require the suffering to be right in front of you for you to feel something and does require cognitive effort (i.e. is not a reflex). We would use this to empathize with someone who is depressed. Sympathy (as in to feel sympathy for someone): feeling empathy but not taking much time or energy to do anything to help the sufferer and more likely coming up with some rationalization to help yourself deal with your own feelings (i.e. they'll be fine, there is nothing i can do). I guess we also have a concept of "fake sympathy" where someone lies about feeling empathy and then does nothing. Compassion: a belief that someone is worth helping and having an intention to help them if you can, regardless of the degree to which you empathize with them. I'm almost certain these definitions are not the "correct ones", but for the sake of me not amending all my previous comments I'll just leave this here.
mysterypie 9y ago
Paul Graham had a lot of interesting observations about empathy in his 2003 essay "Hackers and Painters": Like painting, most software is intended for a human audience. And so hackers, like painters, must have empathy to do really great work. You have to be able to see things from the user's point of view. When I was a kid I was always being told to look at things from someone else's point of view. What this always meant in practice was to do what someone else wanted, instead of what I wanted. This of course gave empathy a bad name, and I made a point of not cultivating it. Boy, was I wrong. It turns out that looking at things from other people's point of view is practically the secret of success. It doesn't necessarily mean being self-sacrificing. Far from it. Understanding how someone else sees things doesn't imply that you'll act in his interest; in some situations-- in war, for example-- you want to do exactly the opposite. Most makers make things for a human audience. And to engage an audience you have to understand what they need. Nearly all the greatest paintings are paintings of people, for example, because people are what people are interested in. Empathy is probably the single most important difference between a good hacker and a great one. Some hackers are quite smart, but when it comes to empathy are practically solipsists. It's hard for such people to design great software, because they can't see things from the user's point of view. One way to tell how good people are at empathy is to watch them explain a technical question to someone without a technical background. We probably all know people who, though otherwise smart, are just comically bad at this. If someone asks them at a dinner party what a programming language is, they'll say something like ``Oh, a high-level language is what the compiler uses as input to generate object code.'' High-level language? Compiler? Object code? Someone who doesn't know what a programming language is obviously doesn't know what these things are, either. Quoted from http://www.paulgraham.com/hp.html http://www.paulgraham.com/hp.html
- jm__87 9y ago
  I find it interesting how many varying definitions for empathy I'm seeing in this thread. I always thought of empathy to specifically be "feeling oriented", not simply taking someone else's perspective. Not saying anyone is wrong here, seems like we have yet to fully come to a consensus on what the word empathy really means.
  - 9y ago
woohooyou 9y ago
Sympathy: fellow-feeling - You are crying, so I cry with you. Empathy: you experienced something and I want to assist somehow
Annatar 9y ago
Female brains have evolved to be better at empathizing and communicating and are hard-wired for empathy. Male brains are more suited to rational understanding and system-building – from making machines and writing software to engaging in abstract thought, writing music, engaging in politics, or theorizing about the fundamental foundations of physics. And herein is the reason why there are so few female engineers, especially in computer science, laid bare. The task at hand, then, should be to continue buckling the stereotype in gender segregation: little girls should be encouraged to become more involved in being system builders and tinkerers, while little boys should be nurtured to develop and show significantly more empathy. This will be hard going, but the good news is that it is entirely doable. Empathy is still a core engineering value.
- Viliam1234 9y ago
  > And herein is the reason why there are so few female engineers, especially in computer science, laid bare. Do I read it correctly that "the reason" does not refer to how brains have evolved, but rather to the belief about how the brains have developed? In other words, do you consider the statement about the brains wrong? If I understand that right, what other related beliefs do you have about brains? That they are exactly the same for men and women, that sexual hormones have zero influence on development and functioning of human brains, that all differences between male and female thinking and behavior are caused by society? Just making sure I am not debating a strawman. "Tabula rasa" is a popular opinion in certain political circles, but there are two obvious problems with it: 1) It does not explain differences between male and female behavior in animals. Why do e.g. male birds behave differently from female birds; did patriarchy teach them to? A possible answer would be that evolution created mechanisms that apply to all animals, but for some reasons they do not apply to humans. And then humans invented patriarchy, which by sheer coincidence has a similar effect. 2) How about the brain differences where men get it worse? For example, boys being more likely autistic than girls; did patriarchy also do that? Because I am not aware of patriarchy having high opinion about autism; it seems rather the other way round, nerds being stereotypically bullied by jocks; so why would then patriarchy encourage boys to become more autistic? Note: I agree that society often wildly exaggerates the gender differences, or adds some extra bullshit. I am just saying that this is an exaggeration and distortion of a real thing, not something invented from scratch. > little girls should be encouraged to become more involved in being system builders and tinkerers, while little boys should be nurtured to develop and show significantly more empathy. This will be hard going, but the good news is that it is entirely doable. Lest you get too optimistic, going too far in this direction gives us https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer
rajman187 9y ago
but has the bug in fMRI software been fixed ? https://www.sciencealert.com/a-bug-in-fmri-software-could-invalidate-decades-of-brain-research-scientists-discover https://www.sciencealert.com/a-bug-in-fmri-software-could-in...
nathell 9y ago
The word "empathy" has a somewhat eerie ring to it, as if it were a magical capability. At least in its most common understanding as "the ability to feel what another person feels". Fun fact: that's impossible. You can never be sure what another person is feeling, because you are not that person. They, and only they, are the sole authority on their feelings. Instead, I choose to understand empathy as opening up to the fullest extent possible: removing all filters, prejudices and opinions, listening to what another person has to say, and being with them in a mindful way. As Marshall Rosenberg puts it: “Empathy: emptying our mind and listening with our whole being.”
- johnchristopher 9y ago
  > The word "empathy" has a somewhat eerie ring to it, as if it were a magical capability. At least in its most common understanding as "the ability to feel what another person feels". > Fun fact: that's impossible. You can never be sure what another person is feeling, because you are not that person. They, and only they, are the sole authority on their feelings. That's because that definition of empathy is wrong and distorted to almost be a synonym of telepathy. A twentieth-century borrowing from Ancient Greek ἐμπάθεια (empátheia, literally “passion”) (formed from ἐν (en, “in, at”) + πάθος (páthos, “feeling”)), coined by Edward Bradford Titchener to translate German Einfühlung. Identification with or understanding of the thoughts, feelings, or emotional state of another person. ex: She had a lot of empathy for her neighbor; she knew what it was like to lose a parent too. > Instead, I choose to understand empathy as opening up to the fullest extent possible: removing all filters, prejudices and opinions, listening to what another person has to say, and being with them in a mindful way. That's active or good listening but being with them in their emotional state (whatever that means) isn't yet the definition of trying to understand how they feel and how they think about the topic at hand. Emptying yourself means you can't rely on your own life experience to better understand the other one. (Not a fan of how Rosenberg rephrased that though non violent communication is really useful in some settings while in otheres you have to act upon feelings being conveyed to you).
kashyapc 9y ago
Paul Bloom (who's provocatively-titled book Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion is prominently discussed in the article) says something like the following: "For example, consider long-distance charity. Someone who hears about the sorrow of starving children might actually go through the empathetic exercise of imagining what it is like to starve to death. But this empathetic distress surely isn’t necessary for charitable giving. A compassionate person might value others’ lives in the abstract, and, recognizing the misery caused by starvation, be motivated to act accordingly." It sure makes someone pause and think, but not quite sure how accurate it is in the realm of reality. Bloom's talk feels a bit like clever verbal judo to me. But what do I know...

112 points by Vigier 9y ago

This is an ongoing discussion I have with many people. There is a weird idea that empathy is something that makes you good. In reality what it is is neither good nor bad. It's the ability to put yourself in the emotional state of someone else to understand things not only from their rational point of view but from the point of view of them as humans with both irrational (emotional) and rational perspectives. It can be used for good or bad not just good and it's doesn't mean that just because I can put myself in their position I agree with their pov (which many people will claim i.e. "you have no empathy")

awat 9y ago
This is a really good point. Empathy can be applied to judging moral crimes such as stealing food becuase you are starving. Although anctedotally I find that people who come from the exact background/situation tend to have less empathy even though they understand the context more.
- slavik81 9y ago
  Your experience seems to match the research. People who faced a challenge and succeeded in overcoming it tended to judge people who failed more harshly, but tended to judge people who succeeded more favourably. https://hbr.org/2015/10/its-harder-to-empathize-with-people-if-youve-been-in-their-shoes https://hbr.org/2015/10/its-harder-to-empathize-with-people-...
  - amag 9y ago
    That makes sense because of the "if I did it, you should be able to"-fallacy that fails to take into account that people are different, even coming from identical backgrounds.
slx26 9y ago
I think in general we take the "understanding" part in empathy too lightly. I would say we use "empathy" a lot when we are actually talking about compassion. Since the inner experience is never completely shareable, it's hard to talk about real understanding. Not trying to get philosophical here, we will probably agree that a reasonable level of understanding is both possible and sufficient. But I feel like too often there's way more "rationalization" than actual understanding, and we make the (in my opinion) mistake of calling that "empathy". With this in mind, I would say empathy is always socially positive. If we were talking about compassion, I would share more your opinion, but I'd still say it's positive as long as we do not completely swap it for empathy.
whytaka 9y ago
The difference is between empathy and compassion. Just because I understand doesn't mean I care.
- sjclemmy 9y ago
  And the opposite is true; I can care without understanding.
projektir 9y ago
> There is a weird idea that empathy is something that makes you good. It's a pretty heavy prerequisite. A lot of bad things can be traced to people not understanding other people, or refusing to understand them (dehumanization). It's sufficiently fundamental and a common problem that I'm not sure how big the cohort of emphatic-but-manipulative people is. It certainly exists, but there are other issues mixed in there, such as moral detachment (i.e., people who decided they're not interested in being good). I believe pretty much all of your typical -isms (sexism, racism, homophobia) are rooted in lack of empathy towards groups that one is physically unable to be part of. Most people don't have active empathy ability (i.e., modeling people not like them), they just empathize with their own experience only. That's why your otherwise normal people can end up with very problematic beliefs. Empathy also requires you to understand the world in a more complete way, which also tends to break down quite a range of rationalizations, and rationalizations can lead to a lot of evil, as well. So while you're technically right that empathy is merely a tool, it's a very major tool, and I've found people with relationship problems who are telling me they have no empathy, don't know how to do it, don't want to do it, are pretty much a dead end. If I had a button that could suddenly make lots of people more empathetic, I would absolutely press it and be convinced that it'd make the world a much, much better place.
- ThomPete 9y ago
  The problem with your belief is that you are assuming that it's easy to define sexism, racism, homophobia. The reality is that what a lot of people think are ex one of those three just aren't. Very few people are any of those things in any meaningful way. In fact I would claim that your belief is exactly part of the problem in that you confuse empathy with some ethical/moral idea and end up thinking that you have the right interpretation and can judge whether someone is racist, sexist etc.
  - ben_w 9y ago
    It’s very easy to define sexism, racism, homophobia. I think the thing which makes it hard to spot is that we normally treat questions as boolean yes-or-no things. For example, a police department which is 10% more likely to let one race off with warnings than another race is racist (and that’s not a moral judgement: if warnings are effective everyone should get them), but it’s also an example deliberately chosen to be as far as possible from racially motivated genocide as I could manage without the risk of people denying it was racism. It’s a spectrum. How much do you empathise with $person, not do you.
baddox 9y ago
I think when most people talk about empathy as a good attribute, what they really mean is the capacity for empathy.
- chiefalchemist 9y ago
  I think what they real mean is to have empathy, and uae it for good. I can put myself in your shoes...and then use that against you. Empathy doesn't promote nor prevent that.
  - jm__87 9y ago
    I think in most people it would, though? Imagine if you were harming someone and you're imagining what they would feel like as you're doing the harming, you're going to feel badly. Not harming someone will help you avoid these negative feelings.
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Puer 9y ago

Empathy isn't the ability to say "I understand." Empathy is admitting that, sometimes, you don't understand, but you'll still try and be appropriately supportive.

slx26 9y ago
I think that should have been more discussed in the article. What is empathy? I'd say empathy involves understanding ("I know how you feel"), and I would call what you talk about "compassion" or goodwill/being supportive/caring for someone ("I can't say I know how it's like to be in your situation, but I can see you are suffering and I'll be there for you")
slavik81 9y ago
You state a position, but don't present any argument to support it. You seem to contradict the dictionary definition[1], so what are you basing your definition on? Why is that a better definition and how does that relate to the research in this article? [1] "the ability to understand and share the feelings of another"
- Puer 9y ago
  I don't agree with the notion that you need to "understand" to be empathetic. If a friend tells me that they're going through a rough time I feel like it's disingenuous for me to tell them that I understand their situation, even if I myself have been through difficult periods. I can't and don't feel like I should give the impression I can understand the nuance of their situation. I've found it's much more productive to be supportive in situations like that by saying things like, "I know I can't understand fully what you're going through right now, but that sounds really hard and if I can help in any way please let me know" versus "Yeah, I understand what you're dealing with." If empathy is putting yourself in another person's shoes and that's the understood general definition... I don't think it's genuine to say that, "Yes, in these few seconds/minutes/hours since you've told me your problem I have gone through the effort of visualizing life from your perspective and I now understand all of your issues." Even if "I understand" is communicated with good intentions I feel like it rarely looks to productive discussion.

classics2 9y ago

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1Evwgu369Jw https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1Evwgu369Jw

ptrincr 9y ago
Thanks for sharing, powerful stuff. Reminded me of the film "Waking Life" a little.
- pzone 9y ago
  Brene Brown has some pretty great books as well.
  - pks016 9y ago
    Can you suggest any book ?
cko 9y ago
I used to think I had empathy. I mean, when I see someone being taken advantage of, I tear up immediately. Until one day my mentor straight up told me “you have no empathy.” Which didn’t really bother me, since I’m pretty sure I’m not a sociopath. (Though that probably wouldn’t bother me either, by definition.) Watching that video made me realize that what I usually feel is sympathy. I think I’ve been so fortunate (or complacent) that I can’t really say to someone “I’ve been there. I know how it feels.” I mean I have been sad and depressed and lonely, don’t get me wrong, but overall I’m like “holy shit why am I so lucky?” Feelings are icky. If a close friend suffers a loss, I just want to do something practical. Help them move furniture, or babysit their kid or something. I don’t want to “get down to their level.” So yeah. No empathy here.
- jehlakj 9y ago
  I believe that nobody can “have” empathy. Putting yourself in someone else’s shoes is still you who’s in their shoes. It’s just impossible to share the same emotions as someone if you’ve lived a different life, different experiences. When we see a teen yelling, “You don’t understand!”, we really don’t understand even when we were teens ourselves. I’m not a huge fan of the word because I think the first step to true connection is to admit that you in fact do not understand, but you’re there for them. Like the video suggests (which in my opinion isn’t really talking about empathy).

ptrincr 9y ago

"But an empathy box," he said, stammering in his excitement, "is the most personal possession you have! It's an extension of your body; it's the way you touch other humans, it's the way you stop being alone." Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Philip K. Dick

edhelas 9y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empathy_(software) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empathy_(software)

9a89df7a09sdf8 9y ago

to recognize reality as the extension of the self, maybe. dunno. tough to think about.

platz 9y ago

https://imgur.com/a/5RGnstB https://imgur.com/a/5RGnstB

jetrink 9y ago
Via OCR: "Let us imagine for a moment that people have attained happiness — a state of complete human freedom of will in the widest sense: at that very instant personality is destroyed. Man becomes as solitary as Beelzebub. The connection between social beings is cut like the umbilical cord of a new-born infant. And consequently, society is destroyed. With the force of gravity removed, objects go flying off into space. (Of course some may say that society ought to be destroyed so that something completely new and just can be built on the debris! I don’t know, I am not a destroyer ...)" Andrey Tarkovsky, Sculpting in Time

pilijupetur 9y ago

People always confuse sympathy with empathy. That's the reason why a lot of think that we are showing empathy when we are not. In fact, being empathetic is difficult. Very few times in our life are we truly empathetic

jm__87 9y ago
Personally I think affective empathy is extremely common, but we just construct strategies to avoid experiencing it too much. Most people are going to experience some level of suffering if they directly witness another person suffering. It's just that no one likes that feeling of suffering so we say smth like "that's too bad but there is nothing i can do here" so we can feel better and move on with our lives. This is I guess what we call sympathy, but really I feel it's just a strategy to reduce the impact of the empathy reflex most of us feel. Imagine what your life would be like if you couldn't get over the feeling you get when you witness someone else suffering - you would constantly be suffering yourself and be totally useless to yourself and others. Strong feelings of empathy aren't necessarily a good thing. Compassion would be what I think is the difficult thing. Whether you fully understand what someone else is going through or not, you have an intention to help them feel better. To actually act in a compassionate way you need to first feel that others are deserving of your compassion and that can be a very tough thing to develop for anyone but those who are the very closest to you.
siddboots 9y ago
> People always confuse sympathy with empathy. One side of this is just shifting of meaning over time. As this article points out, Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) gives the term "sympathy" a very central role, but his meaning is much closer to what we now call empathy.

deleted 9y ago

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hliyan 9y ago

Having witnessed many cases of individuals who help the poor, donate to cancer/heart patients and then turn on a dime and advocate the carpet bombing of rebel held civilian areas, I'm starting to feel empathy is not the issue. The empathy circuits are intact in most human beings. The problem is dehumanization. Empathy is proportional to how "human" we perceive someone/something to be. We experience the most empathy for close family, friends and individuals we have met in person. As the distance grows the empathy response reduces. It further reduces if the victims are portrayed as uncivilized or savage. It further reduces when the victims are numerous (hundreds of thousands).

nils-m-holm 9y ago
In addition to dehumanization, which is a huge problem, there are also people who just want to be perceived as being empathic and charitable. There is a couple in my neighborhood that makes a big point out of helping people in poor countries, sending toys to their children on Christmas, hosting all kinds of charity events, etc, but on a personal level, they behave like the numbest troglodytes and could not care less about anybody's needs. In some people, empathy is a carefully crafted facade without any substance behind it, which might also be a reason why they are in favor of carpet bombing.
- gxs 9y ago
  You know, I’ve always felt that the Bay Area, ironically, has a disproportionate number of these people. I’m from LA, but live here in the bay, and people often will tell me how fake Angelinos are. For my perspective, people in LA might be ostensibly more superficial, but at least it’s authentic and in general people don’t try to hide it. Contrast to the Bay Area, it seeems like having a cause is trendy here, which is superficial in its own way. I went to cal and ended up staying for friends/work so don’t get me wrong, I love it here. But like all places, it has it’s own nuances.
lsd5you 9y ago
I would disagree. The problem is the unnatural, ever expanding range of concern for the entire human population as it increases and as things globalise. We in general get no additional happiness from remote billions of people and only added risks and concerns. It is hardly surprising that the natural empathy capacity is being exceeded. Worse the limited amount we do have is manipulated. As remote concerns are selectively beamed into our consciousness via the media.

jm__87 9y ago

Seems this thread is full of varying definitions for various concepts. I've posted a few comments in this thread myself assuming my own definitions without really reading a dictionary first, so I'll leave my definitions here for anyone who might be interested: Affective empathy: experiencing some level of suffering or discomfort when visually seeing someone else suffering. This is just a reflex for most of us that scales with how obvious and immediate the other person's pain appears to be. Seeing someone get hit by a car or cry will cause this feeling whereas seeing a depressed person will not as they do not obviously appear to be suffering. Cognitive empathy: thinking about someone else's circumstances and thus feeling some level of shared suffering. This form of empathy does not require the suffering to be right in front of you for you to feel something and does require cognitive effort (i.e. is not a reflex). We would use this to empathize with someone who is depressed. Sympathy (as in to feel sympathy for someone): feeling empathy but not taking much time or energy to do anything to help the sufferer and more likely coming up with some rationalization to help yourself deal with your own feelings (i.e. they'll be fine, there is nothing i can do). I guess we also have a concept of "fake sympathy" where someone lies about feeling empathy and then does nothing. Compassion: a belief that someone is worth helping and having an intention to help them if you can, regardless of the degree to which you empathize with them. I'm almost certain these definitions are not the "correct ones", but for the sake of me not amending all my previous comments I'll just leave this here.

mysterypie 9y ago

Paul Graham had a lot of interesting observations about empathy in his 2003 essay "Hackers and Painters": Like painting, most software is intended for a human audience. And so hackers, like painters, must have empathy to do really great work. You have to be able to see things from the user's point of view. When I was a kid I was always being told to look at things from someone else's point of view. What this always meant in practice was to do what someone else wanted, instead of what I wanted. This of course gave empathy a bad name, and I made a point of not cultivating it. Boy, was I wrong. It turns out that looking at things from other people's point of view is practically the secret of success. It doesn't necessarily mean being self-sacrificing. Far from it. Understanding how someone else sees things doesn't imply that you'll act in his interest; in some situations-- in war, for example-- you want to do exactly the opposite. Most makers make things for a human audience. And to engage an audience you have to understand what they need. Nearly all the greatest paintings are paintings of people, for example, because people are what people are interested in. Empathy is probably the single most important difference between a good hacker and a great one. Some hackers are quite smart, but when it comes to empathy are practically solipsists. It's hard for such people to design great software, because they can't see things from the user's point of view. One way to tell how good people are at empathy is to watch them explain a technical question to someone without a technical background. We probably all know people who, though otherwise smart, are just comically bad at this. If someone asks them at a dinner party what a programming language is, they'll say something like ``Oh, a high-level language is what the compiler uses as input to generate object code.'' High-level language? Compiler? Object code? Someone who doesn't know what a programming language is obviously doesn't know what these things are, either. Quoted from http://www.paulgraham.com/hp.html http://www.paulgraham.com/hp.html

jm__87 9y ago
I find it interesting how many varying definitions for empathy I'm seeing in this thread. I always thought of empathy to specifically be "feeling oriented", not simply taking someone else's perspective. Not saying anyone is wrong here, seems like we have yet to fully come to a consensus on what the word empathy really means.
- 9y ago

woohooyou 9y ago

Sympathy: fellow-feeling - You are crying, so I cry with you. Empathy: you experienced something and I want to assist somehow

Annatar 9y ago

Female brains have evolved to be better at empathizing and communicating and are hard-wired for empathy. Male brains are more suited to rational understanding and system-building – from making machines and writing software to engaging in abstract thought, writing music, engaging in politics, or theorizing about the fundamental foundations of physics. And herein is the reason why there are so few female engineers, especially in computer science, laid bare. The task at hand, then, should be to continue buckling the stereotype in gender segregation: little girls should be encouraged to become more involved in being system builders and tinkerers, while little boys should be nurtured to develop and show significantly more empathy. This will be hard going, but the good news is that it is entirely doable. Empathy is still a core engineering value.

Viliam1234 9y ago
> And herein is the reason why there are so few female engineers, especially in computer science, laid bare. Do I read it correctly that "the reason" does not refer to how brains have evolved, but rather to the belief about how the brains have developed? In other words, do you consider the statement about the brains wrong? If I understand that right, what other related beliefs do you have about brains? That they are exactly the same for men and women, that sexual hormones have zero influence on development and functioning of human brains, that all differences between male and female thinking and behavior are caused by society? Just making sure I am not debating a strawman. "Tabula rasa" is a popular opinion in certain political circles, but there are two obvious problems with it: 1) It does not explain differences between male and female behavior in animals. Why do e.g. male birds behave differently from female birds; did patriarchy teach them to? A possible answer would be that evolution created mechanisms that apply to all animals, but for some reasons they do not apply to humans. And then humans invented patriarchy, which by sheer coincidence has a similar effect. 2) How about the brain differences where men get it worse? For example, boys being more likely autistic than girls; did patriarchy also do that? Because I am not aware of patriarchy having high opinion about autism; it seems rather the other way round, nerds being stereotypically bullied by jocks; so why would then patriarchy encourage boys to become more autistic? Note: I agree that society often wildly exaggerates the gender differences, or adds some extra bullshit. I am just saying that this is an exaggeration and distortion of a real thing, not something invented from scratch. > little girls should be encouraged to become more involved in being system builders and tinkerers, while little boys should be nurtured to develop and show significantly more empathy. This will be hard going, but the good news is that it is entirely doable. Lest you get too optimistic, going too far in this direction gives us https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer

rajman187 9y ago

but has the bug in fMRI software been fixed ? https://www.sciencealert.com/a-bug-in-fmri-software-could-invalidate-decades-of-brain-research-scientists-discover https://www.sciencealert.com/a-bug-in-fmri-software-could-in...

nathell 9y ago

The word "empathy" has a somewhat eerie ring to it, as if it were a magical capability. At least in its most common understanding as "the ability to feel what another person feels". Fun fact: that's impossible. You can never be sure what another person is feeling, because you are not that person. They, and only they, are the sole authority on their feelings. Instead, I choose to understand empathy as opening up to the fullest extent possible: removing all filters, prejudices and opinions, listening to what another person has to say, and being with them in a mindful way. As Marshall Rosenberg puts it: “Empathy: emptying our mind and listening with our whole being.”

johnchristopher 9y ago
> The word "empathy" has a somewhat eerie ring to it, as if it were a magical capability. At least in its most common understanding as "the ability to feel what another person feels". > Fun fact: that's impossible. You can never be sure what another person is feeling, because you are not that person. They, and only they, are the sole authority on their feelings. That's because that definition of empathy is wrong and distorted to almost be a synonym of telepathy. A twentieth-century borrowing from Ancient Greek ἐμπάθεια (empátheia, literally “passion”) (formed from ἐν (en, “in, at”) + πάθος (páthos, “feeling”)), coined by Edward Bradford Titchener to translate German Einfühlung. Identification with or understanding of the thoughts, feelings, or emotional state of another person. ex: She had a lot of empathy for her neighbor; she knew what it was like to lose a parent too. > Instead, I choose to understand empathy as opening up to the fullest extent possible: removing all filters, prejudices and opinions, listening to what another person has to say, and being with them in a mindful way. That's active or good listening but being with them in their emotional state (whatever that means) isn't yet the definition of trying to understand how they feel and how they think about the topic at hand. Emptying yourself means you can't rely on your own life experience to better understand the other one. (Not a fan of how Rosenberg rephrased that though non violent communication is really useful in some settings while in otheres you have to act upon feelings being conveyed to you).

kashyapc 9y ago

Paul Bloom (who's provocatively-titled book Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion is prominently discussed in the article) says something like the following: "For example, consider long-distance charity. Someone who hears about the sorrow of starving children might actually go through the empathetic exercise of imagining what it is like to starve to death. But this empathetic distress surely isn’t necessary for charitable giving. A compassionate person might value others’ lives in the abstract, and, recognizing the misery caused by starvation, be motivated to act accordingly." It sure makes someone pause and think, but not quite sure how accurate it is in the realm of reality. Bloom's talk feels a bit like clever verbal judo to me. But what do I know...