Saturday, June 16, 2012

Mentalizing

This was an interesting article about how people who have a harder time imaging what others are thinking are less likely to believe in God.  More interesting than this (at least to me) was the distinction that the article made between empathy and "mentalizing," which was the first time I had actually heard this term, at least used with this particular meaning:

The ability to infer the thoughts and feelings of other people is called "mentalizing" and it appears to play an important role in religious belief, according to researcher Ara Norenzayan.

Interestingly it was this mentalizing, or ability to imagine what others are thinking, that was more likely to lead to a belief in God and those without it showed less inclination to be religious:


"When adults form inferences about God's mind, they show the same mentalizing biases that are typically found when reasoning about other peoples' minds," the study authors wrote. Religious believers have an idea of God as an intentional being who responds to human beliefs and desires.

The researchers found that people who rate highest on the autistic spectrum — those with an inability to respond accurately to the mental states of other people — are least likely to believe in God.

Men typically are not as good as women at reasoning about other people's states of mind and are more likely than women to score high on the autism spectrum, which may help explain why men are less likely to believe in God than women.

Maybe I'm just late to the party about this distinction between mentalizing (apparently the psychological  version of philosophy's theory of mind).  Interestingly mentalization based treatment has been used with success for borderline personality disorder, although after reading the wikipedia article, I'm still not clear how and why.

How is mentalizing related to empathy?

"The empathy quotient measures the degree to which an individual thinks about and is concerned with the mental states of other people, their beliefs, wishes and emotions," Norenzayan wrote.

So it's still not clear to me.  I guess it's that there is a difference between mentalizing (imagining the internal world of others) and empathizing, this vicarious feeling of emotions that others are feeling. Sociopaths clearly do the former, but do not do the latter.  But I don't know.  Every time I explore the concept of empathy, I feel like I'm talking about something like Santa Claus.  I always half wonder if empathy is real, or maybe the product of fantasy or self-deception?

122 comments:

  1. god damn it all to hell

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  2. eden what do you use for pittyplay?

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  3. i ment you don't stutter so what do you use

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    1. How do you know I don't stutter?

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    2. you piss me off slut
      start answering the fucking questions instead of asking them

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    3. That was really harsh and totally undeserved.

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    4. Ok anonymous you're an idiot if you think showing off your manipulative skills make you cool.

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  4. limb, lazy eye, badhairday?

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    1. haha! That's sounds like something an average panhandler would use.

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    2. what ever works the good the bad and the clichéé

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  5. gimme the money and ain't a damn thing funny

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  6. I guess it's that there is a difference between mentalizing (imagining the internal world of others) and empathizing, this vicarious feeling of emotions that others are feeling.

    That's what people keep saying, but I don't see it. Mentalizing-empathizing seems more like a spectrum than two sides of a dividing line to me. Mentalizing seems to me like a deliberate form of empathy in the end. Does it really matter, if the effect is the same? This the perhaps where the PCL-R is too vague, as it doesn't bother to have a definition of empathy. Sociopaths spend a good portion of their lives trying to read the minds and thoughts and intentions of others. So. I dunno.

    Every time I explore the concept of empathy, I feel like I'm talking about something like Santa Claus.

    You and me both, love. It's like chasing a dragon.

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    1. I know, now bloody mentalizing. If empathy yesterday wasn't confusing me enough, in Descartes Error it says, feelings are experienced as bodily sensations. I understand, My foot feels cold. But not emotional feelings in the body instead of the mind. So where the fuck does empathy get felt? In the same spot as the person would feel it themselves? Is there a specific location for each emotion? Gawd.

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    2. Okay, this is the last time I mention it. There is:

      cognitive empathizing - mentalizing/intellectually considering the feelings of others. It’s mostly deliberate and it’s something even sociopaths and narcissists are able to do, so no one here should have any trouble understanding it. It provides useful information about the future actions of other people;

      emotional empathizing; it’s fucking there, people, as much as everything else you consider to be real. It’s no Santa Clause or dragon. It shows on fMRI. Individuals automatically share the emotions of others when exposed to their emotions.

      Primates didn’t mentalize or whatever the hell you call it. This is what allows emotional bonding to take place. You don’t get it from mentalizing, the effects are not the same, Medusa. This is what serves as the origin of the motivation for cooperative and prosocial behavior, as well as help for effective social communication. Without it, the most logically resulting behavior is pure, unadulterated egoism, as any altruistic attitude is motivationally decapitated.

      This is also what gets people emotionally involved in a play, a movie, a book, even the news, and the ability to create empathic responses in others is what feeds actors, most writers and let’s face it, journalists. An actor’s talent to bawl in front of an audience is evaluated by the degree in which the audience feels like bawling only from watching him.

      I’m baffled by the fact that there are manifestations of emotional empathy all over the place, yet some people are still unable to get it, even at an intellectual level. Emotional empathizing’s not that abstract, it’s just another biological phenomenon nature pulled out of its ass because it proved to trick some organisms into a more successful existence. You don’t have to be plagued by it to understand that perception of external suffering makes some people feel discomfort themselves, and other shit like this.

      Much confusion surrounding emotional empathy is probably due to the fact that people show it in what’s often perceived as a random manner. But tuning into another’s emotions is just that: tuning, adjusting. People have the inbuilt radio (which may be by itself more or less functional, or even broken). Additionally, external factors like education, personal experiences, the relationship with the creature one’s empathizing with are all modulating the signals received by the radio. So some radio stations are picked up just fine, some are bad quality or work on and off (because watching dying patients gets redundant at some point) and some aren’t picked up at all (because daddy was a decapitating terrorist too).

      Also, Medusa, I told you a while ago how I enjoyed seeing you rip Wallis apart in the forum. Your answer was: “Well, I enjoy that you enjoyed it.” If what you said wasn’t just out of politeness, it counts as a manifestation of emotional empathy.

      empathic concern - big names like Paul Ekman and David Goleman refer to it as the spontaneous drive to help other beings perceived to be in need of help. It’s a natural consequence of emotional empathy, so I don’t see what’s to explain here.

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    3. You're patiently explaining, over and over again, the appearance of a rainbow to blind people. That's why it's so hard.

      I know other people have feelings. I see the outward manifestations (tears, trembling, facial expressions) and I understand the triggers that caused them. I can even, in most cases, articulate the thought process behind them. What I cannot do easily is relate these signs and the intellectual understanding of their cause with the physical feeling that is supposed to accompany them. Because I have never felt it at the right time, with the same triggers, for me it is unconnected and superficial.

      So I have no discomfort, no visceral response, to compel me to act in a particular way.

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    4. empathy is being in the grip of a feeling that compels you to act. it's real, like hunger. there is a blurring between self and the other. in a way you're at the service of the other. sympathy, i guess, is the immediate emotion that's evoked. empathy is the response to the emotion and brings the intellect into play. you have to detach in order to be of any use.

      if you're all sympathy and no empathy, you wouldn't be very useful. it would be all about you. narcissisim maybe?

      mentalizing is what i do at work. it's strategic and not driven by emotion. there is no urgency in mentalizing.

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    5. V, certain things I’ve read around here showed a poor understanding of empathy as a concept, sometimes to the point of distrusting or denying it almost completely. Since bad weather’s been forcing me to stay indoors more than usual, I decided to try to clear up some misconceptions and confusions that kept popping up: a tobacco machine can empathize/ empathy is an action/ empathy is simply wanting to protect some human or animal from harm/ sociopaths are spontaneously moved to help people in need/ people can’t naturally empathize/ what’s the difference between rationally identifying another’s feelings and emotional empathy?/ perhaps empathy is self deception.

      I can’t see anything I’ve said that can’t be intellectually understood unless having personally experienced emotional empathy.

      As it happens, I also understand quite well everything you and other sociopaths say about yourselves, V, despite our mutual differences. But I see how it might be easier for a non sociopath to understand a sociopath than the other way around.

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    6. Alia, your descriptions are great and I don't disagree at all. I thought I'd picked up that you were frustrated at having to explain true empathy over and over, that's all.

      I can relate, rationalise and act based on what I know about someone else's needs, but it won't ever be emotional empathy, even if it looks like it. I guess I'm trying to explain why it can look like we empathise on every level, but really we don't and never can.

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    7. Alia, me response is in the forum.

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  7. Why believe in god when you can believe in your self?

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    1. self is an illusion

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    2. I would say its the only thing that is not an illusion

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    3. Not really. I suspect Me's preaching of the weak self theory is to get her a cult following.

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    4. And I suspect you are overly paranoid. Or sarcastic. I hope.

      M.E. has an agenda, yes, but I doubt it has much to do with us personally.

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    5. Do you have a weak sense of self?

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    6. Depends on what you mean by 'weak sense of self'.

      Or even just 'sense of self'.

      Or even just 'self'.

      Dun dun dun.

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  8. I am 11 what is this

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  9. I really can't tell for certain if I can empathize or not. I think I wasn't able to until I was about 17/18 and was basically "taught" by means of awareness to learn how to scan around for potential people who I could be affecting. So, a lot of it is definitely intellectualized, but I'm not certain where the line is drawn between emotional connection and mental awareness of other people's feelings.

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  10. if narcissists feel inferior and self concious, arent they depressed and miserable people?

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    1. I think so, even the fact that they want to be worshiped tells us that they feel bad.

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    2. I think narcissists (from my own experience with narcissism) feel a dramatic sense of being nothing, and also the exact opposite, which is nothing more than a survival technique for feeling important when no one ever told them that they were. It's probably different for the ones who were basically worshipped by their parents and then the ones who were abused or abandoned. They had to change their feelings of nothingness to feelings of being a sparkling, golden, and untouchable person: an exaggerated, delusional sense of importance.

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    3. Either way, worshipped or abused, their 'real' self is deemed worthless.

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    4. I agree with Medusa. To worship someone for being something they really aren't, and can never be, is a form of abuse/neglect.

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    5. Well said, Sasha!

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  11. PostmodernSociopath. I assume you are into Postmodernism ? What is that all about anyway ? Doesn't that mean living with no defined lines ?

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    1. I know you aren't talking to me, but since he hasn't responded, I will.

      In short, I'd say it's basically the loss or denial of universal meta-narratives. The narratives upon which culture has traveled up until the modern age. It often uses those meta-narratives themselves as tools to convey the modern irrelevancy of meta-narratives. [see: hipsters, irony].

      The definition of the term has gotten more vague and meaningless [lol] as it is used more and more. Which I suppose is a manifestation of post-post modernism. Or meta-post-modernism.

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  12. Interesting ME
    I can share something that happened to me, as a young teen. Mentalizing kicked in, in the same way that learning to read kicks in. All of a sudden, in one moment, I went from a non-reader to a reader. I remember that moment, in first grade, when I became a reader.
    I remember the same moment when I first "mentalized" I could jump into someone's shoes, as an act of will, pick up what they were thinking and feeling i.e assess their state of being. Then, I could leap back into my own body and assess mine.
    It was an act of will. It did not happen without the willing it, on my part.

    I went numb, shortly after. I realize that I lost this ability to mentalize. I don't think it was totally lost, as I could call upon it, but it took a great, great deal of effort. I, only, used it in dire situations.

    At any rate, I understand the concept of mentalizing. It is separate from empathy. It could be a factor in empathy, but it stands on it's own, as a person could have this with or without empathy, imo.

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    1. I could see how a sociopath could mentalize, entirely separate from empathy, too.

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    2. Monica, is this numb, you talk about, an awareness of the absence of the bodily sensations that used to accompany your feelings? Did you experience feelings as a physical thing in your body and now you know psychologically how you feel, but that physical part doesn't happen anymore?

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    3. Ellicit
      I went from alive,confident and "with it" to feeling as if I lived in a permanent Novacaine. Prior to becoming numb, I was a full of life person. Have you ever read "The Bell Jar" by Plath? She describes it. I felt like I was under a thick glass. I could not touch the outside. I could not feel my own feelings. I am still there, now, but it is lifting, from what it was.

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    4. I haven't read it. I like some of her poems though.

      I could not feel my own feelings

      OK, so this is a conscious awareness that the way you experience feelings changed. Its blocked or blanketed in some way by the pervading numbness. I don't have any awareness of numbness. But my experience hasn't changed like yours has. Thanks.

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    5. Ellicit
      It is the same feeling of going into shock when a person dies. It is a form of shock. It just stays.

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    6. I don't know that one either. I dont really feel anything when people die. I even upset my best friend at the last funeral I attended by forgetting not to show how much fun I was having catching up with people I hadn't seen in years.

      My father died very suddenly when I was 14 and I felt a momentary surprise. My first and immediate thought with it was just, Wow. This is going to mean so much more freedom..

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    7. Well, actually, the only reason I knew I went into shock/numb at 14 was that it happened again when I had a death in my family. That same feeling came on me.
      It is a very specific feeling. At the time of the death, I felt encased in a glass with no feelings at all. It felt nice, actually, as if I was underwater where no one could hurt me or touch me.

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    8. Ellicit
      Did you have severe abuse, as a child?

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    9. No. I wasn't even spanked. A few times a slap to the back of my leg as I scuttled by is the harshest punishment I ever got. No molestation in or outside the home. The only thing I can identify is my mother's narcissism that always annoyed the hell out of me.

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    10. Ellicit
      So, you were born with little empathy?

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    11. Born the way I am with some gene thing or brain damage perhaps. The empathy/emotion isn't that big a problem compared to my impulse control issues. Whatever has caused it has resulted in one train wreck after another. I have improved as I've got older though.

      Mee what's the ÷1s? Are those the things you can relate to?

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    12. Yes, I thank God for impulse control, or a few people would be axe murdered, by now.

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    13. Well I saw people writting "+1" somewhere, I don't know what it means, but I was using it to the things I relate :) (but no one slaped me in a back leg). And what about other kinds of punishments?

      I wanted to write that I'm impulsive, but have no problems with that, but then I wondered, what about the things I wrote before? They are impulsive desicions and cause problems =/
      Oh, but I improved my impulse control too.

      P.S. I realised that I can relate to your comments, because WE ARE BOTH HUMANS! And we both have something in common.

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    15. I realized from my last few talks with Mee and Ellicit, that my mother probably was born with low empathy. I took all her insults, names, impossible demands for perfection etc personally. I could never measure up, but I see that she could not help how she was.

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    16. PS. Mee, your father died too and you felt nothing?

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    17. Monica, from everything I've seen you say about her it would be hard to imagine her having been born 'normal'.

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    18. Thanks Ellicit xx One day, I should tell you my funny stories.

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    19. Ellicit, I wasn't that stupid, aguess, I have my rules ;p (and I think that I opened up enough for now).
      No, my father is still alive. When your father died?

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    22. Monica 101, so today we rolled out "no empathy/apathy" or you simply like to use "low empathy"? :)

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    23. Mee, Low empathy is different than no empathy. The Mal Narc has low empathy. Some people here seem to have low empathy, but not no empathy. It is a sliding scale thing, from what I have seen.

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  13. Imagine not being able to harm any living creature because you experience the pain and fear they do. Empathy is hugely limiting and hard to live with for people like me who are on the extra-empathy side of the bell curve. Empathy is connected to love and a recognition of the One-ness of all things. I think that spiritual and emotional connection to living things is incredibly deep and impossible to avoid for people who are highly empathetic like myself. If I hurt another for my own selfish pleasure I will experience the pain of my victim and then feel guilty untill I make up for it. Self-hatred is what awaits an empath who harms others. It just ain't worth it. However it is a two edged sword and can destroy you if you allow empathy to take charge completely. empathy is what turns many into spineless hypocrits

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  14. Fuck I hate this format.

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  15. To answer the question "are emotions felt physically?" the answer is basically YES. Examples: you know how people blush (cheeks turn red) when they are "embarassed" well you can actually feel an uncomfortable sort of warming in your face when you become embarrassed. Anxiety is also an uncomfortable feeling and it seems like your heart goes out of synch, beats too rapidly, you may get uncomfortably warm too. Depression is like feeling heavy, it is very demotivating and makes you just want to sleep, you don't want to interact and the heavy feeling will make body language all slumped and weighed down looking. Anger is overwhelming, its hot just like the term "hot headedness" implies, you can also feel yourself tense up uncomfortably and feel like you're about to "explode" because you are flooded with an overwhelming energy that makes it seems as if you are about to "boil". Happy is a light feeling, it is warm in a comfortable in a motivating way, it makes you want to move (unlike depression) you feel like bouncing around and playing and having fun. All those words you hear that are used to describe emotion are literal, and felt in the body. Its not felt in the brain or anything, its usually spread throughout the body but I guess its easy to focus on the feeling in the head since attention seems to be more concentrated there. But YES, to answer the question, emotions ARE actually FELT in the body, but its more of an internal feeling and less eternal. Its one thing to feel cold because you are in a room that is cold, and another to feel "cold" on the inside regardless of the external temperature. These feelings have a major impact on ones behavior, they can be either inhibitory or motivational, but the response is generally suited toward the atmosphere which probably invoked the emotion (like being depressed and inactive at a funeral, or being happy and dancing at a party). Of course, there are people who get stuck in the past or future and their emotions are not necessarily copacetic with their current environment, I think most thinks are both functional (when things are in harmony) and dysfunctional (when discord dominates.)

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    1. another thing about happy: it is literally uplifting, as if magical strings in the air are tugging at you trying to pull you into the sky, but they aren't strong enough to cause real flight so instead the result is a smile and active behavior as a result of feeling lighter.

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    2. That answers my questions. Thanks, anon.

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    3. When you talk about feeling cold or warm inside, is it kind of like having a fever? You know, in the sense that the room temparature doesn't really have an effect on your body?

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    4. Those are helpful descriptions. I can count on one hand the times I've experienced each of those in any significant way, and certainly never in response to someone else's situation, only ever my own.

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    5. 2:41 Yeah you could say that

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  16. Once you come to know and love oneness, everyone and everything is just a different-flavoured piece of yourself. If you then hurt someone else for your own purposes could it be viewed as a form of noble self-sacrifice? :)

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    1. I think it could be viewed as solipsism.

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    2. Yeah, your second sentence negates the first.

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  17. I think sociopaths are amazing at mentalizing..seeing people, understanding what they are really thinking without all the "blind spots" of empathy obfuscating the vision...I think it's not pretty. Empathy is the opposite, you see someone in a good light as innocent and not deserving to suffer, when you see them suffer you feel badly for them you pity them. A sociopath though can have pity (most often not though) and hate the victim at the same time because we hate the weak, the pathetic, the dumb, and is anyone really innocent? maybe children at a young age no one else. It's a dark reality seeing the truth, that there is something "dirty" about most people, their intentions are rotten, their personalities have decayed, and their interactions are gaudy fakes covered by thin veneer of golden goodness..there's my description of society..our "friends and neighbors"...

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    1. cognitive empathy (mentalizing) has some major weaknesses and emotional empathy is more accurate, but a combination of both is best. With mentalizing a great deal of assumption and faith in predictable patterns being repeated is used, which is a big weakness. People will see someone's body language and try to interpret their emotional state and their thoughts based on that, they will try to use the external circumstances to aid them in this and assume the most predictable thing is true. This fails when the conditions creating the mental/emotional state of the person are not known to the person mentalizing, and when the body language is either misinterpreted or deceptive. With emotional empathy, one would simply get a "feeling" of the other person and later pick up on more subtle cues that would reinforce this with mentalizing.

      Example: someone may be really tired because they didn't sleep well, but have an exciting event to look forward to. They may appear slumped and also may not be too interested in their immediate surroundings where the mentalizer observes them. The person may make little effort to interact as they are trying to save their energy and they can't stop thinking about the exciting event. The mentalizer assumes they are withdrawn and depressed, they think the "tired from a lack of sleep" is just an excuse and they're trying to hide their insecurities because they're depressed, and they also look preoccupied so it is assumed that this preoccupation is the source of their "depression" and the mentalizer may even think the event is a source of anxiety instead of excitement. Using emotional empathy instead would result in a lack of depressiveness emanating from the person, the emotional empath would understand and accept that the person is truly just tired, they might even feel a slight bit of happiness or a jolly feeling from the soporific individual, and come to find out that they truly are excited for the event they are to engage in later.

      Another example would be a depressed person who is acting happy to hide their depression, a mentalizer might go with it while someone with emotional empathy would detect something is wrong.

      Seems like more blindspots with mentalizing to me, but again, BOTH would be best and paint the most accurate picture. I've heard plenty of stories where someone "detected" something was amiss with another person, but couldn't figure out what, then after some investigation they found out what was truly going on when perhaps no one else was able to pick up on it, and the motivation for the investigation was a "feeling."

      Typical delusional socio-banter based on the premise of "anything sociopathic (which I identify with) is obviously superior!"

      "Empathy is the opposite, you see someone in a good light as innocent and not deserving to suffer, when you see them suffer you feel badly for them you pity them"

      Obviously you lack an understanding of what empathy is, empathy is an ability to connect to others, its not about whether you think they should suffer or not, and whether you feel bad or not for them if they do, these could be considered possible outcomes of having empathy. Its like saying colors are bad because paint is toxic, it demonstrates a confusion about the concept and what it really is, paint is not colors and colors are not paint but paint can be used to add color to something, so there is a tangential (indirect) connection. (I actually explained this out just incase you weren't capable of mentally processing out the difference)

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    2. (continued)
      Empathy doesn't mean you see someone in a good light, it just means you can connect with them and understand them on an emotional/mental level. Empathy doesn't mean you will pity someone for suffering either, this is demonstrated when empathy-abled people wish or enjoy seeing harm to someone they see as evil or an enemy. Its not that they aren't able to empathize with the dehumanized monster of their focus, its that they have determined they are not worthy of SYMPATHY or pity (or mercy), which is NOT the same as empathy.


      Empathy comes before sympathy but sympathy does NOT automatically follow, in fact I find empathy helps determine whether the other person is worth of sympathy. If I feel the other person is hostile and irresponsible and caused their own suffering (a sociopathic/cluster B personality) I don't see any point in having sympathy for them and feel numb to their suffering. If I see someone who was taken advantage of and seems like they got the raw end of a deal for a bad reason (like their family has screwed them over) and not because of their own dysfunctional behavior, and I feel they are genuine and capable and responsible, I feel sympathy for them and wish to do whatever I can to help 'em out, unless it is overly self-sacrificing.

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    3. "It's a dark reality seeing the truth, that there is something "dirty" about most people, their intentions are rotten, their personalities have decayed, and their interactions are gaudy fakes covered by thin veneer of golden goodness..there's my description of society..our "friends and neighbors"..."

      Sadly, I must agree that this is generally my view as well. I don't feel bad for people much these days I simply offer advice for how to improve their condition and accept that they will almost always continue on in their destructive way. Most people very much enjoy the drama, it stimulates them and makes life seem more interesting, if there isn't an problem and life is going well, they seem to feel as if they must create one.

      So now here's my question, what makes you think you're so much better than everyone else? What makes you think you aren't dirty and fake like them? What's your lifestyle like?

      Me? I life a drastically different lifestyle and you'll never see me watching TV, movies, video games, texting, social media-ing, drugging/partying, eating crap, pursuing shallow social endeavors, etc. and so I feel that my narcissistically condescending view of the masses is justified instead of spawned from delusional fantasy with no basis in reality. How about you?

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    4. how about me?;)lol - I am probably the worst I only do what I want, when I want, how I want and everyone else be damned..I guess I am a selfish, egotistical monster...but I am honest about myself and i don't pretend or lie to myself to be something i am not. I'm real and i do what suits me. Guess nowdays that's not politically correct we are always supposed to be "helping" others oh so considerate...it's all total bs. all the nice "empaths" are 10 times worse then I am they will smile in your face and stab you in the back. anyone who believes that other people (aka strangers) would really care one iota about them are delusional. Maybe a family member, child, sometimes a spouse, lover...friends not so much. At the end of the day we are "human";) whatever that means and no matter how much we try to deny it, it's all about competition, jealousy, hatered..I see it all around me. Through the fake smile, the women hate anyone more attractive than themselves and the men anyone who is more successful. But people try to mask their true face with "niceness". Sociopaths see through it and will call you out on it sometimes, I guess that makes us monsters;)

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    5. I hear you. There is fake, fake, fake out there.You are right.

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  18. Idiopathic psychopaths presumably don't mentalise, because autistic people can't mentalise.

    What confuses people is that a person, an animal or even a computer can accurately predict the behaviour of another without mentalising.

    Borderlines lack the idiopathic inability to mentalise, so it will work in therapy.

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    1. Too long; didn't read.

      I guess it's actually 'tl;dr'?

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  20. Medusa - I think you did read..what do you think are people mostly motivated by jealousy of wanting something that other people have and that makes them hateful? the thin veneer of society, niceness, politeness, is just that a veneer something easily pierced through?

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    1. I actually didn't read. But maybe I will later.

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  21. " I always half wonder if empathy is real, or maybe the product of fantasy or self-deception?"

    You can see it, you are colorblind to it. Empathy is recognizing emotion in others that you had before. But, since you have a "limited set of emotion" you cant do it. The closest you can come is to see behavior in other indicative of "something you dont have", but by trial and error you cant learn to manipulate it. Socio dont have either the compassion emotion or other emotions. Socio can only feel: a. pissed off and irritated. b. gleeful after the stimulation of fucking someone else over.


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    1. Finger
      I like how honest you are!

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    2. Yes I'm either bored, annoyed, frustrated or entertained with how ridiculous, pathetic, emotional "normal" people become when jealous, angry, hurt..anything that is a blow to their ego they can't control lol

      Delete
    3. True, empaths have an ego. It is a friggin mess to deal with.

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    4. Everyone has an ego. It has nothing to do with empathy.

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    5. ^ that.

      I should think that'd be obvious by now considering the dynamics around here.

      Delete
  22. what makes sociopaths threatening is that other people/society cannot set boundaries for them. they are confusing in that they don't care what you think, do, say..most people do take that away and there are few limitations except say jail, physical violence, death penalty.....that is not to say a sociopath won't conform many do, I do I'm not sure if I'm a sociopath I don't think I am....but there is a creativity at work where you play with the rules bend them, play them, definitely don't respect them and don't get hurt by people who say oh my god what are you doing..you throw them away and move on to the next. I think normal people can't do that they are more affected by their "friends" "society" "significant others" what if you don't care and find people entertaining and interchangeable..you switch one toy for another..they're all fun just in new ways.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Stop trying to extoll the virtues of sociopathy, there are none. The only difference is socio cant feel as many emotions as the common man. The common man has the advantage, since he is not "impulsive" like a "stupid" socio.

      thanks assholes.

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    2. Love you, Finger!

      Delete
  23. Well I'm going to ask. I've been in a dom/sub relatioship for 3 years and he went too far this time. He's a sociopath and I'm an empath. He felt the need to punish me for voicing my opinion that he doesn't have time for me anymore that it should end. I feel justified in not answering his calls anymoreand just cutting him off.
    I can't see how I can ever see him again after not answering his calls since he showed me I can't trust him with my wellbeing.
    Now my question do you think this is the way to end it?

    ReplyDelete
  24. Of course. Socio's are devoid. They want to control and crush you for fun. Get over being abused.

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  25. Nothing was extreme before, so I assume he's lowered me to a place in his view that I'm just a piece of meat.
    And if he stepped it up this time I don't know if he'll just let me go.

    ReplyDelete
  26. You were always a piece of meat, but he faked you out before, now he has found what he thinks to be a more satisfying target, your just boring now.
    Sadly, people just dont "get" the absolute "devoid-ness" of the socio, and keep thinking "they aren't garbage", when in fact the more you hang with them the more they will burn you, and you still being around to be burned again gives them great satisfaction. - duh.

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    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Finger
      Do you mean by "a more satisfying target" that he is working on another woman?

      Delete
    2. He will have been working on another woman since the moment you met - in fact more than one. You're still on his list, you're just not at the top any more. Deal with it.

      Delete
  27. I agree with you finger, I believe from the beginning he assested me for how much control he could get and it's time to stop.

    ReplyDelete
  28. Exactly.


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    Replies
    1. Thanks for your replies, Finger. I appreciate your honestly a great deal.

      Delete
  29. What do you think about ending it this way Monica?

    ReplyDelete
  30. Not taking any calls, no response from me to him.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sorry about not using the reply, I haven't written anything on here since this new format really.

      Delete
    2. Well, *I* would make myself disgusting, in some way, so he left you.

      Delete
    3. Nice idea. What if you were to eat many beans, and foods that will make your ass and farts stink like hell, then hang out, letting them rip.

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  31. Actually, just don't return calls or hang out at all. That's the best way, so that you getting away from this toxin now.

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  32. Nobody has commented on the logical fallacies being advanced by the author of that article? It's completely ridiculous to draw conclusions about anything from "autistic people don't believe in god."

    Not all less-empathic (or less-"mentalizing") people are autistic or men, for one thing. (And man, I am SO SICK of gender essentialism being used as a premise as if it were the truth. It's complete crap.) I'm pretty sure a whole lot of us, too, can easily imagine what others are thinking but are also smart enough to know that invisible sky-ghosts don't exist.

    But the main problem (at which you hint but don't go far enough with) is that "god" is FICTIONAL in the first place. It makes me laugh with horror that believing in the actual existence of a fictional character is so often taken as a sign of mental *health* and good adjustment!

    I'm going to stop here because the whole thing, from premises to "findings," is so worthless that I don't want to spend any more time on it.

    (PS, I am a woman, and I saw through the BS of fictional skymasters when I was still a kid. Also very happily married to a non-sociopath. I got here through a series of links from someone else's thread about something else.)

    ReplyDelete

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