Monday, July 27, 2015

Empathy: Overrated?

So asks this Atlantic article, regarding whether the Age of Reason should give way to the Age of Empathy:

Bad idea, say the cognitive psychologist Paul Bloom and the neuroscientist Richard J. Davidson. At their Aspen Ideas Festival talk on Thursday, Bloom allowed that a the word “empathy” as it’s sometimes colloquially used—to mean kindness, goodness, morality, and love—is unobjectionable. But in the Obama-esque sense of feeling another’s feelings, empathy, they contend, it mostly hurts the world. “To the extent that I’m an empathetic person,” Bloom said, “I’m a worse person.”

Empathy is a documented psychological phenomenon: If you see someone else poked in the hand, Bloom said, your own pain centers in the brain will light up. And scientists have demonstrated that you’re more likely to help someone whose pain you feel. The problem, as Bloom sees it, is that “because of its focusing properties, [empathy] can be innumerate, parochial, bigoted.” People are often more empathetic toward individuals who resemble themselves, a fact that can exacerbate already-existing social inequalities. And empathy can cause people to choose to embrace smaller goods at the expense of greater ones. "It's because of the zooming effect of empathy that the whole world cares more about a little girl stuck in a well than they do about the possible deaths of millions and millions due to climate change,” Bloom said.

Empathy can also make people do evil. “Atrocities are typically motivated by stories of suffering victims—stories of white women assaulted by blacks, stories of German children attacked by Jewish pedophiles," Bloom said. It also can lure countries into violent conflicts based on relatively small provocations, and researchers have shown that people who are more empathetic are more likely to want to impose harsh punishments on people. “The more empathy you have, the more violent you are—the more ready and willing you are to cause pain,” Bloom said.  

Empathy doesn’t even necessarily make day-to-day life more pleasant, they contend, citing research that shows a person’s empathy level has little or no correlation with kindness or giving to charity. And in the professions centered around helping others, empathy can be a burden, leading to burnout and incompetence caused by emotional contagion. “When I go to my therapist, I want her to understand me and I want her to make me better,” Bloom said. “But if I’m going, ‘I’m anxious and depressed!’ I don’t want her going, ‘I’m anxious and depressed!’”

So what should empathy be replaced with? Bloom and Davidson proposed two things. One is “rather cold-blooded, rational cost-benefit analysis,” Bloom said. “Go after not what gives you buzz, but what really helps other people." For example: Instead of giving to a child beggar in India, and thereby reward the criminal organization that likely put that child there, donate to Oxfam. The recommendation dovetails with the rising “effective altruism” movement, which The Atlantic’s Derek Thompson recently described as “munificence matched with math.”

Of course, this sounds a lot less emotionally fulfilling than helping someone you have a connection with. That’s where the second potential empathy replacement comes in: compassion.  To do good, Bloom said, “we need an emotional push. But the push need not come from empathy. It can come from love, from caring, from compassion, from more distant emotions that don't come from being swallowed up in the suffering of others."

At the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Davidson has studied the brains of Buddhist monks and explored the ways that compassion is neurologically distinct from empathy. He even believes it to be an intrinsic trait like linguistic ability—something that must be fostered at a young age to be implemented throughout life, and something that can be strengthened through practice. To that end, he and his colleagues developed a “kindness curriculum” for preschoolers.

But what about personal relationships—don’t they rely on empathy? Bloom and Davidson said it’s possible but not yet scientifically proven that some amount of empathy is indeed required in order to practice compassion. But they contend that even the closest relationships need not be dominated by the sharing of emotions. At the end of the Aspen session, an audience member posed a scenario to the scientists: What if she was fired from her job, and her partner offered her a back rub and kind words but didn’t truly get why she was upset? Wouldn’t the comfort feel hollow, useless?

“What you’re really asking for is compassion plus understanding,” Bloom replied. “Suppose you feel humiliated. I don’t think it’s what you want or what you need for your partner to feel humiliated. You want your partner to understand your humiliation and respond with love and kindness. I think for your partner to feel humiliated would be the worst thing you want. Because now, you have to worry about your partner’s feelings.”

16 comments:

  1. If I was held hostage by some thugs I would liked to be rescued fast by a psychopathic cop. My favourite movie socio cop is Dirty Harry, I like that scene where the bad guys demand a get away car, and he "gives" them one.

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  2. This has to be the most biased piece of shit article I have read on this site yet. The great sociopath Heros! Complete Bullshit! Oh... I'm not upset at all. Don't think that I took this foul bait. ; )

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well butter my ass and call me a biscuit!
      A clearly outraged anon ranting about how not upset he is. Priceless :)

      Care to discuss rationally what got your panties in such a nasty twist? Or was that rant pretty much the extent of intelligent conversation and depth you are able to offer on the subject?

      Personally, I absolutely loved this article.
      Have found what Bloom is saying to be quite true, in my experience.

      Feelings of empathy are highly overrated. In fact, many "empaths" think that their feelings of empathy somehow automatically make them these benevolent bastions of goodness. To the point that they don't feel the need to ACT.

      For example: They see a homeless man dying in the street. They feel the empathy towards him, they give themselves a big pat on the back for feeeling...and move on without actually doing anything about the tragedy that triggered the empathy. Why make a move to help him or volunteer with the homeless? They already feel good about being such good, caring people.
      They treat their feelings as if they were benevolent acts.

      Some of the most hypocritical, self- centered assholes I know have claimed to be highly empathetic.

      Kat

      Delete
    2. Later, during lunch pause. Many are very good at talking about how they fealt, when they saw what was going on.

      Some turn into around. The episode was just another reason to talk about how it made THEY feel..

      That said. Some people feel, then disconnect, and then react and do something about the situation. They are just a dying breed.

      P.

      Delete
  3. This article makes some interesting points. Does empathy (in the narrower sense of feeling what others feel) lead to better (that's of course subjective) or even more compassionate decisions? People tend to empathize with those most like them or in their own groups which can lead to victimizing "others".

    Do decisions involving empathy and emotion serve the greater good better than purely rational ones? In one study, K Dutton's study asked "normal" people and psychopaths about a fat man variation of the trolley dilemma: the runaway trolley is heading down a track and will kill five people, but there is a fat man next to you you can push over, will fall on the track and stop the trolley. People in the normal group were made uncomfortable by the dilemma (part of their brain lit up) and 90% of them said they wouldn't do it. Those in the psycopaths group were for pushing the fat guy over, and weren't affected by the dilemma itself. There was a vast difference between the two groups in people's brain activity in response in response to the problem, and of course a difference in their answer to it. I also find it interesting that the psychopaths would want to save the five people on the track. One can argue that the normal people are morally right in not wanting to kill the one, the other side of that coin of course is that the psychopaths made a utilitarian decision and saved 5 people (normal people, death toll 5, psychopaths death toll 1)

    Would a society based on reason and practicality as opposed to one following subjective (and ever changing) constructs of "morality" (I am postulating here that empathy affects those constructs) perhaps benefit all? Maybe the world could use a bit less empathy and a bit more critical thinking in trying to solve the problems of our times.

    I in no way think all p/s are nice people, but neither do I think empaths have a monopoly on that either, there are nice people and awful people and everything in between at every point in the spectrum.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It leads to apathy, bystander effect. Unless one has a lot of experience. Some just shut down their emotional side and start to act. Most don't. A good willed psycho is probably a better fit for such situations.

      p

      Delete
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