Empathy is the most fascinating human emotion. It is a basic, primal feeling requiring only a limited cognition to experience. Simply put, it is the ability of humans to feel how others feel. When a friend experiences the loss of a parent you feel some saddening effects as well. It is as if everyone's brains are connected on this planet, helping us feel what each other feel and strengthening our ability to show compassion.
The reason empathy has always intrigued me is that I believe I experience it more than most. I have always been extra sensitive to other peoples' emotions. It is my gift and it is my curse (just like Spider-Man). I have put much thought about what empathy is and how it relates to human interaction-both ancient and modern. I began to write this to try to express my frustration stemming from my inability to figure out the point of the emotion, but I ended up getting a good idea of my own beliefs on the subject.
According to this website, empathy is what makes humans capable of effectively interacting with one another. It helps us work together to build a better society for everyone, an emotion that fosters the incentive to prompt us to protect and help out our neighbors. It's a little nudge persuading humans to forget themselves, at least for a moment, and concentrate on assisting those around us. Empathy could possibly be the driving force behind the creation and maintenance of civilizations. If people only looked out for themselves, it would just be in their best interest to steal resources whenever possible. This problem certainly exists, but most people at least think twice before committing an immoral act on another.
Today, it is so easy to lose the feeling of empathy because of society's information transfer system. How often do we hear a sad song on the radio, read a depressing thread on Team Liquid, or see a multitude of horrific images on cable news? With the age of television, radio, cell phones, and the internet, we can be bombarded with as much information as we want. My concern with this trend is that it may be desensitizing us, not allowing us to utilize empathy to its fullest potential in everyday life-to help each other out.
The practical application of empathy must have been much simpler when the most common bad news people heard was about something that happened in a very close proximity to their location. When people were nomadic and a child member of their group was eaten by a grizzly bear, people would feel for the person. It was not just sad because someone died, but because people were mourning the loss. If another member had experienced a similar situation, they would have a good idea what the parents of the deceased baby were going through. It was right there in their face, not an image or a broadcast, not a transcript or a story.
Of course people still see and experience terrible situations today, but it is not the lack of this type of experience, but the overload of the situations that have not starred them directly in the face that could account for the fading power of empathy. The vast majority of all things you learn from our information transfer mediums have not occurred right in front of you. The more negative information we are exposed to from our technology systems, the higher the risk in losing our powerful sense of empathy we encounter.
kinda wrong with the statement about teamliquid, we have the most emphatic members and moderators out there. usually there are some depressing threads here that try to help out one another and if some one trolls BAM they get banned on the kisser.
Also, yes sometimes it desensitizes us humans with the amount of information that we receive from the different mediums because of communications, but we all know that there are a lot of philanthropist out there that can empathize with another human being through it. So we cannot really say that we are losing our empathy.
Hhhmmm but on another note, I remember when me and my girl were driving through a place were we saw a old man in dire pain like nobody wanted to help. The problem did arise when both of us knew what was happening, even tried to stop and help him but couldn't do it through the seer amount of traffic that was behind us. After that we both felt guilty on no being able to do anything in that scenario.
I think you are right about empathy being somewhat on the decline, but I believe you mistake the symptom for the cause. I think we operate in degrees of care, so it's completely fine to react with more emotional intensity to a death in the family in comparison to the death of some stranger you never met or even heard of before. The information age confronts us with the latter quite often, but I think there's nothing wrong about not feeling utterly crushed by the tragic outcome of a person you only know from the news. I do agree that the existentially closer the tragic event occurs to us, be it the demise of someone from the same country (not really close), your home town (sorta closer), the demise of someone you have seen a couple of years ago (closer still) or even the demise of someone you admired but never met (quite close), the stronger we will feel about the subject - that again works within the concentric circles schema of care that most of us tend to be born with.
Having said that, I do believe that there are a few alienating factors that distance us from the people around us, even from the people in our close proximity. For example, consider the fact that we live in a highly competitive society or that social networking services slowly replace face-to-face interaction. Consider our prevalent hyperindividuality and the ever greater dissociation between social environments and groups.
The practical application of empathy must have been much simpler when the most common bad news people heard was about something that happened in a very close proximity to their location. When people were nomadic and a child member of their group was eaten by a grizzly bear, people would feel for the person.
I must say, quite an interesting example.
I agree with Sauwelios, I'd still be heartbroken if my child was eaten by a grizzly bear, but if I heard a story about it, I'm probably gonna feel indifferent because I don't know the person. However, once I can relate to the situation, either by seeing familiar emotions on someone's face (the homeless guy with the radio voice talking about his mom almost got me teary eyed), or by seeing a situation similar to one I've experienced, it becomes much easier to be truly empathetic. Personally, I think technology makes it easier to be empathetic. For example, seeing images and videos of people experiencing the horrors of Hurricane Katrina invoked the kind of emotions that inspired millions of dollars in relief donations. I definitely wouldn't say empathy is on the decline.
Simply put, it is the ability of humans to feel how others feel. When a friend experiences the loss of a parent you feel some saddening effects as well. It is as if everyone's brains are connected on this planet, helping us feel what each other feel and strengthening our ability to show compassion.
No wonder I always feel like I don't belong or that I am misplaced/misunderstood. I have little to no empathy most of the time. Is it a good thing? bad thing?
It helps us work together to build a better society for everyone, an emotion that fosters the incentive to prompt us to protect and help out our neighbors. It's a little nudge persuading humans to forget themselves, at least for a moment, and concentrate on assisting those around us....If people only looked out for themselves, it would just be in their best interest to steal resources whenever possible.
I generally don't prefer to work with others in any regard, as I'd rather rely on myself for the blame/praise of succeeding/failing. This goes for gaming,work,whatever.
I don't agree that technology is to blame for the lack of empathy.
PS- I think my lack of empathy is mainly because my mother is extremely over empathetic to the point where it often damages her. Empathy can be very dangerous to oneself both financially and psychologically (and possibly even physically).
one of the easiest examples is if a human sees another human yawning then most likely they will yawn too (ofc if they do experience empathy). i really liked this post since ive been doing my own research as well. a+
That's funny. I think more along the lines of the impossibility and the frustration of two people being able to share an experience, no matter how close they are, no matter how well they know each other. The inefficacy of words, the inability to truly get inside another persons head. You can feel bad for another person. You can be sad that something horrible has happened to someone you know. You can wonder what it would be like to lose your mother when your friends mother dies. You can feel a strange sickly feeling as you watch another person kicked in the testicles. But you can't share that experience, because all experience is individual.
I often wish I could know exactly what another person (a person I'm very interested in) was thinking, feeling, but there's no way to tell. There's no way to recount a nightmare you had and have the person you tell feel the same things you felt, understand the terror that overcame you. There's no way to know what a war victim felt even if you are a war victim yourself.
I've been told occasionally that I'm very empathetic, very conscious of other people's feelings, but I always find myself undeserving of the comment.
On January 08 2011 23:02 Liquid`HuK wrote: one of the easiest examples is if a human sees another human yawning then most likely they will yawn too (ofc if they do experience empathy).
Interesting that you mention yawning. I think mirror neurons play a greater role in the contagiousness of yawning than they do in empathy (since the former does not involve emotions), but I believe mirror neurons to be quite important for empathy as well. Another very classic example of empathy that readily comes to mind is something the Chinese philosopher Mencius mentioned roughly 2000 years ago:
"When men suddenly see a child about to fall into a well, they all have the feeling of alarm and distress, not in order to gain friendship with the child's parents, nor to seek the praise of their neighbours and friends, nor because they dislike the reputation (for being unvirtuous)."
We cannot help but feel distress when we see someone else in danger. That's what makes movies and theater so awesome! :p
Isn't the fear you feel seeing a child fall into a well very different from that of what the child is feeling? I would think the reaction is more like 'oh, what the? Did that just happen?!" and then running to help. Very different from the helpless feeling of falling and breaking limbs and cursing his or her clumsiness that the child might feel. I don't know if I would call it empathy.
On January 09 2011 02:50 Chef wrote: Isn't the fear you feel seeing a child fall into a well very different from that of what the child is feeling? I would think the reaction is more like 'oh, what the? Did that just happen?!" and then running to help. Very different from the helpless feeling of falling and breaking limbs and cursing his or her clumsiness that the child might feel. I don't know if I would call it empathy.
i dont understand your post at all. maybe you should read the former post again?
On January 08 2011 23:02 Liquid`HuK wrote: one of the easiest examples is if a human sees another human yawning then most likely they will yawn too (ofc if they do experience empathy). i really liked this post since ive been doing my own research as well. a+
I was thinking about that too. I remember seeing a mythbusters episode on it a long time ago, but I remember the experiment was busted, research time....nope, it was confirmed, 4 percent more likely. I can't say I fully agree with their results, but I've heard the empathy theory about yawning and it makes some good sense.
On January 09 2011 02:50 Chef wrote: Isn't the fear you feel seeing a child fall into a well very different from that of what the child is feeling? I would think the reaction is more like 'oh, what the? Did that just happen?!" and then running to help. Very different from the helpless feeling of falling and breaking limbs and cursing his or her clumsiness that the child might feel. I don't know if I would call it empathy.
Yes that is correct, it's a different feeling, but I don't think empathy requires us to feel exactly (or even approximately) what the other person feels because, as you correctly said, that's completely impossible. I think empathy is something more akin to understanding what the other feels, rather than feeling it for ourselves - if you see someone in pain, you feel bad because you understand that he's in pain, not because you actually feel his pain.
Hm hm, you're right. Empathy technically can just be an intellectual understanding of someone else's feelings. I think it is still important to understand just how far an intellectual understanding of someone else is from reality, however. I am mostly concerned with the inability to share experience, rather than the ability to be compassionate. It seems arrogant to me to say you understand what you can only imagine, which is what provoked my response originally.
On January 08 2011 23:02 Liquid`HuK wrote: one of the easiest examples is if a human sees another human yawning then most likely they will yawn too (ofc if they do experience empathy). i really liked this post since ive been doing my own research as well. a+
you don't even have to see a human, it can happen through cats/dogs etc. Even over the phone when you hear it.
I would like to claim that almost every "positive" human dispositions (ie. empathy, altruism etc.) roots from the evolutionary process of kin selection. It is also worth noting that this sort of selection is not exclusive to homo sapiens.
EPT
