In The Encouraging Win of Empathy, Part 1, I address how the idea of empathy is controversial in certain circles and then give a history of how the concept came about. In this article, we explore what empathy is, where it comes from, and the benefits of empathy.
WHAT ARE SOME DEFINITIONS FOR EMPATHY?
Roman Krznaric, in an article for Berkeley’s Greater Good, Six Habits of Highly Empathic People, asks, “But what is empathy? It’s the ability to step into the shoes of another person, aiming to understand their feelings and perspectives, and to use that understanding to guide our actions.”
“Empathy: The ability to read and be attuned to other people’s psychological and emotional states,” explains Jessica Colman in Optimal Functioning: A Positive Psychology Handbook.
Dr. Neel Burton writes,
Empathy can be defined as a person’s ability to recognize, feel, and share the emotions of another person, fictional character, or sentient being. It involves, first, seeing the other's condition or situation from her perspective; and, second, sharing her emotions, and, in some cases, also her distress. Empathy is often confused with pity, sympathy, and compassion, which are all reactions to the plight of others (Psychology Today: Empathy and Altruism: Are They Selfish?).
In Social Intelligence, Daniel Goleman says, empathy is “understanding another person’s thoughts, feelings, and intentions” (Kindle Location 1600). His book, The Brain and Emotional Intelligence, tells us,
There are three kinds of empathy. One is cognitive empathy: I know how you see things; I can take your perspective… A second kind is emotional empathy: I feel with you. This is the basis for rapport and chemistry… And the third kind is empathic concern: I sense you need some help and I spontaneously am ready to give it” (Goleman, KL 750-756).
An argument against the existence of empathy says you cannot feel what others are feeling. Therefore empathy is not legitimate. Of course, unlike Spock of Star Trek, we cannot mind-meld with another person. Indeed, we cannot feel exactly like someone else or have the exact same thoughts as someone else. That is not what the research says about empathy. Like the above definitions bring out, empathy is the ability to be in tune with another person so that your mind resonates with that other person cognitively, emotionally, and with concern. You get that person on those levels. It’s what Dr. Daniel Goleman calls “feeling felt,” which is the basis for “rapport and relational chemistry.”
In Empathy: Why It Matters, and How to Get It Roman Krznaric, a philosopher and founding faculty member of London’s School of Life, explains how we humans are wired for empathy and why empathy is so important to cultivate. He brings out how science shows that we literally have brain circuits devoted to trying to understand how another person is feeling and to ‘feel with’ them. Yet there are social, political, and psychological (and I would add religious) barriers to feeling empathy. Krznaric’s book argues that we need to understand these barriers and find ways to overcome them if we are to create a compassionate society we want.
Empathy is not about pity or sympathy, he writes, but about genuinely putting oneself in another’s worldview and treating them accordingly. Something like, “Do unto others as they would want you to do unto them.” He outlines six habits of highly empathic people, such as immersing yourself in another culture, engaging in conversation with people who don’t share your views, or joining a choir with people from many walks of life as a way of decreasing prejudice and developing empathy
WHAT ARE SOME DESCRIPTIONS OF EMPATHY?
A stranger, walking past a group of children, was surprised to see them all crying. “Why, what’s the matter?” he inquired. They replied, “We all have a pain in Billy’s stomach.” That’s empathy! (The Seven Perennial Sins and Their Offspring; p. 62)
“In today’s psychology, the word ‘empathy’ is used in three distinct senses: knowing another person’s feelings; feeling what that person feels; and responding compassionately to another’s distress” (Social Intelligence, p. 1090).
“Empathy represents the perfect storm of sympathetic sharing of another’s feelings, understanding what is likely being experienced and what kind of help or comfort is needed, and having the prosocial motivation to act on behalf of others without necessarily weighing the costs and benefits to oneself” (Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect; p. 180).
Siegel and Bryson explain, “’empathy’ here with its wide range of scientific meanings, including feeling another’s feelings (emotional resonance), imagining another’s point of view (perspective-taking), understanding another (cognitive empathy), sharing another’s happiness (empathic joy), and kind, caring concern with an interest in helping (compassionate empathy)” (The Yes Brain by Daniel Siegel and Tina Bryson, p. 336-338).
“Empathy is about understanding the mind of another, and it allows us to see through someone else’s eyes, to sense their emotion and resonate with them” (The Yes Brain, Location: 1,268). Siegel and Bryson further explain the different aspects of empathy. Empathy includes,
Emotional resonance: Feeling the feelings of another; Cognitive empathy: Understanding, or intellectually getting, another’s overall experience; Compassionate empathy: Sensing suffering and wanting to reduce it; Empathic joy: Experiencing delight with the happiness, achievements, and well-being of another (Location: 1,883).
Back in my military days, I and another soldier with whom I worked hit it off right away. We shared the same kind of interests, perspectives, and humor. Our acquaintance developed into a good friendship. After several months, he and I could “read each other’s minds.” We finished each other’s sentences, laughed at the same things, and had an uncanny ability to share the same concerns. He knew when I was discouraged without me telling him, and I knew when he was having a tough time without him verbalizing anything. That was empathy.
SO, WHERE DOES EMPATHY COME FROM?
Since 1908, when two psychologists adopted the term empathy to describe “feeling in” or “feeling with” another person, the field of psychology has sought to answer: from where does empathy come? Initially, the concept was based on studied observations with human interactions. A more profound question arose: why do some people show empathy? The answers came from surveys, questionnaires, interviews, and studying social behaviors.
Even researchers of child development have observed how little children can develop empathy. Writing in The Scientist in the Crib, three child development scientists state,
Systematic studies indicate that two-year-olds begin to show genuine empathy toward other people for the first time. Even younger babies will become upset in response to the distress of others (we all know the disturbing way the baby will suddenly begin to howl when a marital argument starts). But only two-year-olds provide comfort. They don’t just feel your pain; they try to allay it. The two-year-old monster is also the two-year-old ministering angel (page: 42).
The idea of observing the brain at work was in its infant stage in the 1880s. Not for a century later were magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and computed tomography (CT) diagnostic machines developed. They are used to examine the brain but very limited for evaluating cognitive functioning in the brain. Then came the SPECT (Single-photon emission computed tomography) and PET (Positron-emission tomography) machines. Physicians and scientists can now record three-dimensional images of the brain and its cognitive activities. That includes observing parts of the brain that “light up” during emotional experiences. Dr. Daniel G. Amen is a specialist in this field and has developed a world-class clinic. With SPECT and PET, Dr. Amen and others can observe activities in the brain, to include what happens when one experiences empathy.
Then, as this article tells us,
In the early 1990s, Italian researchers made an astonishing and quite unexpected discovery. They had implanted electrodes in the brains of several macaque monkeys to study the animals’ brain activity during different motor actions, including the clutching of food. One day, as a researcher reached for his food, he noticed neurons begin to fire in the monkeys’ premotor cortex—the same area that showed activity when the animals made a similar hand movement. How could this be happening when the monkeys were sitting still and merely watching him?
During the ensuing two decades, this serendipitous discovery of mirror neurons—a special class of brain cells that fire not only when an individual performs an action, but also when the individual observes someone else make the same movement—has radically altered the way we think about our brains and ourselves, particularly our social selves.
Many social scientists and psychiatrists believe these mirror neurons in the brain play a part in a person’s ability to sympathize or empathize. Most agree that these neurons have some share in our ability to understand, sense, or even feel things like others. However, the debate is just how much these mirror neurons factor in, as Dr. Neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran reveals in Jason Marsh’s article, Do Mirror Neurons Give Us Empathy?.
As Mark Goulston expresses in his insightful book, Just Listen, “Empathy is a sensory experience; that is, it activates the sensory part of your nervous system, including the mirror neurons we’ve talked about.” And John Medina explains, “These so-called mirror neurons are scattered across the brain like tiny cellular asteroids. We recruit them, in concert with memory systems and emotional processing regions, when we encounter another person’s experiences” (Brain Rules for Baby; p. 175). Dr. Alison Gopnik says, “Most of the scientists who work on mirror neurons realize just how complicated the neural underpinnings of imitation, empathy, and language really are (The Gardener and the Carpenter; p. 1223 ).
So, empathy is a real thing that comes from and can be registered by special equipment in the brain. Yes, there are areas of the brain from which emotions come. As Dr. Daniel Goleman informs us,
Another area crucial for emotional intelligence is also on the right side of the brain. It’s the right somatosensory cortex; injury here also creates a deficiency in self-awareness, as well as in empathy – awareness of emotions in other people. The ability to understand and feel our own emotions is critical for understanding and empathizing with the emotions of others. Empathy also depends on another structure in the right hemisphere, the insula, a node for brain circuitry that senses our entire bodily state and tells us how we're feeling. Tuning in to how we're feeling ourselves plays a central role in how we sense and understand what someone else is feeling (Emotional Intelligence; p. 90).
Along with observational studies and the studies of the brain, research into the characteristics and causes of autism shed light on empathy. Again, Dr. Goleman comments,
Another measure of primal empathy, the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test, was designed by Simon Baron-Cohen, an expert on autism, and his research group at Cambridge University… Those who score at the high end in reading messages from the eyes will be gifted at empathy—and in any role that demands it, from diplomacy and police work to nursing and psychotherapy. Those who do poorly in the extreme are likely to have autism (Social Intelligence; p. 1639).
The Reading the Mind in the Eyes test is an instrument to check a person’s ability to read other people’s emotions. The New York Times wrote about it in the 2013 article, Can You Read People’s Emotions? In 2011, Dr. Baron-Cohen published Zero Degrees of Empathy: A New Theory of Human Cruelty where he theorizes that a person’s erosion of empathy might explain cruelty and even what we commonly describe as evil. This description in Amazon tells more,
Simon Baron-Cohen, an expert in autism and developmental psychopathology, has always wanted to isolate and understand the factors that cause people to treat others as if they were mere objects. In this book, he proposes a radical shift, turning the focus away from evil and on to the central factor, empathy. Unlike the concept of evil, he argues, empathy has real explanatory power. Putting empathy under the microscope, he explores four new ideas: firstly, that we all lie somewhere on an empathy spectrum, from high to low, from six degrees to zero degrees. Secondly, that deep within the brain lies the 'empathy circuit.' How this circuit functions determines where we lie on the empathy spectrum. Thirdly, that empathy is not only something we learn but that there are also genes associated with empathy. And fourthly, while a lack of empathy leads to mostly negative results, is it always negative? Full of original research, ‘Zero Degrees of Empathy’ presents a new way of understanding what it is that leads individuals down negative paths, and challenges all of us to consider replacing the idea of evil with the idea of empathy-erosion.
I am not endorsing his theory and certainly not wanting to engage in a philosophical and theological discussion about evil. The point here is to show how people in the autistic spectrum apparently lack empathy as we now know it, and these studies inform us about the reality of empathy. Studies have also shown that people with certain personality disorders unrelated to autism lack empathy. Examples are Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Sociopathy, and Psychopathy. A specialist in Dark Triad Personality traits, Dr. Perpetua Neo states emphatically, "Narcissists, psychopaths, and sociopaths do not have a sense of empathy, they do not and will not develop a sense of empathy, so they can never really love anyone…"
Researchers continue to study this phenomenon. They have not completely understood everything about empathy, but they do know it is a natural thing, which needs cultivation. In fact, scientists have even located particular areas of the brain where compassion and empathy reside. People who have not experienced brain damage or have some brain dysfunction can develop empathy through secure attachments with their primary caregiver(s). Read what Hoffman, Cooper, Powell, Siegel, and Benton write in Raising a Secure Child,
Decades of research have now shown that having a secure attachment with a primary caregiver leaves children healthier and happier in virtually every way we measure such things—in competence and self-confidence, empathy and compassion, resilience and endurance . . . in the ability to regulate emotions, tap intellectual capacity, and preserve physical health . . . in pursuing our life’s work and having a fulfilling personal life (p. 368).
More specifically, “’ empathy comes from being empathized with,” says Stanley Greenspan, clinical professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at the George Washington University School of Medicine, in his book Great Kids’” (Brain Rules for Baby; p. 214). People who are nurtured by empathic individuals tend to mature with a strong sense of empathy. Others who grow up attentive to empathetic and compassionate individuals also learn that positive trait.
WHAT’S THE BENEFIT OF EMPATHY?
The multitude of studies on empathy and compassion over the years have revealed several benefits to developing and having empathy.
1. Empathy is a crucial component of compassion
“Compassion is having an intense, heartfelt empathy for others. It is the ability to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes. The Scriptures remind us to ‘weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice.’ If envy weeps at those who celebrate and celebrates with those who weep, true compassion sees another’s sorrow and wants to help. It looks at another’s success and wants to praise” (Rebecca Manley Pippert: A Heart For God ; p. 81).
Empathy is an essential building block for compassion. We have to sense what another person is going through, what they're feeling, in order to spark compassion in us. There's a spectrum that runs from total self-absorption (where we don't notice other people) to noticing them and beginning to tune in, to empathizing, to understanding their needs and having empathic concern – and then comes compassionate action, where we help them out (The Brain and Emotional Intelligence; p. 759).
Neel Burton also explains,
Compassion (‘suffering with’) is more engaged than simple empathy, and is associated with an active desire to alleviate the suffering of the other. With empathy, you mirror the other’s emotions; with compassion, you not only share them but also elevate them into a universal, transcending experience. Compassion is one of the main motivators of altruism (Psychology Today: Empathy and Altruism- Are They Selfish?).
2. Empathy is a necessary ingredient for social competence
“As you might suspect, many ingredients go into creating socially smart children, too many to put into some behavioral Tupperware bowl. I’ve selected the two that have the strongest backing in the hard neurosciences. They are also two of the most predictive for social competency: emotional regulation and our old friend, empathy” ( Brain Rules for Baby; p. 173).
Along with the ability to regulate emotions, the ability to perceive the needs of another person and respond with empathy plays a huge role in the child’s social competence.
3. Empathy fosters a deeper and stronger bond between friends, especially in the marital relationship
“The moment when empathy becomes mutual has an especially rich resonance. Two tightly looped people mesh minds, even smoothly finishing sentences for each other—a sign of a vibrant relationship that marital researchers call ‘high-intensity validation’” (Social Intelligence; loc. 2036).
John Smith of Good Therapy brings this out in his article, Empathy Improves Relationships, as does this short article in Advanced Consultancy: Empathy- The Key to Building Successful Relationships.
4. Empathy has shown to be a potent inhibitor in human cruelty
Dr. Goleman brings out how, “Empathy is the prime inhibitor of human cruelty: withholding our natural inclination to feel with another allows us to treat the other as an It (Ibid., loc. 2167). Indeed, there are ongoing studies, which demonstrate how empathy can reduce racism.
5. Empathy is a key facilitator for altruistic behavior
In the fields of psychology and social sciences, there is a debate whether or not altruism or empathic-altruism is rooted in selfishness or if empathy drives altruism and kindness. Summer Allen and Jill Suttie discuss an alternative perspective in How Our Brains Make Us Generous and highlight the healthy and good role empathy has on altruism, kindness, and generosity.
Wrapping It Up
Rather than viewing empathy as something illegitimate, wrong, or even sinful, empathy is a real and positive part of the human makeup. There are many benefits to developing and fostering empathy. To summarize, allow me to quote how Derrick Carpenter puts it in VeryWell Mind:
Empathy is a powerful force that helps maintain social order and cooperation. It is the mechanism that allows people to understand and relate to others. Empathy is a necessary precursor to intimacy, trust, and belonging. It is also the feeling that makes it difficult to turn a blind eye to the suffering of others.
Empathic people experience a number of happiness benefits. Empathy often encourages altruistic behavior, and empathy-based kindness has been shown to increase cooperation and forgiveness, strengthen relationships, decrease aggression and judgment, and even improve mental and physical health.
Interestingly, research does show that happier people tend to be less aware of negative emotions in others despite rating themselves as being more empathic. However, it is important to practice empathy, regardless of the mood in order to create greater happiness for ourselves and others.
Practicing the critical components of empathy can help you better understand and interact with people in your life.
While the idea of empathy is controversial in certain circles, particularly with Christian fundamentalists and biblicists, hundreds of studies in social, emotional, psychological, and brain science have been conducted that sufficiently show empathy is real and is a good thing. In this post, we have explored what empathy is and where it comes from and then touched on the benefits of empathy. In the next article, we will look at whether the Bible has anything to say about empathy.
- Dr. Don