Students 40% less empathetic than they were in 1979

Sir GH wrote: GratefulFan wrote:

"Introversion, sensitivity and egocentrism are often bedfellows, all interacting together as both cause and effect for each other. Remember that empathy is partly defined as the projection of feelings onto another, which is a different thing completely from the accurate perception of the feelings of someone else. Those who quietly hang back are often introspective and intensely observant of both their own inner words and the worlds of others. The less one directly interacts with people, the more reliant one is on empathy to make sense of the world."

Excellent post, as always.  I highlight this part in particular and would like to challenge it.  Are you thereby suggesting that the more one interacts with others, the less empathetic they are?  Or just in the case of some?
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No, of course not. Not at all.   I was only trying to say that empathy oftens subs in for the things we glean from two way social interactions for those who are more introverted.  The intent was to answer Yara's point  that empathy is a non necessary and even undesirable aspect of human interchange for her and others she perceives to be like her (ironically, that perception is empathy in and of itself), and not make a broad statement about how one develops empathy (or not).

I would suspect that the more one interacts with others the more accurate one's empathetic perceptions might become because one is not exclusively or primarily using the self and one's own experience as the template. So that's probably one benefit of being a bit more social.

Ok, now I get it. I thought you were equating active social interactions with empathy. 

I was assuming empathy should be some kind of "wanting-to-do-good" feeling, a "we are the world", Bono-UN-like spirit. If I don't go out adopting poor kids or don't spend the party thinking about world suffering , I'm not empathetic, say. I'm not much of a party-goer, but when I'm at a party, then I'm at a party (!), and pereat mundus!!!

So there's a difference between empathy and solidarity. One may foster the other, but they are not the same.

Let's say we lived in an all-egocentric world. If I had the desire and the ability to feel what others were feeling, and I did so only in order to better pursue my own interests, say, would I be then an empathetic person, despite my egocentrism? It seems you're defining empathy almost as If it were something like a skill that one can use pretty much the way he or she wanted!

Should one then add to the definition: "The ability and desire to feel what others are feeling and trying to be positive about it, either by action or inaction?".

One could say: "Many Germans were empathetic in the 40s to the extent that they could feel just like Hitler did", or the other way around. Many people understood each others' fears of, and hatred for, Jews, and had the same desire to, in some way, get rid of them. Take the huge number of people who actively believed and supported the regime.

Would we call them empathetic? If so, then empathy would be shaped according to the culture one lives in, I assume.

Take a suicide-bomber: he may be perceived in his environment as someone very empathetic towards what really matters, and what really matters would vary across cultures.

Isn't it scary?

I guess my question is why does this matter?  Does it really matter if Joe Blow on the street "feels you?"  (Very odd word choices, I know.)
If anything, social networking sites have functioned in a way other communication media have for decades - information overload.  Now, instead of a weekly call from a friend away, we are inundated constantly with everyone's problem in real time.  It's not that people care less, it's simply a case of having too much to care about at any given time.

Well, it was interesting to me seeing the news coverage of food being fought over in Haiti.  These groups of young men were fighting over a box of food as if it was a game (is it in Rugby that players can grab the ball or whatever it is out of another player's hands?).  It seemed so odd to me (a no-win situation).  I was thinking that if this were another more decent and civilized country, that people would be able to share the food and that maybe some men or women in good health would choose to go hungry in order to feed other family members (older more feeble grandparents or young children).  

I think that the very basis of a functional society is empathy and trust.  Not wanting to hurt another person would make it easy to follow most laws.  There would be no more murders or thefts or rapes or physical or emotional cruelty to others, including animals.

And then I started thinking that each society has a percentage of people who just don't care if others are on the receiving end of pain.  These are the criminals of society.  So, at which percentage does a society fall apart (such as in Haiti)?  I mean, do you need to have 99.5 percent of all members "normal" and "nice" people?   If three out of every 10 people are of a criminal-type (without empathy) personality, is this the amount that makes for system-wide corruption and lack of progress?

Anyway, about the study, I think that studies like that are pretty hard to understand.  Sure, you can get results, maybe the results you are expecting (ha), but does that really prove that people are different?  Maybe they are just conditioned by more competition, more electronic distractions, more entertainment, and less time to fit it all in.  Maybe at the core they have not changed at all.  Or maybe it is something else in the mix - overcrowding or the urban environment of people being tested.  Also, with the example of the med student taking the picture, I think there is still a recklessness in what people are willing to share with others electronically, which in the worst case can be seen by the world.  I mean, imagine that dead person's family seeing the picture.  Shocking.

YOU KNOW... I DON'T CARE FOR YOUR TOPIC.

No no no no...

i don't care.

(irony) :)

*(its understandable, communication isn't the norm... turn off your tv or something, go start a scooter gang... help us all, before the next Ga Ga album comes packaged with SOYLENT GREEN)

Yara wrote: Ok, now I get it. I thought you were equating active social interactions with empathy. 

I was assuming empathy should be some kind of "wanting-to-do-good" feeling, a "we are the world", Bono-UN-like spirit. If I don't go out adopting poor kids or don't spend the party thinking about world suffering , I'm not empathetic, say. I'm not much of a party-goer, but when I'm at a party, then I'm at a party (!), and pereat mundus!!!

So there's a difference between empathy and solidarity. One may foster the other, but they are not the same.

Let's say we lived in an all-egocentric world. If I had the desire and the ability to feel what others were feeling, and I did so only in order to better pursue my own interests, say, would I be then an empathetic person, despite my egocentrism? It seems you're defining empathy almost as If it were something like a skill that one can use pretty much the way he or she wanted!

Should one then add to the definition: "The ability and desire to feel what others are feeling and trying to be positive about it, either by action or inaction?".

One could say: "Many Germans were empathetic in the 40s to the extent that they could feel just like Hitler did", or the other way around. Many people understood each others' fears of, and hatred for, Jews, and had the same desire to, in some way, get rid of them. Take the huge number of people who actively believed and supported the regime.

Would we call them empathetic? If so, then empathy would be shaped according to the culture one lives in, I assume.

Take a suicide-bomber: he may be perceived in his environment as someone very empathetic towards what really matters, and what really matters would vary across cultures.

Isn't it scary?
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No, empathy does not require thinking about world suffering at a party or stabbing yourself repeatedly with a cocktail twizzler if you accidently start having fun. ;) It's just that there's something off for me about the way baby showers often end up playing out in our culture. Baby showers and weddings. I think the way the rituals have evolved at least here in North America result in unintended costs to the things they're supposed to be about. But that's an entirely personal thing, and doesn't add much important to any discussion about empathy.

Empathy really has two parts: the cognitive perception of the emotional state of another, and the appropriate internal emotional response to that state. A person that leverages the knowledge of another person's feelings for his or her own benefit or interest has the first part covered, but that person is not being empathetic. In fact, disorders like NPD or psychopathy that see people assessing others almost entirely for their utility are defined in part by inadequate or wholly absent empathetic response systems. So, no, it's not as you wrote "something like a skill that one can use pretty much the way he or she wanted".

Empathy exists wherever people exist, so sure there was empathy in 1940's Germany and everywhere else since. I wouldn't call it scary. The social and psychological forces that seed crimes and misdeeds like the kind you allude to extend far beyond empathy alone.

Brandon The Great wrote: I guess my question is why does this matter?  Does it really matter if Joe Blow on the street "feels you?"  (Very odd word choices, I know.)
If anything, social networking sites have functioned in a way other communication media have for decades - information overload.  Now, instead of a weekly call from a friend away, we are inundated constantly with everyone's problem in real time.  It's not that people care less, it's simply a case of having too much to care about at any given time.
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I think it matters a lot.  Stepping outside the experience of any one stranger (which does matter to many),  there are mutiple examples of societal framework that depend wholly or in part on an empathetic society to function.  Declining empathy of the scale quoted in the original could see a huge shift in the way we deploy public resources for example,  as things like personal and property crime and family structures can be easily affected when you can't or don't care adequately about individuals outside yourself.   And who picks up the slack or fallout if charity organizations can no longer function as before?

We think about the needs of other people dozens of times a day in order to function at work, at play, on our roads, in our neighbourhoods etc.  Take a good chunk of that away and you've changed a whole lot.

Your second point is interesting.  A finite well of empathy that's been forced to become too diffuse. Hmmmm. :)

Donna13 wrote: Well, it was interesting to me seeing the news coverage of food being fought over in Haiti.  These groups of young men were fighting over a box of food as if it was a game (is it in Rugby that players can grab the ball or whatever it is out of another player's hands?).  It seemed so odd to me (a no-win situation).  I was thinking that if this were another more decent and civilized country, that people would be able to share the food and that maybe some men or women in good health would choose to go hungry in order to feed other family members (older more feeble grandparents or young children).   I think that the very basis of a functional society is empathy and trust.  Not wanting to hurt another person would make it easy to follow most laws.  There would be no more murders or thefts or rapes or physical or emotional cruelty to others, including animals. And then I started thinking that each society has a percentage of people who just don't care if others are on the receiving end of pain.  These are the criminals of society.  So, at which percentage does a society fall apart (such as in Haiti)?  I mean, do you need to have 99.5 percent of all members "normal" and "nice" people?   If three out of every 10 people are of a criminal-type (without empathy) personality, is this the amount that makes for system-wide corruption and lack of progress? Anyway, about the study, I think that studies like that are pretty hard to understand.  Sure, you can get results, maybe the results you are expecting (ha), but does that really prove that people are different?  Maybe they are just conditioned by more competition, more electronic distractions, more entertainment, and less time to fit it all in.  Maybe at the core they have not changed at all.  Or maybe it is something else in the mix - overcrowding or the urban environment of people being tested.  Also, with the example of the med student taking the picture, I think there is still a recklessness in what people are willing to share with others electronically, which in the worst case can be seen by the world.  I mean, imagine that dead person's family seeing the picture.  Shocking. ================================================ I don't know that very much is special about Haiti.  There are so many examples in the past that have shown us how very thin the veneer of  society really is.  Rwanda, Abu Ghraib, and advanced, civilized first world countries like 1940's Germany and post Katrina New Orleans in the US spring immediately to mind.  Startling social experiments have been conducted over the last decades that show how thoroughly and quickly will can be sapped and empathy derailed in completely normal individuals. The Stanley Milgram obedience experiments stunned professionals when they were initially done, and the results have been confirmed and reconfirmed over the years since, most recently on a French TV show last year. The Stanford Prison experiment took a group of completey normal young university men and artibrarily divided them into opressors (jailers) and the oppressed (criminals).  The roles were so thoroughly and quickly and brutally absorbed by both groups that the experiment had to be halted after only six days (some participants had been so traumatized they had been sent home even earlier than that), though it was intended to last two weeks.  It was only halted because the girlfriend of the the lead experimenter pleaded with him to pull the plug because she observed the psychological harm he had become too immersed to see.  Six days! Society completely crumbled in just six days in a pretend jail at a beautiful California University.  There is a fascinting book I'd recommend to anyone with even a remote interest in this called 'The Lucifer Effect' written by Dr. Philip Zimbardo himself, the lead in the Stanford experiment.  He covered those six days in depth, and applies what was learned there to other historical and contemporary situations. In short, the seeds of social breakdown are in almost all of us.   It's not the other guy.  It's us.

Well, these types of experiments are interesting to read about and there was a new one (recently, I mean) testing empathy toward a person of another race.  It tested the physical response in the subjects - their own body's reactions to pain in another person.  You can guess the results.

One factor that cannot be tested in such a situation (of these experiments), is learning over a longer period of time.  And the experimenters will admit that they do not know the meaning of their results.  So, they can get the results, but what do they mean to society?  They cannot say.  Ha.  Oh, well.  It is similar to doing experiments on rats.  You can't take the rat experiment results and then make a direct connection to humans because rats are not humans.

And I didn't say that Haiti was special.  It was just a very good example of a society that doesn't work.  I saw a guy on the news who was from the Netherlands (I think) describing the situation as unique for the reason that the first priority for the rescue teams was their own security.  He was head of a disaster response group.