No such thing as a "lack of empathy" (?)

[TheRobin]

To make the case as briefly as possible: If we accept that empathy means something along the lines of "being able to understand an emotional and/or cognitive state of other people" then people who lack emapthy would just show confusion when they are exposed to a behaviour/emotion/idea they can't empathize with.

However most of the time what we experience is people actively opposing the behaviour/emotion/idea, which can not logically be attributed to a lack of understanding, but an opposition/anger towards the expression of this behaviour/emotion/idea.

Maybe I'm just extrapolating too much from my own experience here, but I've found that when I couldn't empathize with certain aspects about myself I've felt annoyed by whatever I couldn't empathize with. Which was something that came out of the idea that "I shouldn't have/listen to this feeling/idea".

And simply recognizing this has helped me tremendously in empathizing with myself again.

I mainly post this, 'cause if I'm more or less correct, then maybe a simple explanation of this might help people with an apparent lack of empathy to understand their own process better which might help them change their behaviour. Ofc it might just be a bit wishful thinking on my part.

 

Also, for that sake of accuracy, I think it might be more productive the understand it as a opposition to a very specific thing and not an overall lack of understanding or opposition of all behaviour/emotions/ideas. Like, most people barely have a problem with empathizing with happyness and joy. Some have a problem accepting and listening to anger. And most often it's a lack of accepting and listening to sadness.

 

As Stef mentioned a few times himself, there's a problem for empathetic people by not being able to understand what's going on inside people who lack empathy for certain things (i.e. can't empathize with a lack of empathy). I think this can create two distinct problems of communcation.
One is when someone gives more pragmatic answers without much regard for the emotional content of the person's expression, which is often seen by the difference of men and women reacting to certain situations, where women generally want more someone to listen to their feelings and men generally just want to help them change things for the better (and then get called cold or heartless for that).
The other situation is where someone shares something and the other one comments with annoyance and surprise at the fact that they would feel/express something like that, implicitly stating "you shouldn't feel that way".

In the first example the solution (I think) lies in understanding that people have different ways of trying to alleviate the unease and that this difference doesn't necessairly imply a lack of wanting to help. While on the other hand it's also good to keep in mind for the more pragmatic among us, that people can have different expectations when communicating something than just wanting practical advice.

In the second example it might be useful to explain those people the basci idea of emotions and why they would be appropriate and useful in that specific situation and see if they get it. Also possibly ask them why they'd think people "shouldn't feel that way (and express it)" to encourage them to question their own assumptions a bit.

Of course this is no guarantee that people will listen and it will be productive but it might help bridge the gap a bit and help with community building and problem-solving in relationships.


Anyway, looking forward to hearing your thoughts about it and I hope I didn't just miss something that obvious that the first answer to this post will completely invalidate all of what I just wrote

[Eh Steve]

I had to do a quick refresher course on empathy to properly give my answer here.

 

Your definition lacks one essential key in understanding empathy.   Per wikipedia (emphasis mine): Empathy is the capacity to understand what another person is experiencing from within the other person's frame of reference, i.e., the capacity to place oneself in another's shoes.^[1]

 

Basically...people who lack empathy do not always lack an understanding intellectually of the other persons feelings.  Lacking empathy is the inability to feel another person's feelings.  A lot of training with autistic people to my knowledge is the understanding part of someone elses feelings, where you study facial patterns for sadness, happiness etc.  And they have to intellectually remember these things to better understand people.  They can't necessarily empathize genuinely, but they learn intellectually to recognize others feelings and sometimes ways to best deal with others who feel a certain way.  A lack of empathy is not always synonymous with cruelty or malice.

 

As you pointed out, a lack of empathy is not necessarily the same as a lack of sympathy.  For example if someone is terrified of being weak/crying, and sees a man crying.  He may empathize with that person, very capable of putting himself in that persons shoes.  However, due to trauma etc.. he finds this feeling completely dangerous and will react negatively towards the other person for infecting him with those dangerous feelings or displaying them publicly.  This is what comes around when certain feelings are unacceptable, it is not always a lack of empathy, more usual is a lack of sympathy (which to my knowledge is more culturally reinforced whereas empathy is an almost purely biological phenomenon with the development of specific mirror neurons from nurturing).

 

I have some thoughts on the problem solving dilemma but can't articulate them well right now.  I agree in large part with what you've proposed though so it would just be agreeing with my own spin on things

 

Thanks for the post, it was stimulating and fun to respond to and think about.

[MMX2010]

To make the case as briefly as possible: If we accept that empathy means something along the lines of "being able to understand an emotional and/or cognitive state of other people" then people who lack emapthy would just show confusion when they are exposed to a behaviour/emotion/idea they can't empathize with.

 

However most of the time what we experience is people actively opposing the behaviour/emotion/idea, which can not logically be attributed to a lack of understanding, but an opposition/anger towards the expression of this behaviour/emotion/idea.

 

Maybe I'm just extrapolating too much from my own experience here, but I've found that when I couldn't empathize with certain aspects about myself I've felt annoyed by whatever I couldn't empathize with. Which was something that came out of the idea that "I shouldn't have/listen to this feeling/idea".

 

And simply recognizing this has helped me tremendously in empathizing with myself again.

 

I mainly post this, 'cause if I'm more or less correct, then maybe a simple explanation of this might help people with an apparent lack of empathy to understand their own process better which might help them change their behaviour. Ofc it might just be a bit wishful thinking on my part.

 

 

 

(1) You're 100% right in everything you say. 

 

(2) But you only frame this solution as "People with an apparent lack of empathy should change their behavior.", without considering the opposite frame "People with an apparent surplus (or right amount) of empathy should change their behavior."  

 

(3) When you say, "However most of the time what we experience is people actively opposing the behaviour/emotion/idea, which can not logically be attributed to a lack of understanding, but an opposition/anger towards the expression of this behaviour/emotion/idea", you are mostly correct.  But you don't consider that the person is expressing opposition/anger towards the invalidity of the behavior/emotion/idea. 

 

I've had too many people in the FDR community accuse me of "lacking empathy" when I've swiftly pointed out that their argument is wrong, or their emotional reaction is biased/ill-informed.  So I no longer accept the premise that, "In all case, the person with less empathy is wrong, while the person with more empathy is always right."