“And if it would be your daughter?”: Is it possible to develop empathy
The word "empathy" seems intuitive: most often under it imply sympathy, the ability to enter the position of the interlocutor. However, empathy is not only an expression of care, but also the ability to pass through the feelings of another person.
The English word "empathy" appeared at the beginning of the 20th century as a direct translation of the German "Einfühlung", literally "empathy." Then it meant attributing one's own feelings to an object or the world around it. By the middle of the last century, the meaning of the term was revised: psychologist Rosalind Diamond Cartwright and sociologist Leonard Cottrell conducted a series of experiments, after which they separated empathy, that is, the exact definition of other people's feelings and emotions, from the projection of one's own emotions and feelings on others. In 1955, Reader's Digest reinforced the new use, defining empathy as "the ability to appreciate the feelings of another person, without being emotionally involved so much that it influenced our judgments."
Cute pandas and mirror neurons
Some researchers distinguish between two types of empathy. The first - “emotional” - implies feelings that arise in response to the emotions of others. This includes, for example, the tension that occurs when we feel someone’s fear or anxiety. The second type of empathy is called "cognitive" - it means the ability to determine and understand the emotions of another. In the case of "cognitive" empathy, a person rationally tries to understand what he thinks and feels, say, the interlocutor, to imagine the course of his thoughts, but remains emotionally undone.
“Definitely, empathy includes a whole range of skills,” said psychologist-psychotherapist Natalya Safonova. “This is the ability to notice the mimic and bodily changes in the behavior of another person, and the ability to relate the experience of others to their own, and the ability to withstand the heat of what is happening, and even the ability to accept one's own powerlessness, when the other experiences complex feelings ... "
Studies show that empathy can be partly due biologically and evolutionarily. In the early nineties, scientists found out that when we observe the actions of others, we activate the zones in the cerebral cortex, which are responsible for carrying out these actions - this happens due to mirror neurons. However, critics of the theory that explains empathy with neural connections, consider that simply to imagine how we do something is not enough for empathy. Be that as it may, the question of why we are experiencing empathy and whether it can be developed takes many.
Scientists also managed to identify several factors that, in their opinion, can be attributed to empathy. “Perhaps empathy is provoked by prettiness in the first place: infant features such as big eyes, big head, but a small lower third of the face,” says Harvard University psychologist Stephen Pinker. “Entrepreneurs, whose field of activity is connected with empathy, have long understood this Therefore, charitable organizations so often use photos of children, and organizations for environmental protection - pictures of pandas, children who are considered to be more lovely, are more likely to be adopted, and defendants with children’s faces get Higher sentences. " Data from other studies say that wealth makes us less susceptible to other people's emotions: for example, one of them showed that drivers of expensive cars more often cut off other motorists. Some studies have shown a link between reading "high-quality" fiction and the development of empathy.
Crowd and individual lives
At the philistine level, it seems that everyone’s ability to empathize manifests itself in different ways, and scientists agree. Neuropsychologist Simon Baron-Cohen developed a special test: those who look at him look at thirty-six pairs of eyes and have to decide which of the four words most accurately describes the person’s emotions in each case; on average, participants were able to determine correctly only twenty-six cases. The Sydney Kimmel Medical College (formerly known as Jefferson Medical College) even developed a scale to measure empathy. According to the professor of psychiatry Mohammedreza Khojat, one can develop the ability for it: "Empathy is cognitive ability, not a character trait."
In this property of our psyche, you can find a way to sympathize with the large number of victims of the tragic events - you just need to shift the focus from the crowd to a specific person. True, the effect may be short. Paul Slovic tells about the study that he and his colleagues conducted in connection with the famous photo of the body of a Syrian refugee boy on the beach. According to him, thanks to the snapshot, interest in the problems of refugees rose sharply (statistics about hundreds of thousands of dead worried everyone less), donations increased many times, but it lasted only about a month - and then interest in the topic returned to its normal level. Slovic believes that personal stories can help deal with large-scale problems if you prompt people to send energy into action.
There are techniques that can help each of us to better understand others, not only when it comes to crises and catastrophes. For example, in the USA there are programs for the development of empathy with doctors - they are developed in some colleges as part of a non-binding program. Often in such courses, doctors are taught to look after themselves and not to interrupt patients, to recognize their emotions by facial expressions and body language. There are also more specific recommendations, for example, to control one’s own intonation and look the interlocutor in the eye.
Another approach that is recommended for those who want to develop empathy is the so-called active listening. This is a set of techniques that helps to learn to be more attentive to what the other person is saying, to hear him and not to think out the meaning of his words. There are even sets of relevant exercises: for example, to paraphrase what another person just said to you, to make sure you understood him correctly, to ask additional questions, so that the person tells more and clarifies the thought, listen carefully, and not prepare counter-arguments while the interlocutor says , and so on. Experts also advise to develop an interest in other people, even strangers - it helps to better understand those who are not close to us, and look at the world differently.
Vulnerability and neurodiversity
"In fact, it is impossible to learn empathy in theory," says Gestalt psychotherapist Daria Prikhodko. "First, because we can never get into the skin of another and feel what he feels in all colors. And second, we often confuse empathy and active participation in the life of another person. " According to her, while talking about the difficulties that occur in the life of another (dismissal, quarrel with relatives, a serious illness), worrying, we can begin to answer with the council ("Have you not tried (?) ...?") Or offer see good in everything ("But ..."). “So, this is not empathy,” Daria Prikhodko notes. “Yes, you listened to your partner, yes, you correctly grasped the essence of what you were told, and even know how you would act in such a situation, therefore you want to help with the solution. But empathy is different. It is to be in the feelings that a person is talking about and not try to change anything in the story that is being told. "
Psychologist and psychotherapist Natalya Safonova, however, notes that empathy can work if we relate our own experiences with the emotions of another person. “Remembering how it was to me, I can experience empathy (do not confuse“ empathy ”and“ identification ”- the first implies that I distinguish my own experience and the experience of another person), - the expert says. - At the same time, empathy admits that I may not have a similar experience: for example, I have no children, and I understand that this is a unique experience, but I can also experience empathy, because I know well what it is like to love someone, worry about someone , to experience tenderness or powerless anger. "
At the same time, Natalya Safonova also notes that the concept of empathy is often associated with the ideas of neuronormatism, with the idea of an “average” level of empathy, when a person recognizes his own and other people's feelings, but does not immerse himself too much in empathy. In her opinion, this idea can negatively influence those who do not fit into the statistical "norm", and there is no "right" and "wrong" way to feel: the level of human sensitivity is determined not only by psychological, but also by biological features. "Empathy is not the only whale on which humanism and tolerance are held, and neurodiversity is normal."
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