Why do we feel each other’s pain
The homeless man was standing on a street corner in a towed dress that was too thick for the fast-paced winter day. He looked tired as he held up a simple cardboard sign that read, “On my luck. Anything helps.” While we were walking, our small group of friends and acquaintances interrupted to give the man several dollars.
Most of us felt immediate empathy and compassion for the man.
Except for one of the acquaintances’ husbands, who stood in horror, swore that the homeless were just freelancers skilled at working the system. “He’s probably making more money than I do,” he continued to rage as we walked away. The knowledge frightened her eyes, embarrassed by her husband’s cold, cold behavior.
Why is it that when we suffer another person, some of us are able to see ourselves in the other person’s place and feel sympathy for their pain while others remain indifferent and indifferent?
Empathy is the key.
We are generally pretty well equipped for our own feelings and emotions. But empathy allows us to walk a mile in others’ shoes, “so to speak. It allows us to understand the emotions that another person feels.
To many of us, seeing another person in pain and reacting with indifference or even utter hostility seems completely incomprehensible. But the fact that some people react in this way clearly shows that empathy is not a universal response to the suffering of others.
So why do we feel empathy? Why does it matter? And what impact does this have on our behavior?
What is empathy?
Empathy involves the ability to emotionally understand what another person is experiencing. Essentially, it’s putting you in someone else’s position and feeling what they should feel.
The concept of empathy was first introduced in 1909 by psychologist Edward B. Titchener as a translation of the German term eenzühlung (meaning “feeling in”).
So how exactly does sympathy and empathy differ? Sympathy involves more of a passive connection, while empathy usually involves a much more active attempt to understand another person.
According to several experts, empathy is defined as:
- “… an observer responds emotionally because he sees that another person is experiencing or is about to experience an emotion.” – Ezra Stotland, 1969
- “An attempt by one self-consciousself to indiscriminately grasp the positive and negative experiences of another self.” – Lauren Wispe, 1986
- “… an affective response that is more appropriate for someone else’s situation that is for your own.” – Martin Hoffman, 1987
Why is empathy important?
People are certainly capable of selfish, even cruel, behavior. A quick scan of a daily newspaper quickly reveals numerous rude, selfish and heinous acts. The question then is why do we not do such self-serving behavior all the time? What is it that causes us to feel others’ pain and respond with kindness?
Several theories have been proposed to explain empathy. The earliest explorations in the subject are based on the concept of sympathy. The philosopher Adam Smith suggested that sympathy allows us to experience things that would never otherwise enable us to feel fully.
Sociologist Herbert Spencer suggested that sympathy served an adaptive function and helped with the survival of the species.
More recent approaches focus on the cognitive and neurological processes behind empathy. Researchers have found that different regions of the brain play an important role in empathy, including the anterior cingular cortex and the anterior insula.
Empathy leads to helpful behaviors, which favors social relationships. We are, of course, social beings. Things that help us in our relationships with other people also help us. When people experience empathy, they are more likely to engage in prosocial behaviors that benefit other people.
Things like altruism and heroism are also related to empathy for others.
Why we sometimes do not have empathy
As the story is illustrated at the beginning of the article, not everyone experiences empathy in every situation. My acquaintance’s husband felt no sympathy, empathy or compassion for the homeless man who staggered on a cold winter street and even expressed utter hostility towards him. So why is it that we feel empathy for some people but not for others? A number of different factors play a role. How we perceive the other person, how we indicate their behavior, what we blame for the other’s difficulty, and our own experiences and expectations all come into play.
At the most basic level, these appear to be two main factors that contribute to our ability to experience empathy: genetics and socialization. In essence, it is derived from the age-old relative contributions of nature and nurturing . Our parents pass on genes that contribute to our overall personality, including our propensity for sympathy, empathy, and compassion. On the other hand, we are also subsidized by our parents, our peers, our communities and society. How we treat others, and how we feel about others, is often a reflection of the beliefs and values set at a very young age.
Some reasons why people sometimes have empathy:
- We fall victim to cognitive biases:Sometimes the way we see the world around us is influenced by a number of cognitive biases . For example, we often attribute other people’s failures to internal characteristics, while blaming our own shortcomings on external factors. This bias can make it difficult to see all the factors that contribute to a situation and make it less likely to see a situation from a different perspective.
- We harm the victims:People also fall victim to the idea that people who are different from us also do not feel the same way we do. This is especially common in cases where other people are physically far away from us. When we see reports of a disaster or conflict in a foreign country, we may have less empathy when we think that those who are suffering are fundamentally different from us.
- We Blame Victims:Sometimes when another person has been through a horrible experience, people make the mistake of blaming the victim for his or her circumstances. How often have you heard people ask what a crime victim could do to provoke an attack? This tendency stems from our need to believe that the world is a just and just place. If we believe that people get what they deserve and deserve what they get, it forces us to think that such terrible things can never happen to us.
While empathy can sometimes fail, most people can empathize in a variety of situations. This ability to see things from another person’s perspective and sympathy with another’s emotions plays an important role in our social lives. Empathy allows us to understand others and often forces us to take action to alleviate someone’s suffering.
