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Extending empathy to abstract strangers
We naturally have more empathy for people closer to us. Our empathy and affinity for others decline the further people are from us.
But our natural empathy for those closer and more similar to us can be used to provoke antipathy towards those who are not like us. Politicians and activists often play to the idea of "us and them," deploying empathy and identifiable victims to make a political case.
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The identifiable victim effect
Psychologists point out that defining empathy as the act of stepping into someone's mind to experience their feeling can lead to some tricky moral dilemmas.
- We are moved to open our hearts (or wallet) when presented with a case such as a charity campaign where a sing...
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The difference between empathy and compassion
- Empathy is about stepping into someone's shoes.
- Compassion is a feeling of concern for another person's suffering, which moves the person to help.
To be compassionate, you don't have to share somebody's feelings. It's the idea of exte...
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Empathy's incapacitating emotional impact
While shared happiness is a very pleasant state, sharing someone's suffering, such as a loved one, can be very difficult.
Our brain activity in the regions associated with pain is partially mirrored. At worst, people feel "empathic distress," which leads to apathy, withdrawal, an...
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A definition of empathy
The German word for empathy is "Einfühlung" and was coined in the late 1800s. It means "feeling into."
Empathy is about understanding other people's feelings. Some think empathy means the ability to read fellow human beings or simply feeling connected to people. Others...
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Misplaced empathy
In recent years, researchers have found that misplaced empathy can lead to exhaustion and apathy, and prevent you from helping the people who need you.
Worse, people's empathetic tendencies can be used to manipulate them into aggression and cruelty.
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Deep Empathy For Others
Those who inspire us to be better are able to experience empathy, and they openly affirm their capacity to understand our personal stories.
They don’t overprotect us, but they validate and appreciate who we are, which makes us feel safe to be more authentic and to keep imp...
Examples of empathy gaps
The empathy gap causes us to misjudge our own emotions and behaviors. Examples include overestimating our ability to stay composed in a stressful event, overestimating the likelihood that we can control our desire for an addictive substance, such as coffee, or underestimating...
The role of metaphors
Metaphors, like “trickle-down economics” and “red wall,” help frame the issues and also our responses to social and political discussions.
When politicians compare the national economy to a household budget, they want us to think in specific ways about national debt or policies of aust...
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