SHOWING EMPATHY TOWARDS OTHERS

By Vincent Lyn

Most of us want to believe that when we face character-defining moments, we’re going to rise to the challenge and act decisively to help those in trouble. In everyday life, though, it’s easy to let self-doubts, apathy, and mental clutter muddle our response to the surrounding moral landscape — whether it includes unjust discrimination, corrupt institutional culture, or innocent children detained without their families.

Hurl enough weight at a building and it’s likely to topple, no matter how sturdy its structure. Something similar happens in our minds when we’re bombarded with news of problems that seem too big for us to handle. When story after story features human suffering on a large scale, the temptation to shut it all out mounts.

Empathy is the ability to emotionally understand what other people feel, see things from their point of view, and imagine yourself in their place. Essentially, it is putting yourself in someone else’s position and feeling what they must be feeling. When you see another person suffering, you might be able to instantly envision yourself in the other person’s place and feel sympathy for what they are going through.

While people are generally pretty well-attuned to their own feelings and emotions, getting into someone else’s head can be a bit more difficult. The ability to feel empathy allows people to “walk a mile in another’s shoes,” so to speak. It permits people to understand the emotions that others are feeling. For many, seeing another person in pain and responding with indifference or even outright hostility seems utterly incomprehensible. But the fact that some people do respond in such a way clearly demonstrates that empathy is not necessarily a universal response to the suffering of others.

There are some signs that show that you tend to be an empathetic person:

• You are good at really listening to what others have to say.
• People often tell you about their problems.
• You are good at picking up on how other people are feeling.
• You often think about how other people feel.
• Other people come to you for advice.
• You often feel overwhelmed by tragic events.
• You try to help others who are suffering.
• You are good at telling when people aren’t being honest.
• You sometimes feel drained or overwhelmed in social situations.
• You care deeply about other people.
• You find it difficult to set boundaries in your relationships with other people.

Having a great deal of empathy makes you concerned for the well-being and happiness of others. It also means, however, that you can sometimes get overwhelmed, burned out, or even overstimulated from always thinking about other people’s emotions.

There are different types of empathy that a person may experience:

Affective empathy involves the ability to understand another person’s emotions and respond appropriately. Such emotional understanding may lead to someone feeling concerned for another person’s well-being, or it may lead to feelings of personal distress.

Somatic empathy involves having a sort of physical reaction in response to what someone else is experiencing. People sometimes physically experience what another person is feeling. When you see someone else feeling embarrassed, for example, you might start to blush or have an upset stomach.

Cognitive empathy involves being able to understand another person’s mental state and what they might be thinking in response to the situation. This is related to what psychologists refer to as theory of mind, or thinking about what other people are thinking.

While sympathy and compassion and are related to empathy, there are important differences. Compassion and sympathy are often thought to involve more of a passive connection, while empathy generally involves a much more active attempt to understand another person.

Human beings are certainly capable of selfish, even cruel, behavior. A quick scan of any daily newspaper quickly reveals numerous unkind, selfish, and heinous actions. The question then is why don’t we all engage in such self-serving behavior all the time? What is it that causes us to feel another’s pain and respond with kindness?

There are a number of benefits of being able to experience empathy:

• Empathy allows people to build social connections with others. By understanding what people are thinking and feeling, people are able to respond appropriately in social situations. Research has shown that having social connections is important for both physical and psychological well-being.
• Empathizing with others helps you learn to regulate your own emotions. Emotional regulation is important in that it allows you to manage what you are feeling, even in times of great stress, without becoming overwhelmed.
• Empathy promotes helping behaviors. Not only are you more likely to engage in helpful behaviors when you feel empathy for other people, but other people are also more likely to help you when they experience empathy.

Not everyone experiences empathy in every situation. Some people may be more naturally empathetic in general, but people also tend to feel more empathetic towards some people and less so towards others.

Some of the different factors that play a role in this tendency include:

• How people perceive the other person
• How people attribute the other individual’s behaviors
• What people blame for the other person’s predicament
• Past experiences and expectations

Research has found that there are gender differences in the experience and expression of empathy, although these findings are somewhat mixed. Women score higher on empathy tests, and studies suggest that women tend to feel more cognitive empathy than men.

At the most basic level, there appear to be two main factors that contribute to the ability to experience empathy: genetics and socialization. Essentially, it boils down the age-old relative contributions of nature and nurture.

Parents pass down genes that contribute to overall personality, including the propensity toward sympathy, empathy, and compassion. On the other hand, people are also socialized by their parents, peers, communities, and society. How people treat others as well as how they feel about others is often a reflection of the beliefs and values that were instilled at a very young age.

A few reasons why people sometimes lack empathy include cognitive biases, dehumanization, and victim-blaming. Sometimes the way people perceive the world around them is influenced by a number of cognitive biases. For example, people often attribute other people’s failures to internal characteristics, while blaming their own shortcomings on external factors. These biases can make it difficult to see all the factors that contribute to a situation and make it less likely that people will be able to see a situation from the perspective of another.

Many also fall victim to the trap of thinking that people who are different from them also don’t feel and behave the same as they do. This is particularly common in cases when other people are physically distant. For example, when they watch reports of a disaster or conflict in a foreign land, people might be less likely to feel empathy if they think that those who are suffering are fundamentally different from themselves.

Sometimes when another person has suffered a terrible experience, people make the mistake of blaming the victim for their circumstances. This is the reason why victims of crimes are often asked what they might have done differently to prevent the crime. This tendency stems from the need to believe that the world is a fair and just place. People want to believe that people get what they deserve and deserve what they get — it fools them into thinking that such terrible things could never happen to them.

Fortunately, empathy is a skill that you can learn and strengthen. If you would like to build your empathy skills, there are a few things that you can do:

• Work on listening to people without interrupting
• Pay attention to body language and other types of nonverbal communication
• Try to understand people, even when you don’t agree with them
• Ask people questions to learn more about them and their lives
• Imagine yourself in another person’s shoes

While empathy might fail sometimes, most people are able to empathize with others in a variety of situations. This ability to see things from another person’s perspective and sympathize with another’s emotions plays an important role in our social lives. Empathy allows us to understand others and, quite often, compels us to take action to relieve another person’s suffering.

Vincent Lyn

CEO/Founder at We Can Save Children

Director of Creative Development at African Views Organization

Economic & Social Council at United Nations

Middle East Correspondent at Wall Street News Agency

Rescue & Recovery Specialist at International Confederation of Police & Security Experts