Why Empathy Is Not the Best Way to Care | Paul Bloom | Big Think
Vložit
- čas přidán 9. 09. 2024
- Why Empathy Is Not the Best Way to Care
Watch the newest video from Big Think: bigth.ink/NewV...
Join Big Think Edge for exclusive videos: bigth.ink/Edge
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yale psychologist Paul Bloom’s latest book is called Against Empathy, which doesn’t leave you guessing where he stands. Bloom argues that empathy is doing us damage - there is a place for it, but not so high up on society’s pedestal. Empathy can cloud our decision-making, and bring us too close to problems that require action rather than commiserations. Realizing that begs the question: in a world with less empathy, how do we connect and help our fellow humans? Bloom is banking on compassion, and makes a distinction between the two that transcends semantics: empathy is feeling what other people feel, imagining their predicament, echoing their emotional state.
Compassion is more rational: you hear the other person’s predicament but you don’t feel their emotion - this frees you up to understand it, and to make headway on a solution. Bloom likens it to seeing a doctor or a therapist. Do you want them to feel and echo your pain or anxiety, or would prefer that they do something about it? If empathy is as overrated as Bloom suggests, then compassion may be the better way to show you care. Paul Bloom is the author of Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion.
Paul Bloom's most recent book is Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PAUL BLOOM:
Paul Bloom is the Brooks and Suzanne Ragen Professor of Psychology at Yale University. An internationally recognized expert on the psychology of child development, social reasoning, and morality, he has won numerous awards for his research, writing, and teaching. Bloom’s previous books include Just Babies: The Origins of Good and Evil and How Pleasure Works: The New Science of Why We Like What We Like, and he has written for Science, Nature, The New York Times, and The New Yorker.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCRIPT:
Paul Bloom: I argued empathy is a poor moral guide. It’s biased. It’s enumerate. It zaps the spirit. It can be weaponized to make us worse people. But one question I often get is what replaces it? And in my book I make a distinction between empathy and compassion. Now a lot of people think the terms mean the same thing and it’s not an argument of words. You can use whatever words you want. But psychologically there are two different processes. One is what I’ve been calling empathy which is you’re suffering, I put myself in your shoes. I feel your pain and that has all sorts of effects, most of them bad I would argue. But a second distinct process is compassion where I care about you. I care about your welfare but I don’t necessarily feel your suffering. Now you might say well that’s just a verbal difference or how do we know such a compassion exists. But there’s some really cool research exploring this and actually I got into this because I was at a conference in London and I bumped into Matthieu Ricard.
He was hard to miss, long saffron robes, beatific smile. The happiest man on earth. And I got to talking to him and he asked me what I was up to and I told him that I was against empathy. And to me that felt kind of awkward but I thought, you know, telling a monk you’re against empathy. But he said oh, empathy. Of course you should be against empathy. And he began to tell me about his research and then I realized there’s a body of research, neuroscience research that distinguishes empathy from compassion, exactly the distinction I was looking for where they put people in scanners, FMRI scanners and they get them to engage in empathy meditation where you feel the suffering of the other person.
You imagine feeling it. And you compare that to compassion meditation where you care for people. Loving kindness they call it. Without any empathic connection. And this work which was done in collaboration to the neuroscientist Tania Singer illustrates a real sharp difference where empathy is exhausting, it is unpleasant, it is difficult and it makes you withdraw. Compassion is exhilarating, it’s energizing, it is seen as a positive experience and it makes you approach. It makes you more likely to help. And since then there’s been other...
Read the full transcript at bigthink.com/v...
Want to get Smarter, Faster?
Subscribe for DAILY videos: bigth.ink/GetSmarter
Finally--someone is speaking sense into the matter. People talk empathy, then accuse of not being empathetic, then scream it from the rooftops...it's sickening. I'm a writer, and my goal is to have the readers FEEL the emotional situations of the characters in each novel (to live it in their own minds). Being empathetic in everyday life is not helpful in most circumstances.
You’re a fkn monster… haha jk. Just means you innately understand the bigger picture.
Although I think you’re still a monster
Also rhetoric is very malleable. You can be a fascist and have a whole race of ppl warp their fundamental senses of reasoning through convincing rhetoric.
I fancy myself a “writer” as well, but I try to go for a more universal feeling.
But maybe Nietzche would say that I’m impeding human progress by standing by the “meek” or “weak”
😂💕
@@pedrocruz4409 shes just another sociopath :)
What I got from this was that empathy works well on a small scale but goes wrong on a large scale, hence the need for rational compassion.
Scale has nothing to do with it.
It does. You can empathize much easier with an individual, than you can with an entire group. Let alone with the world 😂@@LWT1331
I agree! Empathy is such a "that's so me" word and such a "Myers-Briggs" label that losers with self-worth and esteem issues wear. Empathy is a capability not a personality, maybe I'm superhuman but I have a switch button for empathy. I can choose who I want to empathise with, and once I dive and understand I'd either want to actually help or decide to get myself out of that situation as soon as possible. In most of my observations, people that say or claim that they're an empath, are usually the ones with higher egos and crave for recognition. Empathy, narcissism and discernment aren't personalities..they are skills and capabilities each person should have and able to control and balance. Psychology will label me as sociopath or a psycho for saying this but it requires real suffering or first-hand eye witnessing to suffering to be able to embrace and call ourselves "empath". This empath thing is just all based on western ethos.
Every hairy-armpit vegan, SJW, granola munchers, rainbow flag-bearers, anti-authority, anti-war hippies that I know all shit on clean water, never got punched in the face, doesn't work a full-time job LOL, and was never hungry their entire life. Only God is compassionate and empathetic enough on a large scale. I love dogs but I don't care about any of those individual dogs being butchered and roasted in China. Do I understand how the owners feel? Yes. Can I feel what they feel? YES! But why would I put myself through that situation when there's nothing I can do to make that person feel better? Self-proclaim empaths are like people who jump on the same quicksand just to understand what the drowning person is feeling, cries about it but didn't think through how he/she xan help to help in a situation. Jack and Rose in the Titanic are just empaths.. if they were smart enough both could've lived. Oh stupid empaths hey.
My empathy is what taught me compassion. A measure of suffering can be good.
Pity - Feeling bad for someone without doing anything.
Sympathy - Hoping someone will feel better without feeling emotion and not helping them
Empathy - Feeling emotion for the person because you've had personal experience and you know how they feel and not doing anything to help, just saying "you know how it feels".
Compassion - Having personal experience but the emotion they have motivates you to help, care and you want to help the person find a solution.
Altruism - Wanting to help the person (because you feel like it's the right thing to do) find a solution but don't have personal experience in knowing how they feel.
You cleared my doubts thank you
Empathy is the investigative tool which informs us. Then Compassion is an attitude on what problems and solutions we recognise which informs our action. Without Empathy I would argue that compassion is not possible. it is easier to hate someone you do not understand.
Why hate?
@the seeker I know this is late. That is not true.
With empathy alone you can’t do anything just understanding the other person feeling don’t solve the problem
If compassion makes me aproach and more likely to help then I pick compassion over empathy.
It seems that Bloom thinks that empathy equals sympathy. According to Merriam-Webster sympathy is when you share the feelings of another; empathy is when you understand the feelings of another but do not necessarily share them. I wish there would be an unanimous use of the concepts of sympathy, empathy and compassion among the psychologists, scientists etc., because now it's just confusing.
I approve of this 100%
We are susceptible to manipulation by those who pry on sympathy, and even empathy. Empathy is ok in any moment of connection but it should be short lived and then replaced by compassion, it allows you take your strength back and put the hurt back with the source it came from with compassion for that person.
Both have their place. Susie Orbach talks about having a process of sitting in the space with a patient, feeling a sense of what the patient is feeling and being able to come out the other side and separate in order to help. There is some empathy in that; sure you have to use empathy in a smart way, but you can't really get to an impartial place without the life experience to know more of what the people around you go through.
That's compassion though. Holding space through being grounded in one's own body and wishing well for the other. You can't feel their suffering in your own body (empathy) without burning out or avoiding others. It's debilitating.
That’s compassion, learn the meaning of the words first and then you start giving life lessons
Empathy + Compassion. They doesn't cancel each other but all the contrary, they complement each other. Compassion that is aware of the other through empathy. I agree that empathy alone is not enough, but compassion alone could be a solitary act if doesn't require any empathy at all.
thats what i figured
But with compassion alone you are doing something to help the other person, empathy alone doesn’t help just feeling bad for the other person it won’t help
extending the doctor example, you need your doctor to acknowledge how painful it is, and requiring the doctor to share the pain is almost always a bad idea. Imagine your severed arm on the table, the doctor should have both of his/hers rather than putting him/herself in your situation, right? prepare yourself in advance with the emotions you "share" with others, just like the doctor spending years in school before practicing. make sure you're ready and compact when people need your presence.
@@ngohiep5003 I understand and agree with you, my approach is from a personal experience. I had an accident 7 years ago, I fell and crushed my ribs quite bad. I was at the hospital recovering. After 3 days on observation, doctor and nurse keep putting pressure on me that I had to lie down on a cold metal bed, so I can stand up in a 'vertical bed' so to speak. I told them I couldn't do it yet I was in pain. They disregarded my comments and keep pushing me to do it. I couldn't say no, I guess insurance company was pressuring them, I don't know. When they try to move me and place me into this metal bed, I was in so much pain I couldn't bear it... they were shocked by my pain. No empathy, no compassion, no words, no apologies, no nothing. Doctors make a wonderful job putting their emotions aside when they have to, but they don't know how to be empaths and respectul towards the patient's pain, both physical and emotional. They don't receive that kind of training in med school, they just receive a kind of military indoctrination.
@@cosmicmanik that means they are not good medical staff. that's all. in that situation, a doctor who cares (compassion) would handle you professionally. if he/she feels uneasy (empathy), you might get dropped.
what I was saying is that, be empathetic when you can, or at least sympathetic when you're in a safe environment visualizing stuff and scenarios. but when it comes to the action, be clear-minded, be very so that you limit the chance of messing up, and be alert enough to notice any requirement for improvisation (which is hard if you're so fixed on an emotion)
To Dr. Bloom: We're all glad you're so advanced that you can start to scale back from feeling someone else's pain and make ethical decisions based on numbers and reason. The problem is that so much of humanity hasn't even gotten to basic human empathy-the ability to understand that other people are not just characters, they're real people with thoughts and cares. This election has helped show us that, with everyone vilifying and insulting each other. We NEED empathy to function as a society. Only after we've established that can we start to act rationally.
Maybe. Nonetheless empathy led to contemplate suicide 4 years ago. The feeling of the suffering of my child almost killed me. I have too much empathy and have been working on lowering it since to replace it with compassion.
He's right.
I just agreed because emotions tend to impair judgment. Based on that, why would anyone think that relying on your emotions will lead you to think more rationally afterwards? Empathy is more of a natural inclination social species tend to have in even the people you think that lack empathy are probably experiencing it in certain specific situations. If we also consider empathy like any other emotional inclination someone might have, you can't exactly tell someone to be more empathetic anyway. That's like telling someone to be more happy. Emotions aren't exactly something one can control and feeling something certainly isn't either. Maybe another analogy might be telling someone to be ticklish when they are not. You want someone to feel something that they aren't feeling. At best, you're only going to get some manufactured fake reactions.
By contrast, we can learn to control our emotions instead and make judgements based on logic and reasoning to assess the situation and deduce the appropriate action.
Although I find merit in Paul Bloom's version of “empathy” and its repercussions, I believe there is dangerous potential for misunderstandings, hence the disagreeing comments below.
Empathy: ‘the ability to understand and share the feelings of another’. Nowhere in this definition does it state to become immersed and overwhelmed with another’s experience.
In the therapeutic world, empathy is seen as the ability to understand another’s experience from their point of view, but not allowing the other’s feelings to consume your being. In other words, to walk in someone else’s shoes but keeping your own socks on - no easy task.
When applying Bloom’s version of ‘empathy’ to the example of the ‘bleeding hearted liberal’ (which he goes on to do in another video), this hypothetical liberal when reacting to political media and discourse, is trying to understand other people’s negative experiences but is letting the feelings of the other consume him/her. In other words, the liberal is walking in someone else’s shoes but has forgotten to keep his own socks on. They are not embodying the therapeutic world’s version of empathy.
Now given the therapeutic definition of empathy from above, lets compare it to the definition of compassion. Compassion: ‘sympathetic pity and concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others’ (and for some ‘accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering’).
Nowhere in the definition of compassion does it explicitly state to put yourself in another’s internal frame of reference or to ‘walk in their shoes’. Since many people (such as the ‘bleeding heart liberal’) will try to understand others’ pain and suffering by putting themselves in the others’ shoes, they certainly aren't just doing ‘compassion’. So perhaps it would make more sense to tell people to be correctly ‘therapeutically empathic’ rather than ‘compassionate’ since the natural tendency of some people is to put themselves into another’s frame of reference anyway.
Since I first learnt about empathy in the therapeutic sense I can see why Bloom's version may cause disagreement and feelings of disservice to the word. Alas, no one owns the word empathy and gets to decide what it absolutely means. This is the blurred phenomena that comes with language and definitions.
TLDR: I believe Bloom needs to highlight the distinction between his version of ‘empathy’ and the therapeutic world’s version. Bloom’s version does not equate to the therapeutic version. Bloom says, “it isn't an argument of words” and yet semantics is inherently involved here.
Interesting, but why do you think empathy is a bad thing?
“take a walk in my shoes but don’t forget the socks” LOL i’ve been searching for that analogy for a long time and didn’t even know it
You need empathy to visualise someone's problem but not to fix it.
The maybe epitome of 'the personal is political' can be found here.
@prentice I can reason with that, through such the virtue of understanding can be cultivated, I think religion helps with that and as individuals grow they form a constructive sense of compassion that this video illustrates. If not built right empathy, I think, can drag you down.
I was looking for this exact comment lol. 100%
That it's cognitive empathy !
@@sheilavil3244 Thank you. I'll have to look that up.
Understanding someone requires empathy; that's what the word has come to mean. I'm a writer, I think about words a lot and empathy is the only word that captures thinking about others who you otherwise would have no connection to. Charity is giving something, Compassion is generally a more strong affectionate feeling for those generally close to you, but empathy. Empathy is how media and story-telling work. If I can get you to feel my character being shot in the leg, then I'm doing a good job, and it may be tiring, but the reader is learning something deep about the character and themselves.
+Abhinav Gupt Based on what? What you have there is not an argument, only an accusation.
@@abhigupt6830 I listened to Paul Bloom carefully and found @Rob Wilson's counter argument is fair enough. Does compassion require empathy? Bloom didn't address this question.
True empathy engenders real compassion - -
And if you're truly motivated, then you'll be able to more effectively resolve problems.
Hence empathy itself has nothing whatsoever to do with caring. It's merely a beginning point.
One prime example of how this often works is in the world of politics.
Too many feelers, but not enough do-ers. "I feel your pain." And then? Nothing. (But more tears).
True empathy gets you off your ass.
Agree. Sharing the joy is exhilarating but a person in grief needs compassion more.
I would argue with only one point, that being that you need to experience empathy in order to be compassionate. True, compassion can breed empathy but if don't understand pain on the level that others feel then how can you give compassion that isn't empty of concern and care; or isn't hollow compassion in other words. Otherwise, I agree with this point.
This guy doesn’t even know what empathy means. It’s not literally taking on the feelings of others, it’s understanding the feelings of others and what it would be like to feel like they do.
It’s not empathy that causes you to favor someone that looks like you. That’s called bias. It’s empathy that causes you to accept people who aren’t like you, because you could imagine being in their situation.
But I agree with what he says about compassion.
Empathy: noun. The ability to understand and share the feelings of another.
The base problem here is that the formal definition blurs two things, understanding + sharing.
If I understand what Paul is saying, he is saying that the sharing part is often harmful. I agree with that. But the understanding part is essential, and something that he kind of pushes into this other word 'compassion'.
So basically, I agree with him, that 'sharing' peoples feelings is not always a good thing, but I don't like how he uses the language.
Agreed.
“Understanding” people it’s not always good we can live without empathy but not without compassion.
I've taken Gallup's strengths test and got Empathy as my number 1 strenghts,
I agree 100 % with Mr. Paul Bloom, not sure it's really a strengths,
it gets in the way of viewing things as they are and be rational.
thank you for your work.
What about when you can't help? I work in a mental health facility. That's why I use empathy.
Empathy is not about caring. Empathy is about understanding. It's not about agreement and it's not about emotionally taking on what someone's feeling. Empathy is a very crucial skill.
Sounds to me like he and his cohorts are conflating empathy with poor emotional boundaries and regulation, which makes a certain amount of sense within a culture that generally doesn't effectively help teach their youth those basic skills. But as others have said in the comments, empathy is a precursor and motivator for compassion, and I can't imagine one without the other. I had to learn through trial and error just how to cope with my own intense empathic experience because I was often driven to misery. Now that I've developed better personal boundaries and practical applications, my empathic response is a powerful tool, not a curse.
Compassion is a decision. It does not require empathy. In fact, it occurs in spite of it, only truly meaningful when given to those who we do not feel anything for.
@@kf8113 I agree. I have poor cognitive empathy, so it is difficult for me to put myself in the place of others (perspective-taking) but I have learned to be compassionate even if I am not able to understand what someone else is going through.
I think the problem with empathy if you understand it as being able to put yourself in the place of others is that you're not always going to be able.
There is something called double empathy theory, which broadly suggests that when people with different ways of experiencing the world interact with one another they will struggle to empathize with each other.
So empathy is limited and generally not enough. Thats why i think that acceptance is a key factor even if we are not able to understand.
@@evelyntc724 Faith! Faith in one another, forgiveness, and these sound 'religious' but they have a real meaning too.
Nope. My friend actually introduced me to his work after I asked a question of him. I said "Kev, I keep seeing people saying that the feel extremely sad and distraught about the terrorist attacks in Paris. I understand that it is tragic, but I don't feel sad and distraught about it. I'm worried that Johanna is there, but that's it. Is something wrong with me?" His response was "No. And people are probably lying. Check out Paul Bloom's Against Empathy." Empathy and compassion that is a consequence of logic are completely different things.
cognitive vs affective empathy sounds like his distinction between empathy and compassion
No, it isn't. In his book, he talks about cognitive empathy as morally neutral. Affective empathy, however, is called the "high fructose corn syrup" of the moral world. (Don't remember if he said it directly or was just approvingly quoting it.)
As an example of why he'd be against affective empathy, he calls it a "spotlight." It can only illuminate one item at a time. As a consequence, it is always highly biased. Further, empathy is not the primary motive for doing good and it is probably not the defining trait of people who do good things. Highly altruistic people stand out in terms of self-control and not empathy.
I'd suggest 3 phenomena, not Bloom's 2:
1. Sympathy - sharing another's pain. i.e. Reactively triggered by another's pain. (Bloom calls this empathy)
2. Empathy - understanding another's pain. i.e. Keenly sensing another's pain, but not reactively triggered.
3. Compassion - wishing an end to another's pain. i.e. Being willing to help.
Effective helpers need both empathy and compassion (but no sympathy).
This guy doesn´t understand the difference between loving kindness and compassion. You can´t have compassion without empathy, but the difference is that compassion is permeated with equanimity and courage. In order to face suffering in a skillful way, you will need those qualities.
When it comes to connecting to a vulnerable person that is suffering , empathy is the key to developing the trust it takes for compassion to be believable for the one that needs it.
Is it necessary for the person receiving the help to trust the one giving it? If it works then it works.
I would say the trust has to exist
@@jeremiahb3519 or else the person will refuse to help or will the help the ineffective because of the personal experience of the person being helped?
@@DamienZshadow you lost me .
@@jeremiahb3519 I am asking why trust is necessary.
~ *chef’s kiss* ~ never knew this was the topic I needed. As an empath, my empathy was bleeding me dry. This is no way to live. I needed to learn a way I could still be compassionate towards my fellow human, without essentially pushing myself to an early grave.
You're NOT an empath! You're environment and weak society forced you to feel bad for anything that someone considers a suffering. No you're not an empath! Grow up and realise that. You wouldn't care or give a flying eff if I told you that Biden's neighbour's cousin's friend of a friend, cousin's dog died. If you genuinely felt sad by the initial statement, you need real help. But wait...the help that you think you need, will just tell you you're an empath. The only thing to feel good about it is tell everyone without doing anything. So yep you're pretty doomed unless the cabal of psychology is questioned and reviewed. The problem with Psychology is that it supports the weak mentality, that having strong mentality is a disease or is toxic.
Empath! LOL! Cmon dude. Grow up ok? Damn can't stop laughing..empath? Uhm hmm no you're not. Hahaha
Compassion is healthy only inasmuch as it is fueled by an empathetic experience. Empathy followed by compassion is the path. However, sustained empathy for all - all the time may be dysfunctional. Perhaps compassion without empathy is completely ego-based. Even narcissists can demonstrate compassion if it makes them look good.
It's not compassion if you're doing it to make yourself look good as compassion is emotion based. You are compassionate when you truly want to improve things for someone because you care for them.
So the narcissists expressing 'compassion' is doing so because of their desire for admiration not because they truly care for helping a person and therefore it isn't compassion.
That doesnt make sense
Too many logical flaws here. You won't get depressed by showing empathy for other people's depression, that's like saying your leg will break when you see someone break their leg. If you exclude empathy, then you exclude valuable information, and it could leave you insensetive to others. My last point; why on earth would you try to make it sound like empathy and compassion are mutually exclusive, when they're clearly not?
It kinds of makes sense despite the fact that it's really a talk about semantics. *Empathy, Sympathy and compassion* , it's all about *caring for others* .
Antagonizing any of these words is unnecessary really!
The work of Singer is groundbreaking. Neuroscience is providing a more concrete understanding around the concepts of empathy and compassion.
Empathy is a process. Compassion can underpin empathic connection, but on its own gives us a blind sense of duty to act in kindness for the common good that doesn't help with the cause of another's anxiety, fear, pain, and misfortune. Empathy is a lot of work. That work at beginning to feel the connection necessary to sniff out the cause of the pain is as it should be. It's supposed to be rigorous. Compassion + empathy. Not: compassion > empathy.
compassion is for surgeons, empathy is for mental healthcare professionals
I would argue that not all humans are capable of empathy. The thing about being empathetic is that you have to guard against a lot of things, and exhaustion is a real thing that happens to empaths. I think what people are actually looking for is understanding. He seems to be misunderstanding what empathy is. I can put myself in someone else's shoes and understand their feelings and why they have them without losing my capacity for logic. To suggest that being empathetic to depression or anxiety, for example, will turn me into a depressed, anxious mess is misguided at best, and flat out wrong. Empathy isn't taking on the emotions of another. It is a unique capacity for understanding a situation you yourself have not faced.
For parenting, This is not true. Nothing goes away. If you can't empathize your child then your help will only lead them down a path towards your lies. Parents who are compassionate will never understand their kids.
Empathy and compassion have different uses.
If you are the one best suited to help someone, compassion is the best way.
If you are the one doing harm, empathy is what you need to start with. Then move your way to compassion.
I get where he is coming from of course but you cannot have the one without the other, surely? Like anything, balance is key, if kept in balance, Empathy and Compassion will mediate each other.
You do not need to feel crappy to relate to someone who feels crappy.. I think maybe he is getting understanding that pain mixed up with feeling it..
Good luck getting someone to have genuine compassion for another person that they have no empathy for. That's how you get the "depressed people should just cheer up" and "homeless people should just get jobs" pronouncements of compassion.
Empathy and compassion fulfill two different roles, and should not be compared. Empathy is a base emotion and a chemical reaction in the brain, when you see another person getting injured, it plants in your mind the information needed to avoid the same fate to yourself in future. If you are exposed to continuous trauma of others, empathy can lead to psychological issues such as PTSD. Compassion is a higher level function, where either the event is not as traumatic (such as illness), or a professional has learned not to become empathetic in traumatic events, yet still maintains the higher level function of caring and compassion without invoking the chemical reaction of Empathy. I.e. Empathy is the knee jerk reaction when you see a car crash, Compassion is caring for a sick person. - just my opinion.
Empathy is not mirroring feelings, it is seeing things from the others perspective. Not feeling-with, but feeling-in.
In Dutch there is actually a word for it: it is called "medelijden" (with-suffering), that is what you are referring too. But real empathy is called "mededogen" (with-caring). Real empathy generates compassion.
If I were you, I would look into Non-violent Communication (from Marshall Rosenberg, see cnvc.org) which blasts your unfortunate misunderstanding away as dust in the wind ;)
I think it's a good point, but true compassion comes from empathy. Sympathy is feeling sorry for people and it comes off as insensitive or disingenuous. I think separating empathy from compassion is black and white thinking. No doubt, there are downsides to being overly empathetic, but IMO, that would suggest a lack of balance and boundaries instead.
He's got it exactly wrong. Compassion literally means "to suffer with". Empathy means to put yourself in someone else's shoes without necessarily feeling any emotion.
Sociopathic manipulative people often have good empathy.
I thought sociopathic and manipulative people lack empathy and that's why and how they can so easily do what they do.
alienzen You have to understand what he is meaning. He doesn't necessarily mean he is for compassions root meaning. There is really no English word that means literally to show someone you understand but here's how we get past it. But you are sort of right about the root terms in the words in Latin both have similar meanings.
No. You got it completely wrong. Empathy literally means feeling what the other feels and compassion is feeling sorry for someone but not feeling the emotion the person is feeling.
+Jarod McCormick additionally, that's why this video threw me off. I thought that one of the principal aspects that defines a shitty person is lack of empathy, then Paul is saying that it's not very useful. So what does this mean for sociopaths?
+Jarod McCormick I say "shitty person" as a victim of a abuse and manipulation. What I meaning specifically is a person capable of harming others without any consideration for the damage they're doing.
By the way as a psychologist you should know that therapist aren't suppose to solve your problems. They are suppose to listen to you, help you with coping strategies, treatment, etc.
It really is a pity that Bloom starts mixing up empathy and sympathy, whereas we could actually really use more nuancing on empathy itself - what kinds exist, when to use it, when not to use it - on the one hand, and aspects such as connecting/emotional energy on the other. It seems to me Bloom has little first hand experience of empathy, or he'd sing a completely different tune. Yes, in fact I feel sad for him and it makes me wonder: why he would feel the need to reject such an important and valuable concept? Maybe some kind of disappointment in his personal life/therapy/relationships? I'd be interested to learn about his personal experiences. That would clarify his position and enable further development of these important emotional concepts.
You're so right, Tess. These words are too easily confused, and far too limited in their standard, let alone common, definitions. Using words with discreet definitions is a major problem for us. We live in this world of symbols and believe it's the real world. The real world is not only more finely nuanced, but is multidimensional and multi-sensory, and all situations and points of view are different. There's nothing wrong in discussing real life in concepts, but it's too easy to think we're eating food when we're just eating the menu!
Research costs money and some of it is financed with money from corporations. Corporations finance research that is useful to them and what is more useful to them than the idea that we shouldn't be empathetic towards our fellow citizens in a corporate capitalist society.
Paul Bloom is simply starting from a corporate friendly premise and providing them with "research" to support it. His "needs" for financing are aligned with their "needs" for rationalizing what they do. It is indeed a sad situation and one that is all too common.
In this video you talk as though empathy and compassion (and whatever else) are tools we can just pick and choose from a tool box and apply logically to whomever and whatever the situation. I struggle to see how that works, we are humans and we Feel, and those feelings we can't control. I can't say, oh, I'm too exhausted from using empathy I think I'll switch to compassion instead and then all is well... But hey that's just me.
Rebecca Cao Shut up woman
I'm 1 minute in and I absolutely hate him already, I don't even know why
Kaname Itsuki "I am right, so everyone should behave as I reccommend them to."
It looks like this from a client/therapist view:
Client talks about reoccurring habit of falling in quicksand.
Empathy: I will get in the quicksand with you.
Empathy + compassion: The quicksand is causing you to panic, and you'd rather be in a position where you couldve avoided this event. You see me as the guide which will aid in your ability to negate this type of experience.
There are issues qithin empathy. Pathological altruism for example, justifies even the most cruel actions as human flaw rather than a deliberately intentional axt of cruelty. Also not every person who claims to be empathetic are one, some are disgust based thinkers to whom only very few things are tolerable, when in fact true empathy is when a person shows empathy even to people different from them.
This is absolutely mindblowing for me as a first-year "bleeding heart" elementary teacher.
This is exactly the kind of nonsense that has people who live outside the ivory tower of academia having lost near-absolute faith in said tower.
How, exactly, could I respond to my thearpist being burnt out, or even tell what state he or she is in, without exactly this thing he's in favour against; empathy.
I'm sure it made a great deal of sense from the perspective of himself and lab partners; it's a shame humans (and all of the rest of existence) works according to practice, and not the theory of some careerist desperate to get a foot note in the historical records.
Also, what he's descibing here isn't new.
We've taken to calling his medicine "sociopath". Generally, not tremendously workable in large groups.
For 12,897 reasons ......
On the issue of causality and rationality I completely agree. But on the issue of empathy, I think it's important to remember that empathy is a tool, an unfortunately necessary tool in order to bring about fuller understanding of another's condition in rare cases. If one relies too heavily on empathy in order to gain understanding of the world around them, one is not living one's own life. But there are times when the experiences of others are so far outside of our own that in order to fully comprehend the condition of our fellow man we must embark on empathetic exigence. This is particularly useful when there exists conflict and a concurrent reluctance to see the world from our interlocutors point of view. I believe it was C. Wright Mills who defined the phrase sociological imagination to include the use of an empathetic eye words an alien culture; and sometimes empathy is the only tool available for use.
I am starting to get confused between the meaning of these words, empathy versus compassion. I always viewed empathy as perspective, being able to see things from another point of view. But it doesn't mean I then adopt that point of view or think it is right. For example, I can understand the perspective of a meth addict wanting to rob or even kill to get money to sustain their addiction. A book with such a character as the "protagonist" could give some interesting perspective into such a mindset. But it does not lead me to conclude, "oh, we should not judge this robber/killer to be immoral." In fact, i am more comfortable with what I used to call empathy than compassion. I can see the bad guy's perspective. But I am not very compassionate. But he makes it sound like I am getting it backwards. He seems to be saying I should care about the bad guy, but I should not bother understanding his "context." I'm not convinced.
How would this research mesh with the ideas that a lack of empathic development is a key part of the criminal mind? Is there still a need for the capacity to empathize alongside perhaps the discipline to control the degree to which we empathize?
lets define the words the way I like then I talk to you for more than 8 min, lets take take out love and kindness and knowledge and self-awareness , and determinism out of empathy , then reduce it to feeling pain and suffering of others.
Empathy is the best way to deal with other people's problems because through extreme selfishness and narcissism we make those feelings and problems our own. As humans we're wired for self-preservation, we want the best for ourselves, so if it was ourselves with a problem, how do we feel about the situation ourselves, we'd do the best for ourselves, but actually we're doing it for someone else. That's empathy - narcissism used in a prosocial way.
WHATEVER MAKES US NICER !
Determinism may not preclude rationality, but it seems to me that it would preclude making a choice to be rational rather than irrational. It might also preclude choosing compassion over empathy.
This guy is great 👍
Empathy often derives compassion. If one cannot empathize, such as someone with psychopathy, they often have less compassion.
And what's your evidence?
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empathic_concern
Compassion is embedded in empathetic concern, along with sympathy, etc.
It also reasonably follows that if someone can relate to what another might experience, that they often will have compassion as well (due to the relation)...where as if they cannot understand what a person is going through, that connection to compassion may be less. These emotions are not mutually exclusive.
Empathy is understanding of feelings, not mirroring it. Compassion is the fruit of Empathy.
Paul Bloom, I empathize your apathy; I apathize your empathy. I think that's rational.
: )
I agree that people don't want a helper to feel anguished on their behalf. I like the idea of acknowledging that someone is having a difficult time but also noticing their strength or skill. So I might say, "You've been feeling lonely but you've used that uncomfortable feeling to prompt you to connect with some people you haven't seen for a while." Or I notice a creative side to the sadness. E.g. "You're at a loss to know what choice to make and you're drinking a lot. So that means that feeling is uncomfortable so perhaps it's time to explore some choices." I try to respect the feelings and notice the drive they imply to solve the problem.
As a life saver..empathy and compassion is the first driving forces of one's character.
Did you even watch the video
So many people reading this video as "empathy is bad" which is clearly not what he's saying.
The best way of being empathetic in a healthy way is to cries sincerely and to listen and put to others experience sincerely and wisely !
The 2 work in conjunction with each other
This is a distinction I wish I learned much sooner. It would have saved me a lot of valuable energy. However, is it possible to act with compassion without first empathizing? Are they mutually exclusive? If the answer is no, should the message be use empathy as a means to acting on compassion? Not a rhetorical question.
He ignores cognitive empathy. Conveniently. For his book. Academics argue around semantics and are too detached from reality to be reliable sources of the real human experience. You CAN be empathic and avoid being overwhelmed by practicing understanding what someone might be feeling without assuming the feelings yourself. Compassion is empathetic concern. It’s an extension of empathy.
Sheeps value naivety than depth, true solution comes after reaching the core issues. Sheeps want to be nice, afraid of pain, too weak to take on true ugliness of life, they want to exist on shallow surfaces and live on the merits. Staying Complacent & happy go lucky. Avoiding empathy all together is just pure laziness, educate and groom people with wisdom and uplifting consciousness, yes it take real work, yes it take emotional and spiritual maturity to properly utilise empathy, but this is what sentient existence is truly about, they is no easy way out to transcend our sentience and in the end it will be worth it! Namaste ~
Empathy is painful. And dangerous, I find myself approaching strangers who appear to need help often. I constantly feel guilt when I drive by someone walking in the rain. I want to hand off a disposable poncho (I carry them) or drive them home. I’ve offered to help someone who was broken down or were they? I don’t think bad immediately. I see the good. It’s a curse!!
*_1_* When there is love there is peace; wars end both.
*_2_* Freedom is the opposite of slavery.
*_3_* Scientific knowledge ends ignorance, superstition, pseudoscience, and religion.
*_4_* The first and last casualties of war are children.
*_5_* When love is, the self is not. The self causes all wars and problems.
*_6 Without love and sense of humor life is meaningless._* 💕☮🌎🌌
Every emotion that motivates has its misapplication. You have found but one. I agree but only to that degree.
I don't see it as one or the other. It seems more like a person feels empathy or not, but if it stays only at empathy they then suffer the pain of others. If they have or learn to develop compassion in the face of relating to and seeing another's pain then the warmth and positive emotion of compassion overrides and overwhelms any pain. So I think a compassionate person is still able to put themselves in the shoes of another but feels compassion in response instead of pain.
So, can you tell me where real compassion come from? How you can have a loving kindness and wish to help without imagining someone's problem? And where this imagining of someone's problem comes from? Is it learnt by reading about it in the book or as an ethical or cultural code? No it comes from empathy and empathy often comes from the fact that we experienced the similar situation. Empathy and compassion are not mutually exclusive and to call it poor moral guide it's very simplistic.
I understand the notion of favoring compassion over empathy in terms of hedging yourself against the inevitable pain and anguish often associated with the practice of empathy in order to foster more uninhibited expressions of kindness but, without the willingness to share each others' suffering, is your kindness ever really "complete"? It seems that compassion is often limited by one's own values which, in turn, limits the forms of kindness you can express despite having the energy or ability to be kind more often.
I like the idea but no need discredit empathy. You can have both compassion and empathy and use them to different degrees at different times.
4:18:
So she can solve my problems…is it her job? Is that statement what you want to say?
Using compassion, she can’t solve your problems, but only help you solve them.
Using empathy, she can feel what you feel and try to solve it for herself and share her answer with you.
One of the best videos that changed my life
YES EXACTLY! I've seen so many times that people confuse empathy with the capacity to care. what about neurodivergent individuals who lack empathy? are they all bad people?
I feel like a good portion of religious people need empathy, which is ironic since they consider it a golden rule.
Excellent and timely message. Thanks for sharing!!! I totally agree, and my experience of life has confirmed it. To reconcile opposing opinions, I would share two reflections ...
First: There are 3 positions that we can have in front of the experience of the "other", Empathy on the one hand, and Compassion and Pity on the other. Neither empathy nor pity will allow you to help the "other", only compassion will give you the tools, because compassion means that "I am with you in your passion," means that I understand you and consequently I can help you.
Second: That help would be, not from the "rational" but from the "objective", because perhaps the word "rational" many associate it with insensitivity, and I do not think that "being insensitive" is the idea that the psychologist wants to share.
Sorry for my English, I hope it is correctly expressed ...
This is a great conversation! My mind turns to the etymology and semantics of the terms we use as we relate to others.
Loving-kindness is loving-kindness. Compassion is another term for a specific type of empathy. My understanding is that the word "compassion" literally means to "with-suffer." In other words, compassion is the specific employment of empathy wherein one feels the pain or suffering of another so as to be able to identify with it on a personal level.
I wonder if "detached altruism" or "altruistic kindness" might be alternate terms to indicate the giving of loving-kindness without the expectation of receiving anything in return while at the same time circumventing the act of feeling into another's pain in a misguided attemp to generate an internal motivation to be kind (?)
Having said, if one trusts the translations of various spiritual writings, then even the great teachers were "moved with compassion" before they helped to alleviate the suffering of others without themselves being overcome with suffering.
compassion is worthwhile.
Gamer 49 it's different for everyone, I suppose. to me it means kindness and respect. empathy is a bit closer, like you might have for a family member or close friend. compassion you might feel toward an acquaintance or a stranger. like the good Samaritan.
The problem with this sort of reasoning is that it separates emotions from decisions. Doing this makes it more difficult to distinguish between right and wrong. There are strong and reasoned arguments for genocides, many claiming to help the targeted group but often times it is the pain felt at the thought of others suffering that prevents such damage from being done.
There are also varying degrees to which a person can empathize that don't require getting exhausted.
This is not true, compassion is a way of understanding emotions and act uppon them with wisdom. And calling out "reasoned arguments for genocides" is a slippery slope and has nothing to do with this conversation.
Hard to be compassionate without being empathetic.
I haven't finished the video yet, but I'll comment anyways. I think both are important. Yes, chronic empathy is a problem. But no empathy is just as large a problem. Empathy serves a purpose. When relating to someone and gaining their trust, helping them realize you truly care etc... that is good for a short initial timespan, but you must be willing to transition from that to compassion. And then actually be of service or help to them. Done in a truly positive way for all parties you can't just have one or the other and have it work out to the best conclusion.
Interesting. I am studying artificial intelligence and machine learning, so your computer analogy speaks a lot to me in my studies.
some people can't decide whether they are empathetic
I think this is going to help me with a lot of difficult relations that I have. I've not exactly felt guilty for bein less empathetic towards some people in my life, but it was becoming a concern. I am anhedonic, I have a trouble feeling my own suffering, as well as my own happiness, but I have an easier time putting myself in the place of somebody else and feeling their suffering.
However, that empathy was reserved more for art than it is for people. I live the empathy in the art, imagining the complexity of the situation. In social interactions, I simply acknowledge other people's struggles. I can imagine putting myself in their shoes and I do so in a pragmatic way to search for solutions, but more so, I express and act on my compassion.
Or maybe I don't do it enough. I don't know.
However late to the party; I anecdotally relate to this distinction. I am a (or feel I am a) very empathetic person in that I would walk past a stranger on the street but will spend hours commiserating, relating, and crying with my friends/family. I've noticed I have this tendency in visual media when presented with the right script and musical accompaniment. I cry with, feel for and want to solve the character's problems.
"Sympathy", which I often feel, is surface level. On a conscious level, I'm aware of the inequality, inequity, or persecution experience. Meanwhile, "Empathy" involves hours of supportive conversation, hours diagnosing the root trauma, and/or significant emotional energies spent on another's trials.
Empathy can be paralyzing, especially as an extroverted individual. Every reason to feel negatively about yourself, life, and the world are consistently reaffirmed and validated. A learned predisposition to isolation, distrust and ephemeral affirmation would follow.
He is a hundred percent right! When your kid is having a spitty bum from poisoning, you feel sad and worried for him/her.. that is care and concern for the kid's welfare. Now if I'm a parent, aside from worrying about the kid's health, him missing classes, hospital bills...do I wanna feel or have to go through what he feels? No shit I don't want my tummy aching and dont want to feel the embarassment he experienced in school. Here's where you fairy-tale/cult believers in Psychology miss out on.. YES! I'd wish I would be able to take their pain and feel it if that relives their suffering, but we all know the limitations of this physical world we live in and that's not possible. Rationality and Logic are a solid established knowledge and base it on that.
It almost sounds like he's redefining empathy to be passive or subconscious response. Something we don't realize we're doing--or something out of habit--but should avoid. Am I off with this? It's a weird/foreign way to think about it for me
I was unable to hear his argument because I was empathizing so deeply with that hair.
100% agree
One of the best videos ive ever seen.
Incredible
I've been an empath since I was a child. As an adult I'm still sensitive regarding sad events and movies where I easily cry yet, I disagree with the doctors little white happy pills
I've listened to Paul talk quite a bit about this with Sam Harris, and I'm just not sure how I feel about this. Paul is a brilliant psychologist, though, and I will definitely read the new book and think about this more.
Part of me feels the definition he gives empathy limits it's usefulness, and I'm glad he points out there are important roles for empathy, overstated or not.
Also, I think the evidence that we are more slave to the emotions than we are reasonable is pretty sound. Hume's arguments in this have basically been vindicated by modern cognitive/psychological/neuro research imo. Looking forward to being challenged.
Well said dude. No surprise you're my political compass twin xD
Alexander Nikevich I think he means that even though we are emotional beings, we still have the power to question our emotions using reason. I doubt he wants to say we are perfect rational creatures.
and if you want to save rational discussion and solution of disagreements, that needs to be true.
Roland xB Well that is certainly true. I guess I was thinking more broadly about the emotions vs rationality in scientific and philosophical history, particularly how science has changed opinion in our time. Hume is my fav philosopher, so I often like to point out he's broadly been vindicated. Cheers
SuperJosch13 We meet again. Cheers!