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r/askpsychology•
dyadiccounterpoint

Is Empathy a logical rationalization or an emotional contagion?

I'm working on a research paper regarding empathy, and I've been struggling to understand the definition. Ostensibly, it appears to describe a rationalization of human conditions beyond your own, such as being able to understand logically that someone getting fired will likely feel frustrated, distraught, and possibly angry.

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However, if one researches the behavior associated with individuals with empathetic deficits, it appears as though the conception of empathy is not a rationalization but instead an innate emotional "contagion," regarding such things as "naturally feeling sad at the misfortune of others" or "innately feeling joy vicariously through another's positive experience."

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There appears to be an incongruence between the technical definition of empathy and the usual behavioral manifestations associated with empathetic deficits. Is there a better way to define the term? Am I making the "sympathy vs. empathy?" mistake?

Posted Feb 2, 2019, 8:44 PM UTC

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incredulitor•

I would speculate that the reason for the difference is that the formally inflected, definitional language you've mentioned here actually happens within the person expressing it as a different mode of being than the felt sense of empathy. Reading the definition of empathy tends to feel somehow disconnected from what empathy actually seems to be when people describe it in looser and more metaphorical ways because reading the definition is a fundamentally different experience than experiencing empathy directly in the moment.

Who is saying that it's a rationalization? I think a description that would cut much more closely to how it actually seems to be experienced would be an embodied one pointing to the felt sense that you are actually experiencing emotionally and in your body something like what someone around you is also experiencing.

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dyadiccounterpointOP•

Thank you for your well thought response; it does illuminate the issue at hand quite well.

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Most definitions I see (with some exceptions) would permit someone with APD to qualify as "experiencing empathy" because they could theoretically rationalize and comprehend the conditions of others given a certain level of education and external awareness.

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For instance, they could be educated on brain development associated with extreme poverty or conversely with extreme wealth and therefore achieve an understanding of the behavior of individuals beyond their own experience without necessarily having vicarious sentiments. In fact this awareness would be necessary to facilitate the Machiavellian social maneuvering that mid to high IQ Antisocials are infamous for.

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This contradiction perturbed me (admittedly due to my own lack of understanding); I appreciate your clarification immensely.

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incredulitor•

It sounds to me like your intuitive understanding of it is exactly correct, and that a lot of the psychological literature on it, while using language with greater precision (as opposed to greater accuracy, if that distinction makes sense) doesn't really grasp it as well as you seem to.

There is some work out there that does comprehend and tries to elaborate on and make verbally specific the distinction you're talking about though. For example: https://lesley.edu/article/the-psychology-of-emotional-and-cognitive-empathy. I feel pretty confident in speculating as well that if you did a search on terms like 'fmri cognitive emotional empathy', it would come up that the kind of empathy you're describing high function ASPD people being capable of would be more forebrain-driven (maybe DLPFC) while emotional empathy would be more related to ventromedial prefrontal cortex and hippocampus activation.

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dyadiccounterpointOP•

Good source. It addresses the core of the question and even uses the term "emotional contagion."

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Superficial_Charm•

I too discovered a disconnect between the definition of empathy, and what I had thought was the definition of empathy. I made the 'sympathy vs empathy' mistake; but, for me, discovering my misunderstanding was a rude awakening.

When I looked up the definition, a lot of things made sense. 'Feeling' how other people feel...but surely that's almost impossible? I puzzled over this for a long time. I had definitely felt the 'pang' of experiencing a dog or a cat's emotions, but for humans? Rarely.

And then, following the completion of several self-assessment measures, weeks of research, and correspondence with a psychologist, I slowly realized what that my confusion indicated. My ability to empathize was extremely low, just on the edge of indicating psychopathy.

I would disagree with one of the statements that people with these disorders are uninterested in learning or understanding other people's emotions. Perhaps I am just atypical even amongst the atypical, but I am fascinated by the workings of the mind, and how cognition and emotion are experienced by other people.

I have discovered an interesting phenomenon: when some people talk about empathy, they are not really talking about empathy. They are talking about the essential 'goodness' of a person, their character, and even, for a lack of a better term, their soul. If one has trouble feeling how others feel, even if they strongly care how others feel without being able to feel it themselves, they are automatically less human is some people's eyes.

The are reasons for this stance, but if I was able to go three decades believing that I knew what empathy was when I didn't, I would not be surprised if others had similar misunderstandings of its actual definition, whether they possessed it or not.

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dyadiccounterpointOP•

Thanks for your willingness to present this insightful point of view. It is intriguing to note the distinction between feeling and caring. I'm sure many could relate to such an experience.

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Superficial_Charm•

You're welcome. I find the topic so fascinating.

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bunky_bunk•

Empathy is not a function of the intellect. It is beyond the control of consciousness. It is transmitted through social cues and perceivable expression of emotions.

What you are talking about is wisdom of the workings of empathy. Both these things are called empathy, but they are fundamentally different. Even a child "knows" the former, the latter one might only gain through extensive experience.

A personality disorder such as narcissism will feature (a) an unwillingness to learn about the emotional landscape that one finds himself in and willfully rejecting social cues and social customs by which they communicated.

And it is also the emergence of mental forces that are stronger than the natural empathy and become way more deterministic of thought and behavior. A narcissist will condition himself to view things his way and dismiss the mandated way. His delusions and his drive will be too powerful and drown out the normal emphatic way of seeing the world. He would for example be willfully ignorant of the feelings of people he feels are beneath him. Will try and demand that people around him keep their emotions to themselves and be of service to the narcissist. A narcissist will work against the workings of empathy. The narcissist cares only about how his surroundings can be of use to him, not about what his surroundings actually are.

Often you will hear the term "cognitive empathy" or cold empathy (vs warm empathy). But again, there is a subconscious way to learn about emotions other people have, and there is the ability to reason about emotions. Both can be embraced or dismissed.

When you think of people as beneath you, of course their emotions are your enemy, they are something that works against you and something that you need to work against.

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