Empathy

EMPATHY The word “empathy”, which in ordinary language connotes the experience of being touched by another’s suffering, is relatively new to the English language. Its first recorded use is in Edward Titchener’s Elementary psychology of the thought processes, published in 1912, as a direct translation of the German “Einfühlung”. This latter term, which means literally “feeling in”, was coined in the field of aesthetics in the 19th century to express the idea that evaluative judgements involve the projection of the viewer’s own feelings onto the object of judgement. Titchener himself derived “empathy” from the ancient Greek word “empatheia”, meaning simply profoundly emotionally affected. The systematic treatment of empathy has remained largely within contemporary psychology and closely related fields where it has, first, a cognitive sense which contrasts with a second affective sense. In the cognitive sense, “empathy” is the ability to become aware of others’ inner states: their beliefs, desires, intentions and feelings (e.g., “Judith is delighted about her pregnancy”; “Bob is devastated by the news”). Because of psychoanalysis and counselling psychology’s concern with understanding people’s private experiences it is no surprise that these fields embraced the term. Starting in the 1950s, Kohut and other likeminded psychoanalysts began to argue that empathy was the core competency of the psychoanalyst. Carl Rogers, the founder of client-centred therapy, considered empathy as an integral part of the “growth promoting climate” which, in this conception of therapy, it is the main task of the therapist to provide for the client. The experience of being empathized with is inherently therapeutic, in Rogers’ view. More recently in social cognition theory, a research area in contemporary psychology, “empathy” is an umbrella term that refers to all the range of psychological processes, faculties and competencies involved in forming beliefs about others’ inner experiences. In Lawrence Kohlberg’s theory of cognitive moral development the ability to understand others’ points of view is a cognitive competency basic to the process of “decentration”, a key developmental process underlying cognitive moral development. As the child’s capacity for moral reasoning matures, the considerations she appeals to in justifying moral judgements gradually shift from those which fit only with her own perspective, such as the prospect of punishment, to those which recognize that others have needs as well, as in the principle that one good turn deserves another, to the eventual ability to co-ordinate of all relevant perspectives characteristic of the highest stages. In the context of cognitive developmentalism, however, this competency is almost invariably referred to as “perspectivetaking”, following Selman, or “role-taking”, following Mead.

In its affective sense “empathy” refers to emotional solidarity between sentient beings: feelings for or with others in light of their feelings, experiences or circumstances. Many commentators maintain a technical distinction between “positive” empathy, pleasant feelings at another’s well-being (e.g., I’m so happy for Milla that she got the job she wanted”), and “negative” empathy, unpleasant feelings at another in serious adversity (e.g., “I feel your pain”). All agree, however, that taken in its affective sense “empathy” typically implies negative empathy. Negative affective empathy, sometimes referred to as “empathic distress”, is in developmental and social psychology associated with the study of pro-social and helping behaviors. Going back at least 30 years, this research agenda has sought to accumulate empirical evidence in support of the common assumption that empathizing amplifies motivation to perform pro-social, helping and altruistic acts. It also explores related issues of whether empathic responding is innate or learned and the circumstantial factors that strengthen correlations between empathy and helping behaviors. Across the board, empathy has been found to correlate positively to indices of pro-social behavior. Negative affective empathy poses particular definitional problems because it is not easily distinguishable from empathy in the cognitive sense and other related concepts and psychological phenomena. First, there is some semantic overlap between the cognitive and affective senses of empathy in that emotional solidarity frequently draws on beliefs about another’s inner states. However, cognitive empathizing is at most a necessary condition of negative affective empathizing. Emotions like schadenfreude (taking pleasure in others’ misfortunes) and the military technique of psychological warfare confirm that it is possible be aware of another’s distress yet not find their distress troubling. Psychopaths and cons are reputed to have exceptional cognitive-empathic abilities and to use this insight to harm rather than help others. Second, a feeling of distress in response to another’s adversity is not in and of itself negative affective empathy. For example, repulsion at the sight of an injured driver at an accident scene is only empathic where the viewer interprets her feelings as feelings for the driver. Similarly, Hoffman (2000) and others observe a distinction between “empathic distress” and “personal distress”. Personal distress occurs when awareness of another’s serious distress evokes disturbing thoughts and feelings connected to one’s own well-being rather than a victim’s. A woman who, while listening to a stalking victim’s emotional account of her trauma, dwells on her own security or a disturbing memory of a similar personal experience is said to be experiencing personal distress rather than empathy. Because personal distress often starts out as feelings of empathic distress for a victim before the object of

concern shifts towards the observer himself, Hoffman (2000) speaks of “egoistic drift” and considers personal distress a kind of empathic over-arousal. The existence of multiple synonyms is a third factor contributing to the difficulty of getting the meaning of “empathy” straight. Cognitive empathy, as indicated above, is referred to as “perspective-taking”, “roletaking” in social psychology but in cognitive theory it sometimes goes under the names of “mental simulation” and “empathic accuracy”. For its part, negative affective empathy in ordinary English and in the philosophical literature is arguably indistinguishable from the emotions of “sympathy”, “compassion” and possibly “pity”. Bruce Maxwell Further readings Wispé, Lauren. 1987. “History of the concept of empathy.” pp. 17-37 in Empathy and its Development. Edited by Nancy Eisenberg and Janet Strayer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Eisenberg, Nancy, Richard A. Fabes, and Tracy L. Spinrad. 2006. “Prosocial development.” pp. 646-718 in Handbook of child psychology. Vol. 3, Social, emotional, and personality development. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. Hoffman, Martin. 2000. Empathy and Moral Development: Implications for Justice and Caring. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ickes, William, ed. 1997. Empathic Accuracy. New York: Guilford. Davis, Mark H. 1994. Empathy: A Social Psychological Approach. Madison: Brown & Benchmark. “Empathy”

Cognitive empathy: the ability to become

aware of others’ inner states (i.e., their beliefs, desires, intentions and feelings). Synonyms: perspective-taking (Selman, 1980); role-taking (Mead, 1934); mental simulation (Gordon, 1996); empathic accuracy (Ickes, 1997).

Affective empathy: emotional solidarity

between sentient beings or feelings for or with others in light of their feelings, experiences or circumstances

Positive empathy: pleasant feelings

Negative empathy: unpleasant feelings for

for another’s well-being

another in serious adversity

Synonyms: None

Synonyms: empathic distress (Hoffman, 2000); sympathy (Smith, 1790/1976); compassion (Nussbaum, 2001)

Figure 1: Multiple meanings of the word “empathy”