• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to secondary sidebar
  • Home
  • About
    • Contact
    • Privacy
    • Terms of use
  • Subscribe
  • Your Membership

Science and Technology News

Dedicated to the wonder of discovery

  • News
  • Features
  • Life
  • Health
  • Research
  • Engineering

Empathy may be in the eye of the beholder

October 27, 2020 by Editor

Empathy is talked about a lot these days. Against the backdrop of a global pandemic and a divisive political climate in the United States, calls for empathy have become louder and more urgent.

We encourage empathy for those inflicted with Covid-19 and those struggling with unemployment. We reminisce about the empathy of public figures who have recently passed away.

Both Democrats and Republicans have highlighted their own presidential candidate’s empathy and accused the other side of lacking it.

But do we always want people to show empathy? Not so, said researchers from the University of California, Davis. A recently published paper suggests that although empathy is often portrayed as a virtue, people who express empathy are not necessarily viewed favorably.

“Empathy has become a sort of ‘catch-all’ for desirable personal qualities,” said Y. Andre Wang, who is a doctoral candidate and lead author of the paper. “But people’s views on empathy are actually more complicated.

“We found that what people think of empathizers depends on who is receiving their empathy. People don’t necessarily like or respect those who show empathy toward morally questionable individuals,” he added.

The paper, “Evaluations of Empathizers Depend on the Target of Empathy,” was published online in September in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. It is co-authored by Andrew Todd, associate professor of psychology at UC Davis.

In a series of seven studies, researchers recruited more than 3,000 participants throughout the United States. They showed these participants various scenarios where someone is sharing a personal experience with another individual.

In some studies, the personal experience was negative, such as stress from work problems; in other experiments, the experience was positive, such as a recent job promotion. The individual responded to this personal experience either with empathy or neutrally.

Participants then rated their impressions of the responder, such as how much they liked the responder, and how warm they found the responder to be.

Who receives empathy?

But these studies had a twist: The character sharing the personal experience was portrayed either positively or negatively. For example, in one study, some participants learned that she worked for a white nationalist organization, and other participants learned that she worked for a children’s hospital.

In another study, the character sharing the personal experience was either pro-vaccination or anti-vaccination. (This particular study was conducted at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.)

The researchers found that this portrayal mattered for their impressions of the empathizer: Participants liked and respected the empathizer, but only when the character receiving empathy was liked as well.

When the character was disliked (as a white nationalist or an “anti-vaxxer”), participants did not like and respect the empathizer as much. In some studies, participants even preferred it when the responder condemned rather than empathized with the character.

“People are often encouraged to empathize with disliked others, but our findings suggest that they are not always viewed favorably for doing so,” the researchers concluded.

Empathy in the eye of the observer

Although empathy is widely studied, little is known about how people evaluate empathizers when they are not themselves the recipients of empathy. These findings have implications for how empathy operates in the current sociopolitical climate, where empathy is often touted as a solution to national divisions and strife.

“Is more empathy always better? Not according to our participants.” Wang said. “Our findings suggest that people see empathy as a social signal. Whom you choose to empathize with shows whom you care about and what you stand for.

“Empathy is, of course, valuable. But it is not a panacea. If people who empathize across social divides are repudiated, then empathy might not always bridge those divides. Instead, it might even reinforce them.”

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Print
  • LinkedIn
  • Reddit
  • Pinterest
  • WhatsApp

Related Posts

  • A tangled food web: Maximizing production with efficient inputs
    48
    A tangled food web: Maximizing production with efficient inputsBorn in food web ecology, the concept of trophic levels – the hierarchy of who eats who in the natural world – is an elegant way to understand how biomass and energy move through a natural system. It's only natural that the idea found its way into the realm of…
    Tags: news, life
  • Why social media has changed the world – and how to fix it
    43
    Why social media has changed the world – and how to fix itAre you on social media a lot? When is the last time you checked Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram? Last night? Before breakfast? Five minutes ago? If so, you are not alone – which is the point, of course. Humans are highly social creatures. Our brains have become wired to process…
    Tags: people, news, life
  • Why some friends make you feel more supported than others
    41
    Why some friends make you feel more supported than othersIt's good to have friends and family to back you up when you need it – but it's even better if your supporters are close with each other too, a new set of studies suggests. Researchers found that people perceived they had more support from a group of friends or…
    Tags: people, participants, life
  • The gravity of play: Quantifying what we enjoy about games
    41
    The gravity of play: Quantifying what we enjoy about gamesGames and the very act of playing have been around since before the cradle of human civilization. However, games have constantly evolved over time, with various rulesets and modes of play falling in and out of favor throughout history. In turn, this implies that people at different times enjoyed different…
    Tags: people, news, life
  • Mapping the 1.6 billion people who live near forests
    39
    Mapping the 1.6 billion people who live near forestsGlobal maps of places where people and forests coexist show that an estimated 1.6 billion people live within 5 kilometers of a forest. The assessment, based on data from 2000 and 2012 and published September 18 in the journal One Earth, showed that of these 1.6 billion “forest-proximate people”, 64.5 percent…
    Tags: people, life

Filed Under: Life, News Tagged With: empathy, life, news, participants, people

Primary Sidebar

Latest news

  • AutoX expands robotaxi operation zone to 1,000 sq km
  • Schaeffler acquires precision gearbox maker Melior Motion 
  • Sunflower Labs provides its security drone system to range of new customers
  • Monarch Tractor showcases ‘world’s first fully electric, driver-optional tractor’
  • Robot performs laparoscopic surgery without guiding hand of a human
  • Amazon owner’s Blue Origin to buy asteroid mining company Honeybee Robotics
  • Sydney scientists achieve ‘99 per cent accuracy’ for quantum computing in silicon
  • Ceremorphic unveils plans to build supercomputer infrastructure on 5 nanometer chips
  • Motion capture is guiding the next generation of extraterrestrial robots
  • Baidu’s autonomous electric carmaker Jidu raises $400 million in Series A financing

Most read

  • AutoX expands robotaxi operation zone to 1,000 sq km
    AutoX expands robotaxi operation zone to 1,000 sq km
  • Schaeffler acquires precision gearbox maker Melior Motion 
    Schaeffler acquires precision gearbox maker Melior Motion 
  • Sunflower Labs provides its security drone system to range of new customers
    Sunflower Labs provides its security drone system to range of new customers
  • Monarch Tractor showcases ‘world’s first fully electric, driver-optional tractor’
    Monarch Tractor showcases ‘world’s first fully electric, driver-optional tractor’
  • Robot performs laparoscopic surgery without guiding hand of a human
    Robot performs laparoscopic surgery without guiding hand of a human
  • Amazon owner’s Blue Origin to buy asteroid mining company Honeybee Robotics
    Amazon owner’s Blue Origin to buy asteroid mining company Honeybee Robotics
  • Sydney scientists achieve ‘99 per cent accuracy’ for quantum computing in silicon
    Sydney scientists achieve ‘99 per cent accuracy’ for quantum computing in silicon
  • Ceremorphic unveils plans to build supercomputer infrastructure on 5 nanometer chips
    Ceremorphic unveils plans to build supercomputer infrastructure on 5 nanometer chips
  • Motion capture is guiding the next generation of extraterrestrial robots
    Motion capture is guiding the next generation of extraterrestrial robots
  • Baidu’s autonomous electric carmaker Jidu raises $400 million in Series A financing
    Baidu’s autonomous electric carmaker Jidu raises $400 million in Series A financing

Live visitor count

277
Live visitors

Secondary Sidebar

Categories

  • Agriculture
  • Archaeology
  • Astronomy
  • Biology
  • Brain
  • Chemistry
  • Computer games
  • Computing
  • Digital Economy
  • Education
  • Energy
  • Engineering
  • Environment
  • Features
  • Genetics
  • Health
  • History
  • Industry
  • Life
  • Nature
  • News
  • Opinion
  • Physics
  • Research
  • Science
  • Social
  • Space
  • Technology
  • Uncategorized
  • Universe

Copyright © 2023 · News Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in