What is empathy really?

 

Empathy is the basis of intimacy and the closest connection. Without it, our relationships would be emotionally superficial and more like business relationships. Without empathy, we could pass by a person every day and know so little about his feelings that he would remain a stranger. Therefore, empathy is a powerful "social glue".

But it's not just the engine behind the connection, it also serves as a brake when we misbehave and realize the pain we're causing. When a person does not have that brake and always acts in his own interest, he ends up devastating those around him. Therefore, it is essential to understand what empathy is and what it means to be empathetic.

What is empathy not?

- Empathy is not the same as sympathy

We often use the words empathy and sympathy interchangeably, but they are actually different processes. When we feel compassion for someone, it means that we identify with the situation that person is in. We can feel sympathy for strangers and also for problems we have never experienced personally.

However, feeling sympathy doesn't necessarily imply connecting emotionally with what a person feels. We can sympathize with the situation someone is going through, without having any idea of ​​their feelings and thoughts. Therefore, sympathy almost never dynamizes our behavior, it does not encourage us to act. Sympathy does not create connection.

Empathy goes further, because it involves identifying with what someone feels and experiencing those feelings firsthand. Therefore, sympathy is feeling something for someone; empathy is feeling what that someone feels.

- Empathy is not limited to intuition

Most people find empathy intuitive, that it is more of a gut reaction than a function of thinking. But empathy is not limited only to the exchange of emotions, a process that normally occurs below our threshold of consciousness, but it is also necessary for the executive control functions to intervene so that we can modulate this experience.

Research shows that mimicry is an important part of human interaction and occurs on a subconscious level; that is, we mimic the facial expressions of the people we interact with, along with their vocalizations, postures and movements. If we talk to someone who frowns, we will probably end up frowning too. It is likely that this unconscious mimicry helped early humans communicate and feel affinity. In fact, neuroscience has confirmed that when we see someone in pain, the areas that register pain are activated in our brain. Mimicry is the component that precedes empathy.

Nonetheless, empathy also requires that we be able to take another person's perspective, which is a cognitive function. Furthermore, it is imperative that we are able to modulate the emotions generated by empathy. Since moods can be "contagious," self-regulation prevents us from experiencing those emotions so intensely that it can help the other person.

What is empathy?

When we ask ourselves what empathy is, the first definition that comes to mind is the ability to put ourselves in someone else's shoes. However, empathy goes way beyond, usually it's not just an intellectual fact, but something deeply emotional.

There are several descriptions of empathy, one of the most apt is "the experience of understanding another person's condition from their point of view". This means putting yourself in the skin of this person and feeling what they are experiencing. It is an affective participation in someone's reality, making his emotional world our own.

 Empathy is a thing of two: The dyadic approach

From an anthropological point of view, the meaning of empathy from the individual point of view implies its limitation. Research conducted at the University of Amsterdam suggests that empathy also depends on “what others want or can say about themselves”. In this way, empathy acquires a dyadic dimension, which means that the person who feels empathy is as important as the person who awakens that feeling. In fact, we are not equally empathetic with everyone.

Empathy is also mediated by cultural and social norms. In the same study it was appreciated that children were more empathic when a teacher reminded them that they needed to be good classmates, but that empathy decreased when it came to choosing which side to play a game. Friends who were last elected and got annoyed were consoled, but mere classmates who felt the same way were labeled "whiners".

This means that context, social conventions and the person being empathized are also determining factors, regardless of the individual's ability to feel empathy.

The three types of empathy

There are several classifications of empathy. Psychologist Mark Davis has suggested that there are 3 types of empathy.

- Cognitive empathy. It is a "limited" empathy as we only adopt the perspective of the other. This empathy implies that we are able to understand and take his points of view and put ourselves in his shoes. It is an empathy that arises from intellectual understanding.

- Personal distress. It is about literally feeling the other person's feelings. This empathy comes into play when we see someone suffering and we suffer with them. It is due to an emotional contagion; that is, the other person has "infected" us with his emotions. Some people are so prone to manifest this type of empathy that they are overwhelmed by it, thus undergoing enormous stress, it is what is known as " Empathy Syndrome ".

- Empathic concern . This model best matches our definition of empathy. It is the ability to recognize the emotional states of others, to feel emotionally connected, and although we may experience some degree of personal discomfort, we are able to manage that discomfort and show genuine concern. Unlike distress, the person experiencing this type of empathy mobilizes to help and comfort, not paralyzed by feelings.

Empathy is learned

Many people think we are born empaths, but empathy is actually a learned behavior. Children learn to identify and regulate their emotions through interactions with adults, primarily with their parents. When adults respond to children's emotional states, they not only create the basis for self differentiation, but also to develop perception of the other. Over time, that seed transforms into empathy.

It has been found that children who do not experience these types of interactions have a reduced perception of themselves, suffer from difficulty managing and regulating their emotions, and often show limited empathy. When a form of avoidant attachment develops, for example, the person does not feel comfortable in intimate contexts and has problems recognizing their own emotions and those of others. When a form of anxious attachment develops, the person often does not have the ability to moderate their emotions, so they may end up overwhelmed by another person's emotions. This is not empathy.

Therefore, while it is true that our brains are hardwired to feel empathy, it is necessary for this ability to develop throughout life, especially in the early years.

What does it mean to be empathetic? The basic conditions of empathy

Certain basic conditions must exist in order for a person to feel empathy.

1. Motor and neuronal imitation. Empathy is impaired in people suffering from neurological disorders. In fact, to be empathic it is necessary that our mirror neurons are activated, that body and facial mimic are produced, which helps us to put ourselves in the other's shoes.

2. Know the other person's inner state, including their thoughts and emotions. Only then can we be aware of what the other thinks or feels and identify with their point of view, situation and / or emotional state. This condition allows us to create a more or less clear representation of what the other person is experiencing, the situation they are going through and their affective state.

3. Emotional resonance. To feel affective empathy, the other person's emotional state must resonate with us. We must act as a tuning fork, so that the problems and / or feelings of the other echo within us. 4. Project yourself into the other. To feel empathy, it is essential to be able to leave our position for a moment to identify with the other's situation. If we can't leave our coordinates, we can hardly put ourselves in that person's place. Once we do that act of projection, we can go back into our "I" and recreate in our mind how we would feel if it happened to us. Indeed, empathy implies an unfolding, a continuous going back and forth between the other and our "I".

5. Emotional self-regulation. Staying in distress is not beneficial to us or the person in pain. It is necessary to take it a step further and move on to empathic kindness, which is understanding that we feel bad for each other by overcoming these feelings to help them. It is about managing our emotional reactions in order to help each other.

The neurological basis of empathy

Empathy is not simply a feeling or a state of mind, but is rooted in concrete and measurable physical phenomena that are part of our nature. Empathy has a deep neurological basis.

When we witness what happens to others, it is not just the visual cortex that is activated. The zones related to our actions are also activated, as if we are acting in a similar way to the person we are seeing. In addition, the areas related to emotions and sensations are activated, as if we were feeling the same.

This means that empathy involves activating different areas of the brain that act in a coordinated and complex way so that we can put ourselves in the other's place. Witnessing someone else's action, pain, or affection can activate the same neural networks responsible for performing those actions or experiencing those feelings directly. In other words, our brain responds quite similarly to the other person, although not identically.

A study conducted at the University of Groningen found that when our mirror neurons are inhibited, which makes it easier for us to put ourselves in others' shoes, our ability to detect the level of trust of others and their feelings is impaired. What are called "indirect states" are interrupted, which are those that allow us to mentalize the experiences of others in order to help those who are in trouble.

Indeed, witnessing the pain of others causes increased activity in the insula, which contributes to self-awareness as it integrates sensory information, as well as the anterior cingulate cortex, which is associated with decision-making, impulse control and socially generated fear.

This means that when we see the pain of others, we transfer it to our mind and try to make sense of it in our pain system and experiences, as verified by a study conducted at the University of Vienna. In other words, our emotions and experiences always condition our perception of the affection or pain of others.

Our brain mimics the responses we see in others, but is able to maintain the separation between its own pain and that of others. Indeed, empathy requires not only a mechanism to share emotions, but also to keep them separate. If this were not the case, we would not connect emotionally, we would only be distressed. And that wouldn't be an adaptive response.

In this sense, another very interesting experiment conducted at the University of Groningen showed that no matter how empathetic we are, we cannot get a complete idea of ​​how much the other person is suffering. When participants had the opportunity to pay to reduce the intensity of electric shocks a person was about to receive, on average they paid the minimum necessary to reduce pain by 50%.

This phenomenon is known as emotional self-centered bias and is linked to the right supramarginal gyrus, a region of the brain associated with language processing, which may be responsible for maintaining a separation between one's own emotions and those of others.

Interestingly, this structure is less active in childhood, adolescence and the elderly, as a study by the University of Trieste revealed, because it reaches full maturity in late adolescence and is deconstructed relatively early in life.

 

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