The Construct Of Empathy, By Great Thinkers From Various Disciplines

Empathy is a key helping value and has many definitions. According to Egan and Schroeder, empathy is a personality trait that allows a person to feel what others feel and have the ability to understand other people from the inside. It is also a state of feeling for others that is situation specific and can be a, “Feeling for and understand of another’s persons experiences” (Egan and Schroeder, 2009). Empathy is a “Basic value that informs and drive all helping behavior”, a communication skill and has three phases, empathic resonance, expressed empathy and received empathy (Egan and Schroeder, 2009).

Empathy and caring is an essential part of human health. We love because we can empathize (Szalavitz & Perry, 2010). Empathy underlies everything that makes society work; such as altruism, collaboration, love and charity. Failures to empathize are a key part of social problems, such as crime, violence, war, racism, child abuse and inequity. Although we are genetically predisposed to care for others, the development of empathy requires a lifelong process of relational interaction (Szalavitz & Perry, 2010). More importantly, the first relationship humans experience, the

In the research article, “Empathizing with Other Peoples’ Pain Versus Empathizing with Others’ Joy: Examining THE Separability of Positive and Negative Empathy and Their Relation to Different Types of Social Behaviors and Social Emotions,” researchers Michael Andreychik and Nicole Migliaccio examine both positive and negative empathy, the effect both have on an individual and the distinct capacities that each have on different types of social behaviors. Researchers deliver a series of questionnaires to participants, expecting that “Positive and negative empathy represent distinct—albeit related—constructs that predict different types of social behaviors and social emotions” (Andreychik, & Migliaccio, 2015, para 2). The main goal of the research is to observe if there is a difference between positive empathy and negative empathy. Furthermore, researchers study the effects of positive empathy, its affect socially, and emotionally on individuals.

Empathy is the ability to understand and experience the feelings of others, particularly others’ suffering. Humanity’s gift of understanding complex emotions ushers in a new way of understanding ourselves and how we react to stimuli. This ultimately leads to questioning of everything, leading us to one strong notion: Does empathy guide or hinder moral action?

Empathy, the ability to recognize and share feelings of others, has been in our brains since the beginning of time. It was discovered by the Greeks which they called it, “Empatheia” meaning, “In feeling.” Then a German psychologist Vischer in 1837 and he called it

While having empathy is an exceptional quality, it has limitations. In Limits of Empathy, by Adam Waytz, he points out that though empathy can be a powerful tool in understanding another person’s experiences, it also has limits. He begins his article with introducing empathy as the topic of interest today. Through the use of an empathy belly and the age suit, Waytz discusses how these exercises are used in Ford Motor Company to get the perspective of a pregnant woman or an elderly person who has to drive. Whether or not these exercises actually help the company is unclear he states, but empathy has proven to be a focus of improvement all around us. Waytz states that research conducted suggests that the commotion about empathy is too intense,

“We are all frogs or cows; we wander through life in a state of perpetual bafflement because empathy is so hard – harder than anger, harder than pity” (Fadiman, 1988, p. 300).

Suppose I was guilty of murdering my boyfriend, what would be your reaction? Would you reconsider the verdict? Would you show some compassion? Would you even try to understand my reason? If you answer yes, you are showing me what is called empathy. “Deepa Kodikal, spiritual adept, says, “Empathy is putting yourself in another’s shoes to find out what exactly that person is feeling or going through at the given time. It basically refers to being at a common wavelength with someone” (Bajaj). Empathy is our confirmation that we haven’t lost our humanity.

We all experience empathy at some point in our lives, it feels nice to know that there is someone that you can call on and that you know they can help you get through any hardship. Whether that be family, friends, or anyone that you are in close relations with. In Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird and Daryl Cameron’s article Empathy Is Actually a Choice, they show great examples of empathy and why people show each other compassion and feel this emotion that believe it or not most people don’t experience. This essay is to show how these articles are related and a good example of how people should act in today’s society.

One thing for sure is that empathy isn’t just something that happens to us- a meteor shower od synapses firing across the brain- it’s also a choice we make: to pay attention, to extend ourselves.” (23) Everyone has different perspective and background in life which plays a major role in attaining empathy for someone and caring about other’s pain without judgement is one step closer to completing the empathy ladder. But then again the human mind and actions are a mystery; one can never fully explain what and why they are feeling like they are, it is complicated for one to give a definite definition for empathy. Seemingly, Jamison agrees and that is why she did not conclude her essay by defining empathy as a whole but she defines empathy for herself. She engagers the readers and being so easy to comprehend readers are able to relate their own method of dealing with empathy throughout the essay. It is truly an invigorating essay that gave several answers and questions towards the way we treat

As we have all come to learn empathy is a broad and even controversial topic; having empathy may not always mean making good decisions. That is what each of the three pieces: “The Dark Side of Empathy” by Paul Bloom, “What Makes Us Moral” by Jeffrey Klugger, and “Why Mental Pictures Can Sway Your Moral Judgement” by Shankar Vedantam examine (2015, 2007, 2012). All three sources are effective in conveying their message about morals and empathy, however varying rhetoric methods are employed by each piece.

Obama suggests empathy comes naturally in humans. Research provided by Schumann, Zaki, and Dweck (2014) showed others naturally pass on empathy similarly as babies tend to mimic others. Reasoning is because even grown people have tendencies to automatically copy others actions and therefore do the same with emotions. In other words, empathy is said to be a reflex. Still, there has been a significant drop in self-reported empathy based on a sampling of 72 participants (Schuman, Zaki, & Daweck, 2014). What causes a decline in empathy if it is an innate trait? Empathy has also been shown to prove genetic connections. Studies completed with twins compared both cognitive and emotional empathy. Many similarities surfaced providing evidence to support empathy to be moderately heritable (Uzefovsky et al.,

There are two kinds of Empathy

information about the description of empathy, as well as to discover how empathy has been

For a number of years empathy was difficult to measure, as there was limited basis of empirical data. This changed with the progression of technology, as the biological approach could then using brain imaging techniques to visually represent the activity going on in the brain and biological psychologists could then research links between the activity and behavioural traits like empathy. One way in which biological psychology has helped us understand empathy as a complex trait is through exploration of mirror neurons.