Two aspects to empathy

Post Reply New Topic

There may also be a good side to having higher levels of personal distress in some cases. It might make you try harder to avoid causing distress in others due to the discomfort it would cause you to feel yourself. From my observation of common patterns I'd guess that introverts in general have a higher level of personal distress than extroverts. Introverts are more uncomfortable with interpersonal emotional conflicts and thus tend to be more polite in order to avoid personal distress. Extroverts are more likely to not get upset themselves when they are causing upset in others if they're also low on cognitive and/or affective empathy.

Yes, I think it is commonly accepted as a personality trait that many introverts avoid emotional conflict. However. avoiding emotional conflict also requires good skills in theory of mind/cognitive empathy in order to predict and understand what it is that might upset an individual, in advance. That can be learned over the course of time through trial and error, but it is understood as one of the major difficulties with ASD's, in reading the social cues that might better allow one to avoid emotional conflicts.

But, where there is pain and discomfort, there is definitely motivation to avoid it, whether it is consciously avoiding conflicts through theory of mind, or avoiding a situation all together, if possible, if there is the fear of potential conflict of emotions.

Unfortunately, real life often doesn't afford one that opportunity, as when one works with people in the workplace, there is often almost constant emotional conflict of some kind going on. The open office workplace can be a literal nightmare for an individual that is more likely to feel high levels of personal distress, when around others expressing emotional conflict. So, it is possible to head toward emotional burnout, just being in the environment, without actually being part of the emotional conflicts that may arise.

The informal poll done here on personality, linked below, has close to 1500 responses with 95% of those testing in the introverted range, with close to a third testing with the INTJ personality, that is usually one of the rarest measured in the general population at about 1 to 4 percent of the population.

It seems like there would be a higher potential of issues associated with personal distress for individuals with introverted personalities, particularly for those that may have greater difficulties in cognitive empathy/theory of mind. A polite nature is certainly an advantage, even if one makes a social mistake here and there, as it is more likely to be forgiven if there is a polite nature expressed along with the social mistake.

http://www.wrongplanet.net/postxf67764-0-645.html

Personally I do fine at mechanical perspective taking, I am a spatial (albeit not visual) thinker and I have taught myself over time to mechanically extrapolate other people's PoV in a situation.

I do however admit to being puzzled over "grief tourists" who weep and emotionally get off on events unrelated to them. I do feel some emotional empathy and always try to act so as not to hurt people, but being able to feel emotion or cry in response to a film etc (something not related to me) is a relatively new experience in my mid Thirties.

^^^
i didn't fully get the emotion thing until i was in my 30s. then it hit me like a ton of bricks.

One thing that's weird is when I find myself emotionally affected by a film or show, I often find myself crying only from one eye. Oddly enough the loss of A pet was something that I emotionally resonated with much earlier.

i think it was the late great judy garland who was able to cry out of one eye or the other on command.

That's an... Interesting... Skill! I definitely can't do it on command.

she musta had some yogi in her to be able to control a normally involuntary body action.

Was it the left eye? I remember going to a massage therapist for a back problem the one and only time I tried that, and the massage therapist remarking to me that I offered up my left arm per the emotional side of my brain, and was tensed up with the right arm.

I suppose that makes sense. The other thread about empathy that has the video, in this discussion forum, was the first thing that brought tears to my eyes, in a long time, as I don't usually watch TV or go to the movie. Made me feel almost human:).

There is no doubt in my mind that non-human animals experience emotional contagion from human beings, as well as each other, along with some level of empathic non- language based concern. There was actually a recent rat study linked below that had conclusions that mice experience a non-language based empathic concern for each other. But I'm not sure if Samuel Baron Cohen would classify that as cognitive empathy.. People that have mice for pets, already likely sensed that a long time ago, which I suppose is also a form of cognitive and affective empathy between man and "beast".

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/am- ... or-do-they

…about that. I wondered about my empathetic curiosity. I tend to be curious about what an animal is feeling and hoping it is not in any emotional distress. I wonder rather than assume it is feeling a certain way. This comes from the fact most people ‘read’ me wrong and assume I am feeling something that I am not. That mistake has happened so often that I tend to just play it safe and let time be my guide.

Although, it does not always yield results with humans, since human life tends to blink by in fast food moments. They do not give me enough time to decide which emotion to read. I would rather they just tell me so I do not have to guess. Humans can feel so many emotions in the moment, and can have conflicting responses -- like crying can mean sad, angry, or happy. Context is important, but also someone's background factors in. I am a natural scientist and prefer to wait till I have copious amounts of data before I form any conclusions. It does not matter much that I develop this ability for human connections, since I have dropped out of that endeavor.

I do encounter stray animals that I sometimes would like to know if they are content in their stray-living or if they are seeking a ‘home’. I do not take in strays, but would like to know if I should rescue them and take them to a shelter, or if they are happier (or better off) being free and independent, like I am.

if the strays are friendly and follow you, they may be dumped housepets that are seeking shelter.

Wow - this echoes my own experience almost exactly. I'm almost always more aware of the non-human life around me, and care about the welfare of my fellow creatures. I'm especially interested in cats. I grew up with cats, so that not so surprising. Sadly I've become allergic to them, so can't have any in the house. I communicate with all the neighborhood cats that visit my garden, and greet every cat that I meet on the streets. I've even embarrassed my boyfriend by talking to a cat while completely ignoring the people standing in the driveway nearby (happened on the way home from shopping - both the cat and it's human family were complete strangers to us).

I no longer care that my priorities are different. There are vast amounts of people only interested in and empathizing with other humans, so it only seems fair that some of us are more inclined to empathize with animals and plants.

[/quote]
i get frustrated and scared and very insecure at some people who are suffering because i desperately want to comfort them but have no earthly clue HOW. [/quote]


My best friend is exactly the same way ^


As for me, it depends on the circumstances/situations. I have extreme empathy at times, especially towards animals, elderly people, children, and certain inanimate objects.

I am having problem comprehending the whole question and have tried to google.
I'm so confused...

This can be very very confusing agh, yet it is an interesting research topic.
When i was a child i was very super sensitive empathically. My gf is NT and she normally has a very not easy to read persona. Yet as a child, she never learned normal emotion, as her mother didn't show it (she has a still face same face no expression mom). She actually learned to "assimilate emotions" by observing at a young age. I guess that is a good thing for her. However her sister is a diagnosed sociopath.

My gf doesn't seem to have a lot of either the empathies and it is so hard for me to "read" her so i'm always asking her if she's ok and things like that.
Of all the people and of course i have a heckuva hard time reading people yet we've been together 5 years.

My empathy really is there when it involves animals especially. I am not as sensitive now as i was when i was a child. I think it's likely that all that i have observed over the years of humans and the lack of humanity, i just.... yet i have some soft spots in my heart for those deserving

Personally, outside the internet I don't seem to have a problem knowing in advance what will upset someone. The harder problem is not what I do/say, but what I don't do/say. There's also the problem of not being able to please everyone.

I had a horrible problem in graduate school where my academic adviser just wasn't working out but I had no idea how to deal with the situation. I didn't know how to break it too him and the chair somehow got this impression (maddening ) that I was just slacking off or something and put me on his s**t list. In that case some kind of emotional conflict was pretty much unavoidable as was dead set on me "staying the course" with him even though I just couldn't work in the way he wanted me to. I waited too long and didn't really have any allies in the department to help me through and find a different adviser until after a completely flipped out at the chair and had to go through to the dean to get things fixed.

I personally think that attempting to be polite and attempt to hide non-verbal expressions of personal distress, or the inability to express personal distress, can be a source of eventual serious health problems both physical and mental.

Unfortunately, these issues don't often have the comfort of structure of solving analytical problems. Being nice all the time, seemed like a simple analytical solution to me, but that only worked as long as I was working to assist or serve others. For me it was a way to get ahead at work, but I eventually learned it was also a way to attract most of the workload, as supervisors are more likely to assign work to compliant people than non-compliant people.

I had no interest in supervising small or large groups of people, but was eventually forced into it, in part because I was compliant, and in part because of the downsizing and continued move toward technological efficiencies of my organization that seems to be the rule in the workplace these days instead of the exception. At the supervisory level, most of my peers had developed a callous exterior that provided clear boundaries between them and their employees.

I had a very difficult time putting others in a subordinate position, whereas my peers seemed to gain an intrinsic reward from it. Some people are cut out to play roles in the background and others are cut out for the spotlight. The spotlight was too bright for me; I felt no reward from it.

I was proud of myself for never having to be responsible for terminating anyone, but in someways I think my motivation was selfish as I did not want to share the pain of another person's distress of getting terminated. I worked for the government, and I suspect this is a source of government inefficiency, as people may be more likely to be forced into supervisory positions over a long golden handcuffed career, that do not have a thick enough empathic skin, to make the tough decisions they are getting paid for.