Some personality disorders (histrionic or borderline) have too much empathy, other personality disorders don't have empathy at all (narcissistic, psychopth or antisocial). What gives? What is Empathy?
Normal people use a variety of abstract concepts and psychological constructs to relate to other persons. Emotions are such modes of inter-relatedness. Narcissists and psychopaths are different. Their "equipment" is lacking. They understand only one language: self-interest. Their inner dialog and private language revolve around the constant measurement of utility. They regard others as mere objects, instruments of gratification, and representations of functions.
This deficiency renders the narcissist and psychopath rigid and socially dysfunctional. They don't bond - they become dependent (on narcissistic supply, on drugs, on adrenaline rushes). They seek pleasure by manipulating their dearest and nearest or even by destroying them, the way a child interacts with his toys. Like autists, they fail to grasp cues: their interlocutor's body language, the subtleties of speech, or social etiquette.
Narcissists and psychopaths lack empathy. It is safe to say that the same applies to patients with other personality disorders, notably the Schizoid, Paranoid, Borderline, Avoidant, and Schizotypal.
Empathy lubricates the wheels of interpersonal relationships. The Encyclopaedia Britannica (1999 edition) defines empathy as:
"The ability to imagine oneself in anther's place and understand the other's feelings, desires, ideas, and actions. It is a term coined in the early 20th century, equivalent to the German Einf眉hlung and modelled on "sympathy." The term is used with special (but not exclusive) reference to aesthetic experience. The most obvious example, perhaps, is that of the actor or singer who genuinely feels the part he is performing. With other works of art, a spectator may, by a kind of introjection, feel himself involved in what he observes or contemplates. The use of empathy is an important part of the counselling technique developed by the American psychologist Carl Rogers."
This is how empathy is defined in "Psychology - An Introduction" (Ninth Edition) by Charles G. Morris, Prentice Hall, 1996:
"Closely related to the ability to read other people's emotions is empathy - the arousal of an emotion in an observer that is a vicarious response to the other person's situation... Empathy depends not only on one's ability to identify someone else's emotions but also on one's capacity to put oneself in the other person's place and to experience an appropriate emotional response. Just as sensitivity to non-verbal cues increases with age, so does empathy: The cognitive and perceptual abilities required for empathy develop only as a child matures... (page 442)
In empathy training, for example, each member of the couple is taught to share inner feelings and to listen to and understand the partner's feelings before responding to them. The empathy technique focuses the couple's attention on feelings and requires that they spend more time listening and less time in rebuttal." (page 576).
Empathy is the cornerstone of morality.
The Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1999 Edition:
"Empathy and other forms of social awareness are important in the development of a moral sense. Morality embraces a person's beliefs about the appropriateness or goodness of what he does, thinks, or feels... Childhood is ... the time at which moral standards begin to develop in a process that often extends well into adulthood. The American psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg hypothesized that people's development of moral standards passes through stages that can be grouped into three moral levels...
At the third level, that of postconventional moral reasoning, the adult bases his moral standards on principles that he himself has evaluated and that he accepts as inherently valid, regardless of society's opinion. He is aware of the arbitrary, subjective nature of social standards and rules, which he regards as relative rather than absolute in authority.
Thus the bases for justifying moral standards pass from avoidance of punishment to avoidance of adult disapproval and rejection to avoidance of internal guilt and self-recrimination. The person's moral reasoning also moves toward increasingly greater social scope (i.e., including more people and institutions) and greater abstraction (i.e., from reasoning about physical events such as pain or pleasure to reasoning about values, rights, and implicit contracts)."
"... Others have argued that because even rather young children are capable of showing empathy with the pain of others, the inhibition of aggressive behaviour arises from this moral affect rather than from the mere anticipation of punishment. Some scientists have found that children differ in their individual capacity for empathy, and, therefore, some children are more sensitive to moral prohibitions than others.
Young children's growing awareness of their own emotional states, characteristics, and abilities leads to empathy--i.e., the ability to appreciate the feelings and perspectives of others. Empathy and other forms of social awareness are in turn important in the development of a moral sense... Another important aspect of children's emotional development is the formation of their self-concept, or identity--i.e., their sense of who they are and what their relation to other people is.
According to Lipps's concept of empathy, a person appreciates another person's reaction by a projection of the self into the other. In his 脛sthetik, 2 vol. (1903-06; 'Aesthetics'), he made all appreciation of art dependent upon a similar self-projection into the object."
Empathy - Social Conditioning or Instinct?
This may well be the key. Empathy has little to do with the person with whom we empathize (the empathee). It may simply be the result of conditioning and socialization. In other words, when we hurt someone, we don't experience his or her pain. We experience OUR pain. Hurting somebody - hurts US. The reaction of pain is provoked in US by OUR own actions. We have been taught a learned response: to feel pain when we hurt someone.
We attribute feelings, sensations and experiences to the object of our actions. It is the psychological defence mechanism of projection. Unable to conceive of inflicting pain upon ourselves - we displace the source. It is the other's pain that we are feeling, we keep telling ourselves, not our own.
Additionally, we have been taught to feel responsible for our fellow beings (guilt). So, we also experience pain whenever another person claims to be anguished. We feel guilty owing to his or her condition, we feel somehow accountable even if we had nothing to do with the whole affair.
In sum, to use the example of pain:
When we see someone hurting, we experience pain for two reasons:
1. Because we feel guilty or somehow responsible for his or her condition
2. It is a learned response: we experience our own pain and project it on the empathee.
We communicate our reaction to the other person and agree that we both share the same feeling (of being hurt, of being in pain, in our example). This unwritten and unspoken agreement is what we call empathy.
The Encyclopaedia Britannica:
"Perhaps the most important aspect of children's emotional development is a growing awareness of their own emotional states and the ability to discern and interpret the emotions of others. The last half of the second year is a time when children start becoming aware of their own emotional states, characteristics, abilities, and potential for action; this phenomenon is called self-awareness... (coupled with strong narcissistic behaviours and traits - SV)...
This growing awareness of and ability to recall one's own emotional states leads to empathy, or the ability to appreciate the feelings and perceptions of others. Young children's dawning awareness of their own potential for action inspires them to try to direct (or otherwise affect) the behaviour of others...
...With age, children acquire the ability to understand the perspective, or point of view, of other people, a development that is closely linked with the empathic sharing of others' emotions...
One major factor underlying these changes is the child's increasing cognitive sophistication. For example, in order to feel the emotion of guilt, a child must appreciate the fact that he could have inhibited a particular action of his that violated a moral standard. The awareness that one can impose a restraint on one's own behaviour requires a certain level of cognitive maturation, and, therefore, the emotion of guilt cannot appear until that competence is attained."
Still, empathy may be an instinctual REACTION to external stimuli that is fully contained within the empathor and then projected onto the empathee. This is clearly demonstrated by "inborn empathy". It is the ability to exhibit empathy and altruistic behaviour in response to facial expressions. Newborns react this way to their mother's facial expression of sadness or distress.
This serves to prove that empathy has very little to do with the feelings, experiences or sensations of the other (the empathee). Surely, the infant has no idea what it is like to feel sad and definitely not what it is like for his mother to feel sad. In this case, it is a complex reflexive reaction. Later on, empathy is still rather reflexive, the result of conditioning.
The Encyclopaedia Britannica quotes some fascinating research that support the model I propose:
"An extensive series of studies indicated that positive emotion feelings enhance empathy and altruism. It was shown by the American psychologist Alice M. Isen that relatively small favours or bits of good luck (like finding money in a coin telephone or getting an unexpected gift) induced positive emotion in people and that such emotion regularly increased the subjects' inclination to sympathize or provide help.
Several studies have demonstrated that positive emotion facilitates creative problem solving. One of these studies showed that positive emotion enabled subjects to name more uses for common objects. Another showed that positive emotion enhanced creative problem solving by enabling subjects to see relations among objects (and other people - SV) that would otherwise go unnoticed. A number of studies have demonstrated the beneficial effects of positive emotion on thinking, memory, and action in pre-school and older children."
If empathy increases with positive emotion, then it has little to do with the empathee (the recipient or object of empathy) and everything to do with the empathor (the person who does the empathizing).
ADDENDUM - Interview granted to the National Post, Toronto, Canada, July 2003
Q. How important is empathy to proper psychological functioning?
A. Empathy is more important socially than it is psychologically. The absence of empathy - for instance in the Narcissistic and Antisocial personality disorders - predisposes people to exploit and abuse others. Empathy is the bedrock of our sense of morality. Arguably, aggressive behavior is as inhibited by empathy at least as much as it is by anticipated punishment.
But the existence of empathy in a person is also a sign of self-awareness, a healthy identity, a well-regulated sense of self-worth, and self-love (in the positive sense). Its absence denotes emotional and cognitive immaturity, an inability to love, to truly relate to others, to respect their boundaries and accept their needs, feelings, hopes, fears, choices, and preferences as autonomous entities.
Q. How is empathy developed?
A. It may be innate. Even toddlers seem to empathize with the pain - or happiness - of others (such as their caregivers). Empathy increases as the child forms a self-concept (identity). The more aware the infant is of his or her emotional states, the more he explores his limitations and capabilities - the more prone he is to projecting this new found knowledge unto others. By attributing to people around him his new gained insights about himself, the child develop a moral sense and inhibits his anti-social impulses. The development of empathy is, therefore, a part of the process of socialization.
But, as the American psychologist Carl Rogers taught us, empathy is also learned and inculcated. We are coached to feel guilt and pain when we inflict suffering on another person. Empathy is an attempt to avoid our own self-imposed agony by projecting it onto another.
Q. Is there an increasing dearth of empathy in society today? Why do you think so?
A. The social institutions that reified, propagated and administered empathy have imploded. The nuclear family, the closely-knit extended clan, the village, the neighborhood, the Church- have all unraveled. Society is atomized and anomic. The resulting alienation fostered a wave of antisocial behavior, both criminal and "legitimate". The survival value of empathy is on the decline. It is far wiser to be cunning, to cut corners, to deceive, and to abuse - than to be empathic. Empathy has largely dropped from the contemporary curriculum of socialization.
In a desperate attempt to cope with these inexorable processes, behaviors predicated on a lack of empathy have been pathologized and "medicalized". The sad truth is that narcissistic or antisocial conduct is both normative and rational. No amount of "diagnosis", "treatment", and medication can hide or reverse this fact. Ours is a cultural malaise which permeates every single cell and strand of the social fabric.
Q. Is there any empirical evidence we can point to of a decline in empathy?
Empathy cannot be measured directly - but only through proxies such as criminality, terrorism, charity, violence, antisocial behavior, related mental health disorders, or abuse.
Moreover, it is extremely difficult to separate the effects of deterrence from the effects of empathy.
If I don't batter my wife, torture animals, or steal - is it because I am empathetic or because I don't want to go to jail?
Rising litigiousness, zero tolerance, and skyrocketing rates of incarceration - as well as the ageing of the population - have sliced intimate partner violence and other forms of crime across the United States in the last decade. But this benevolent decline had nothing to do with increasing empathy.
The statistics are open to interpretation but it would be safe to say that the last century has been the most violent and least empathetic in human history. Wars and terrorism are on the rise, charity giving on the wane (measured as percentage of national wealth), welfare policies are being abolished, Darwinian models of capitalism are spreading. In the last two decades, mental health disorders were added to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association whose hallmark is the lack of empathy. The violence is reflected in our popular culture: movies, video games, and the media.
Empathy - supposedly a spontaneous reaction to the plight of our fellow humans - is now channeled through self-interested and bloated non-government organizations or multilateral outfits. The vibrant world of private empathy has been replaced by faceless state largesse. Pity, mercy, the elation of giving are tax-deductible. It is a sorry sight. That's why they call them disorders. They don't have to make sense. ie: why do some psychopaths like to kill and some just like to torture? Weirdness of the mind sometimes doesn't make any sense. i think it reflects on childhood environment & role models or lack thereof I think you are wrong about histrionic and borderline personalities: The histrionic personality is the quintessential "drama queen", and they seek the attention of others and tend to form rather shallow attatchments. The histrionic is manipulative and attention seeking, not empathetic. The borderline, on the other hand, tends to be overly sensitive to negative body language, tones of voice, etc to the point of interpreting this as agression. Again, this is far from being empathetic, and that's why it's a disorder; they are sensitive in terms of being negatively suggestible, but they aren't empathetic. In both cases, they tend to form shallow, stormy relationships and attatchments and bring a lot of turmoil into their own lives and the lives of others, and this is not what somebody with a well-developed sense of empathy would do. Like the narcissist or psychopath, they serve their own egos primarily (when a histrionic entertains it's for the gratification of the attention they get, and when they borderline dotes on their romantic interest it's because they feel worthless if they aren't getting this kind of doting attention returned to them). Unlike the sociopath, however, the borderline and histrionic personality seek to obtain some kind of positive feedback or attention from others;whereas, the sociopath sees people as generally beneath themself and enjoys toying with them, and the narcissist is only interested in what others can do to further their own goals.
In any case, none of these disorders typify "empathy" in any correct sense. Vote w/wisdom. MH is a money trap for families and a bottomless excuse for states to request more funding from the feds (our tax dollars).
"histrionic or borderline" "narcissistic, psychopth or antisocial" - code for spoiled parent haters especially when their childhood has ended up being someone elses creation ...they lie about their childhoods beyond belief and get attention for doing so. Some of them even get money for living in their pasts and it comes straight from taxes and other means of grandstanding. Many of them also work for our government AND MH system...how many people you know are getting rehabilitated and doesn't this prove lack of leadership. A deacon in a Baptist church who happens to work in a jail told me the world would end if there was no crime and there would be nothing but chaos...code for he'd have to find another job because crime wouldn't be such a popular choice.
Far as empathy ....enablers are not empathetic at all that is an illusion created by rumor. Enablers don't want people to get any help or learn via being taught not to do wrong because they aren't leaders. They hate and prove this by keeping unhealthy situations going. Real empathy doesn't include being party to driving someone straight to hell by ignoring or making excuses. It makes people feel sorry for them selves and possibly sets their bottom up ...driving them into addiction of various sorts. If too many people were self-disciplined MH/Gov/dysfunctional families would be out of a job/feed and the result would be people making an honest living or living honest lives which ever the case may be it's all the same.
I've heard many play God and judge(without self-discipline) that this is the end of the world so let Jesus come and let us have no responsibility to life including setting example. Some go in the other direction so bad they beat leaders down. That is pure lazy Christian behavior(which is Satan at work in my eyes) and consider how God sees this enabling along with esp/prediction. These things are not for us to decide nor should believers do the same as secularism does. What would these people do if their house caught on fire stand there and watch it burn thinking it's the end no matter if people are in there or not? Why are Christians becoming secular.....and helping to burn down their own families along with others? Even the churches are splitting up families to make a dime instead of helping- using a long list of self-excuse.
"Empathy and personality disorders?" They have nothing to do with each other. |
