Empathy Actually Increases in Med School Students (different questionnaires gave different results)

[Jonathan Edwards]

I know I am going off on a bit of a tangent here, but this made me think that a questionnaire can probably be developed to give whatever result you want.

I agree. It also made me think what silly words psychologists use - like cognitive and empathy.

Why not say 'understand what the person is feeling' or, alternatively 'feel what the person is feeling'. And how do you 'measure' either of those? Search me. And what sense does it make to take an average when you have done the measuring? If a student starts to behave as if they know better than the patient what their symptoms are (is that pseudo-empathy?) it is time to take them down a peg - that is the way I used to look at it.

 

[Hip]

Again empathy doesn't presume caring about the other merely a tendency to respond to the others emotional state with reflecting emotions.

I agree that an empath might take neutral position: an empath is able to connect to and understand another's mind (sometimes with uncanny insight); but that does not necessarily mean the empath is inclined to help that other person. They may just observe without offering any help. Or worse still, they may even use their insight into another's mind for nefarious purposes: to manipulate that person for example.

But I think at this point in our discussion, the difference between affective empathy and cognitive empathy might become central to this subject. I found this article about a study of the psychology of Internet trolls; the study found that trolls tended to have good cognitive empathy, but not affective empathy. The difference between the two is described in the article:

Having high cognitive empathy simply means they can understand others’ emotions. Having high affective empathy means a person can experience, internalize, and respond to those emotions.

The trolls appeared to have the traits of cognitive empathy (but not affective empathy), and psychopathy. The article says that:

even though “trolls” exhibit one kind of empathy [cognitive empathy], coupling it with psychopathy ultimately makes them nasty, the researchers suggested. Psychopathy, which includes a lack of care for others’ feelings

High levels of cognitive empathy make these people [trolls] adept at recognizing what will upset someone, and knowing when they’ve pushed the right buttons. The lack of affective empathy allows trolls not to experience or internalize the emotional experience of their victims.

“Results indicate that when high on trait psychopathy, trolls employ an empathic strategy of predicting and recognising the emotional suffering of their victims, while abstaining from the experience of these negative emotions,” the researchers wrote. They added that because psychopathy is associated with thrill-seeking and impulsivity, it’s possible that “creating mayhem online is a central motivator to troll.”

 

[Galixie]

I agree. It also made me think what silly words psychologists use - like cognitive and empathy.

Why not say 'understand what the person is feeling' or, alternatively 'feel what the person is feeling'. And how do you 'measure' either of those? Search me. And what sense does it make to take an average when you have done the measuring? If a student starts to behave as if they know better than the patient what their symptoms are (is that pseudo-empathy?) it is time to take them down a peg - that is the way I used to look at it.

This gets into a discussion on the evolution of language because the words sympathy and empathy do have distinctly different meanings even though they are used interchangeably today. The prefix 'sym' means 'with' (think symphony) while the prefix 'em' means 'into' (think embed). But culturally the word sympathy is associated with bereavement so many healthcare professionals avoid using it entirely and opt to use the word empathy instead (even though what they really are doing is sympathizing, not empathizing).

I once heard someone describe the difference between the two words this way:
A person has fallen down a well. An empathic person is down in the well with them. A sympathetic person is at the top of the well lowering down a rope.

There was a brief span of time when scientists thought mirror neurons were the key to how empathy works, but I think they've backed off of that idea somewhat.

The cognitive vs affective empathy is interesting to me because I generally haven't got the foggiest idea why someone feels the way they do. I might get the sense that a person is angry but I'll never know why unless they tell me.