Empathic concern does not reduce partisan animosity: study • Hacker News Board

Re: Empathic concern does not reduce partisan animosity: study

#121

Post by steven_is_false » Tue, Nov 19, 2019, 4:56 PM UTC

There's no reason to think evolution gave us a single variable for "goodness". We have a strong tendency to love our in group; our family, friends, tribe and so on. But I see no reason why love of the out group should be the same.

Parents do lots of bad things to get their children ahead. Consider the soldier who "loves his country" but "hates the enemy." Prosocial behavior benefits your society, not other societies. But there's also no reason to think it benefits individuals.

We know the halo effect is real and we have no reason to think empathy to attractive people is the same as empathy to ugly people.

More worryingly consider the case mother cat. Mother cats love their kittens. They also eat them sometimes when they are sick or there's not enough food. The same drive to have genetic offspring can produce care and intense hate. There's no reason to think apes don't have similar kinds of natural urges.

Re: Empathic concern does not reduce partisan animosity: study

#122

Post by notyourloops » Tue, Nov 19, 2019, 5:02 PM UTC

whatshisface wrote: post #119

umvi wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's almost like you need unaffiliated third parties to rank people on their good qualities. "Are you humble?" "Oh yes, definitely, I'm one of the most humble people I know" "Are you a good person?" "Oh yes, one of the best" vs. "How humble would you say your co-worker is?" "Hmm, in my opinion probably average humility. I've never seen them do anything that made me think they were especially humble." "Would you say y…

That's subject to a lot of well-known social biases, for example the fact that more attractive people are perceived to be smarter and better-intentioned.

It seems like being human is a messy affair, and one particularly hard to sort out.

Re: Empathic concern does not reduce partisan animosity: study

#123

Post by umvi » Tue, Nov 19, 2019, 5:02 PM UTC

whatshisface wrote: post #119

umvi wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's almost like you need unaffiliated third parties to rank people on their good qualities. "Are you humble?" "Oh yes, definitely, I'm one of the most humble people I know" "Are you a good person?" "Oh yes, one of the best" vs. "How humble would you say your co-worker is?" "Hmm, in my opinion probably average humility. I've never seen them do anything that made me think they were especially humble." "Would you say y…

That's subject to a lot of well-known social biases, for example the fact that more attractive people are perceived to be smarter and better-intentioned.

But am I even more biased toward myself is the question. I would answer yes.

People may be biased toward me based on my looks, but I am way more biased toward myself by comparison.

Re: Empathic concern does not reduce partisan animosity: study

#124

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Nov 19, 2019, 5:18 PM UTC

umvi wrote: post #123

whatshisface wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's subject to a lot of well-known social biases, for example the fact that more attractive people are perceived to be smarter and better-intentioned.

But am I even more biased toward myself is the question. I would answer yes. People may be biased toward me based on my looks, but I am way more biased toward myself by comparison.

[deleted]

Re: Empathic concern does not reduce partisan animosity: study

#125

Post by SuoDuanDao » Tue, Nov 19, 2019, 5:23 PM UTC

baked_ziti wrote: post #53

allovernow wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure it is. Nothing about the definition of empathy suggests that it isn't selective. We are generally empathetic but still eat animals. Some cultures still eat dog - you don't think they can love their children?

I think that taking unironic pleasure at the misfortune of others, or wishing others harm, and the capacity to do so, is the literal opposite of empathy. > Some cultures still eat dog - you don't think they can love their children? This is a non-sequitur.

You're speaking about the 'sphere of compassion', I'd say there are two factors at play. There's 'how large' the in-group is (where we could say someone who cares for all animals is more compassionate than someone who cares for all human beings) and 'how intensely' people feel compassion for their in-group (which is harder to quantify, but still a real phenomenon).

edit: Compassion for one's in-group can be very real, even if the in-group is small. It's almost like a breadth-vs-depth question. I've even heard of some studies suggesting that having very intense feelings of compassion for one's in-group is predictive of callousness towards the out-group.

Re: Empathic concern does not reduce partisan animosity: study

#126

Post by learnstats2 » Tue, Nov 19, 2019, 5:26 PM UTC

daenz wrote: post #46

I think there's an interesting dynamic with empathy and freedom of speech: defending freedom of speech forces you to have a basic empathy for everyone. It might not be an empathy based on their lived experiences, but it is one based on respecting that we should collectively protect what they have to communicate. It's why I believe attacks on freedom of speech are so dangerous...they undermine this foundational respec…

Allowing people to speak is not empathetic.

You have to at least listen to them.

Re: Empathic concern does not reduce partisan animosity: study

#127

Post by bsdetector » Tue, Nov 19, 2019, 5:33 PM UTC

timwaagh wrote: post #105

rdtsc wrote: post #39

> These high-empathy students were also more likely to be amused by reports that students protesting the speech had injured a bystander sympathetic to the speaker. > one gauges people’s level of “empathic concern” by asking them how strongly they agree or disagree with a series of seven statements such as “I often have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me.” It seems like a problematic way to m…

Relying on self reported things is a big problem with a lot of psychological research. It is very hard to do it otherwise because sympathetic feelings are an inner world experience. Only if we found something measurable that coincided with these feelings in almost all instances could we improve upon it.

Self-reporting can be a fine measure.

For example, these participants who were amused by people they disagree with being beaten up self-reported low empathy. They just didn't know that's what they were doing, which is why they were honest about it.

You can measure things better that are unpopular. On a U.S. college campus, you can measure lack of empathy but not empathy, whereas in ancient Sparta you could measure empathy but not lack of empathy.

Re: Empathic concern does not reduce partisan animosity: study

#128

Post by xamuel » Tue, Nov 19, 2019, 6:11 PM UTC

Dumblydorr wrote: post #116

xamuel wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The list of people whose opinions are "really their own" is pretty much limited to feral children and certain philosophers/scientists

Which philosopher scientists did you have in mind? I think Newton and Einstein were fairly independent, though undeniably they needed to stand on the shoulders of giants to make their independent discoveries. Maybe that is a contradiction....

In the context of political opinions, I was thinking people like Adam Smith, Karl Marx, etc. But you're right, even those people stood on the shoulders of giants, they didn't just independently get struck by lightning one day and suddenly have ideas in a vacuum. In any case, it's not realistic to expect Joe Smith the Generic Voting Citizen to have to have completely original new opinions on all the hot-button issues.

Re: Empathic concern does not reduce partisan animosity: study

#129

Post by sysbin » Tue, Nov 19, 2019, 6:18 PM UTC

mnm1 wrote: post #74

sysbin wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Listened to the podcast and its good. I've always been empathetic to shooters because I understand determinism and realize the shooter didn't have any free will in how his/her life turned out. The universe just happened to make it be. Anyway more food for thought to the topic.

Based on what you're saying, it's immoral to send the shooter to prison or punish him in any way since he had no control over his actions and therefore was not guilty of assault or murder. Bet that theory goes right out the window when it's someone you know lying dead in a pool of blood. Does this apply to all actions? In that case mortality simply doesn't exist and there cannot be good or bad things. How far do you…

> How far do you take this delusion is what I'm curious about?

The delusion is assuming people have control over their actions. Yes it's wrong that we punish people that didn't have control over the life they were born into and what happens without any control because the universe made it so. Yes of course it applies to all actions humans are forced to do in life.

Re: Empathic concern does not reduce partisan animosity: study

#130

Post by StuffedParrot » Tue, Nov 19, 2019, 6:18 PM UTC

EdwardDiego wrote: post #78

EdwardDiego wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am on the left (technically independent) but I certainly have a mountain of criticism about Democrats. I'm entirely unsurprised, they're more to the right than our NZ centre-right party National. The fact that the Democrats are even considered left-wing in the USA baffles me.

I'm interested in the downvotes - is it disagreement from people on the American left that the Democrats are, by my Kiwi political compass, centre-right? Or disagreement from people on the American right that the Democrats aren't lefties?

I would hazard a guess that it is both. Neither party likes being reminded how little differentiates them in material terms, preferring to focus on manufactured culture wars. It would destroy the Democratic party leadership to acknowledge the center in material terms is far to the left of our left party. Neither party likes to acknowledge the cultural and ideological differences between America and the rest of the world that led (and still do) to a lack of any comprehensive social welfare and collectivized problem solving, save for problems that affect trade and the economy (the military, defense contractors, bank bailouts, border security and immigration enforcement).