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Empathy and perspective taking: How social skills are built

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Re: Empathy and perspective taking: How social skills are built

#11

Post by kayodelycaon »

rectang wrote: post #4

What I'm most interested in is to to what degree the lack of "facial expressions", "speech melody" and the like in internet communication impedes the development of empathy. We can communicate with more people than ever before, but our ability to empathize with those people is poor.

I actually do better with text interaction than anything else. It allows me to work asynchronously.

Due to auditory processing and executive function difficulties, I get overwhelmed attempting to communicate in real-time. Remote work has been a huge improvement to my life.

Re: Empathy and perspective taking: How social skills are built

#12

Post by throw999666 »

kayodelycaon wrote: post #9
naringas wrote: post #5

IMO, for most people empathy is already there. In my own experience what I had to learn about empathy is how to handle it, not how to have it; I already have it, it's automatic. The only thing that needs practice is extending it to strangers and enemies/rivals.

Empathy is not automatic for everyone. My emotions are so unreliable and unpredictable that they are useless for understanding other people. All of my social skills are based on logical analysis and a lot of trial and error. I enter every conversation with a goal of what I wish to communicate and how I want the other person to feel. I then attempt to do the proper things to make that happen. Society tells us that thi…

It is far more common than you think. Nearly half of everyone acts this way. More than 3/4 if you add "to some extent". But many of most of them can be "rationally compassionate".

Re: Empathy and perspective taking: How social skills are built

#13

Post by throw999666 »

kgarten wrote: post #7

I'm wondering why empathy is such a hot topic... , I don't think our goal is to empathize more with other people. Really liked the point Paul Bloom made with his book about Rational Compasion: https://www.amazon.com/Against-Empathy-Case-Rational-Compass... We should be able to understand how smb feels, not feel the same. Personally, I'm quite interested in why/when people are synchronizing their movements. Shameless…

I agree. Empathy is painful. It should not be the goal. I think the outcome for civilization would not be optimal if many more people were empathic right now, we still need a mix. But there are degrees of empathic ability. Only a very few people like me ( I think the general population is comprised only less than 20% of people who are "empathic" to the extent whare if they try, or, are relationally close to someone they do feel their feels. Then, more than 85% of people are "rationally compassionate" in that they understand how others feel if they make an effort, yet around a 1/3 of people do that automatically with no effort.

I think only around 10% of people are incapable of understanding how others feel at all. But if those people make some effort that number goes down to 1-2%. But while psychopaths are in that 10% they're not really in that 1-2%. And those people who "don't have subjective emotions nor do feel anything themselves" spread across all groups. The stronger statement, "don't have emotions nor feel anything themselves" are not present in the extreme empaths like me who can pick up emotions from around them.

Finally, people are not "set" in a particular group. It is plastic, to an extent, but not in entirety.

Re: Empathy and perspective taking: How social skills are built

#14

Post by throw999666 »

sigmaprimus wrote: post #6
naringas wrote: post #5

IMO, for most people empathy is already there. In my own experience what I had to learn about empathy is how to handle it, not how to have it; I already have it, it's automatic. The only thing that needs practice is extending it to strangers and enemies/rivals.

That is an interesting first part of your comment, "how to handle empathy". I too find it quite easy to relate to others by taking their perspective as well as easily being able to imagine how they may be feeling. To the point that my point of view and emotions become influenced by others in a sort of sympathetic reaction. EDIT My limited vocabulary skills made me unaware of the fact that this is known as "compassion…

> In my own experience this has been particularly damaging when entering personal relations with sociapathic type individuals.

This is a wise analysis. The temptation to see you want to be there, not what is. One would hope empaths shall avoid sociopaths for their own good.

Re: Empathy and perspective taking: How social skills are built

#15

Post by rectang »

temp0826 wrote: post #8
rectang wrote: post #4

What I'm most interested in is to to what degree the lack of "facial expressions", "speech melody" and the like in internet communication impedes the development of empathy. We can communicate with more people than ever before, but our ability to empathize with those people is poor.

Someone should develop an AI to automatically add emojis to our communications ;)

I wonder if technology won't actually help us ameliorate this issue.

Improvements in video communication — availability, ease of use, quality, ubiquity — make establishing empathetic connections easier. And there's a lot of room for improvement! (Latency is my biggest pet peeve.)

Re: Empathy and perspective taking: How social skills are built

#16

Post by darkerside »

naringas wrote: post #5

IMO, for most people empathy is already there. In my own experience what I had to learn about empathy is how to handle it, not how to have it; I already have it, it's automatic. The only thing that needs practice is extending it to strangers and enemies/rivals.

Ironically, there's a stunning lack of empathy in this comment

Re: Empathy and perspective taking: How social skills are built

#17

Post by GavinMcG »

kgarten wrote: post #7

I'm wondering why empathy is such a hot topic... , I don't think our goal is to empathize more with other people. Really liked the point Paul Bloom made with his book about Rational Compasion: https://www.amazon.com/Against-Empathy-Case-Rational-Compass... We should be able to understand how smb feels, not feel the same. Personally, I'm quite interested in why/when people are synchronizing their movements. Shameless…

The idea that our mechanism for understanding how others feel recruits or works through our mechanism for feeling things seems a likelier and simpler explanation than one where those two mechanisms are entirely separate.

Re: Empathy and perspective taking: How social skills are built

#18

Post by kayodelycaon »

throw999666 wrote: post #12
kayodelycaon wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Empathy is not automatic for everyone. My emotions are so unreliable and unpredictable that they are useless for understanding other people. All of my social skills are based on logical analysis and a lot of trial and error. I enter every conversation with a goal of what I wish to communicate and how I want the other person to feel. I then attempt to do the proper things to make that happen. Society tells us that thi…

It is far more common than you think. Nearly half of everyone acts this way. More than 3/4 if you add "to some extent". But many of most of them can be "rationally compassionate".

Not sure which part of my comment is “more common than I think” but I’m pretty sure 3/4s of the population doesn’t have autism or a similar developmental issue.

As a note, I don’t personally have autism, my issue is different, but I share a significant number of traits with those who do.

Re: Empathy and perspective taking: How social skills are built

#19

Post by [deleted] »

kayodelycaon wrote: post #11
rectang wrote: post #4

What I'm most interested in is to to what degree the lack of "facial expressions", "speech melody" and the like in internet communication impedes the development of empathy. We can communicate with more people than ever before, but our ability to empathize with those people is poor.

I actually do better with text interaction than anything else. It allows me to work asynchronously. Due to auditory processing and executive function difficulties, I get overwhelmed attempting to communicate in real-time. Remote work has been a huge improvement to my life.

[deleted]

Re: Empathy and perspective taking: How social skills are built

#20

Post by jungletime »

A good related book is "How to win Friends and Influence people". Basically its a guide how to make friends, with a realization that we live in a world full of selfish people, that are self centered and don't have much empathy. This is the default state of human beings. I watched an interview with Pol Pot and even he thought of himself as a good guy.

Quick Book Summary

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qvUYtwASqY

Pol Pot last interview

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQ9_BMshyiw

[edit] I should qualify what I mean by selfish as it relates to the book. Basically humans tend to act in their self interest by default. And will go a long way to justify that behaviour to themselves even when it hurts others, so they can preserve a positive self image. this a common behaviour pattern. The book doesn't claim its universal, and no exception exist. I'm sure there are exceptions. But even modern "saint" equivalents like Gandhi did some messed up selfish things.

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