Altruism under stress: cortisol negatively predicts charitable giving
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Re: Altruism under stress: cortisol negatively predicts charitable giving
#2Having a higher than average amount of empathy seems to be a disadvantage in many ways. It seems in many cases to be correlated with anxiety and depression. It can be difficult for people with high levels of empathy to recognize the boundaries between their own self and the thoughts and feelings of others. As a kid I was highly empathetic, and it's something I've struggled with my entire life. It never really felt like a virtue, and mostly just brought me pain. I have less empathy now, but it seems to largely be the result of emotional numbing, which isn't pleasant either. Even now though, my mind seems to always mirror the thoughts and feelings of those around me, as if I don't have a self or personality of my own. It's rather odd, but I've read about a number of people with similar experiences.
I've read some interesting things about how in many cases schizoid personality disorder may be the result of highly empathetic children who later withdraw in life because interpersonal contact was a source of significant suffering for them. I seen to exhibit many of the signs of SPD, but I've never been diagnosed. (If you're not familiar with SPD, I'd recommend looking it up. It's likely not what you think it is, and not directly related to schizophrenia.)
Re: Altruism under stress: cortisol negatively predicts charitable giving
#3Having a higher than average amount of empathy seems to be a disadvantage in many ways. It seems in many cases to be correlated with anxiety and depression. It can be difficult for people with high levels of empathy to recognize the boundaries between their own self and the thoughts and feelings of others. As a kid I was highly empathetic, and it's something I've struggled with my entire life. It never really felt li…
Feel the same way as you, and I had to withdrawal as a child and now have mental disorders in the spectrum of schizophrenia. So anecdotally, I imagine that’s correct.
The loss of boundaries thing is very real, I know there are some upsides to it but most days it’s hard to not feel like a curse
Re: Altruism under stress: cortisol negatively predicts charitable giving
#4Regarding empathy, there’s also an argument that it tends to be significantly biased, and that rational compassion is preferable for decision-making: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_Empathy
Re: Altruism under stress: cortisol negatively predicts charitable giving
#5Having a higher than average amount of empathy seems to be a disadvantage in many ways. It seems in many cases to be correlated with anxiety and depression. It can be difficult for people with high levels of empathy to recognize the boundaries between their own self and the thoughts and feelings of others. As a kid I was highly empathetic, and it's something I've struggled with my entire life. It never really felt li…
Yeah, I was stressed out when I accidentally make other people mad. Now I just apologize and move on, if they're having meltdown I just assume they're assholes and move on.
Especially true when driving.
Re: Altruism under stress: cortisol negatively predicts charitable giving
#6Having a higher than average amount of empathy seems to be a disadvantage in many ways. It seems in many cases to be correlated with anxiety and depression. It can be difficult for people with high levels of empathy to recognize the boundaries between their own self and the thoughts and feelings of others. As a kid I was highly empathetic, and it's something I've struggled with my entire life. It never really felt li…
I can empathize with this :), high empathy is almost always a curse and gets taken advantage of. I've also numbed out over the years but its not ideal either. I've been accused of being sociopathic at times simply because empathy is not a knob one can tune and sometimes the only option is off rather than an on, because being empathetic would mean losing boundaries.
Re: Altruism under stress: cortisol negatively predicts charitable giving
#7Having a higher than average amount of empathy seems to be a disadvantage in many ways. It seems in many cases to be correlated with anxiety and depression. It can be difficult for people with high levels of empathy to recognize the boundaries between their own self and the thoughts and feelings of others. As a kid I was highly empathetic, and it's something I've struggled with my entire life. It never really felt li…
Don't numb it, master it and let it lead under control. Empathy is an
incredible virtue, but it must be disciplined.
I don't know enough neuroscience to know what the "right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex" is exactly but I know that you can over-ride/master it with reason and discipline.
So I think there's something more to people allowing their better nature to slip under stress than simple brain chemicals.
A colonel told me, that in the moment of most stress that's when the men need you most of all, and need you to retain dignity, self-sacrifice, and thinking about _them_ more than ever. When everyone is shitting themselves we revert to "I'm alright Jack" self-preservation mode. That's precisely the time when you need to dig deep and let _reason_ take the lead. Compassion/altruism etc is a personality structure, not a fleeting feeling, so it's encoded into your rational decision making.
So a ton of training is about getting you to "snap out of yourself".
The body moves in fast time, but if the mind can still stay in slow, measured mode, that's how the best comes out in some poeple under adversity. Hardballs who have no love for humanity will jump on to the tracks to save a kid from a subway train, because deep down they are actually masters of the empathy they've carefully hidden.
I guess that tension between what you know you should do and what you find yourself instinctively inclined to do - is conscience.
Re: Altruism under stress: cortisol negatively predicts charitable giving
#8The title would be better phrased as a question, because this is a single study with the observation that...
If you have less empathy to start with, the less stress affects how much empathy you have. This is apparently this is a significantly higher delta than expected, because the control group didn't appear to change in any significant way.
Re: Altruism under stress: cortisol negatively predicts charitable giving
#9Having a higher than average amount of empathy seems to be a disadvantage in many ways. It seems in many cases to be correlated with anxiety and depression. It can be difficult for people with high levels of empathy to recognize the boundaries between their own self and the thoughts and feelings of others. As a kid I was highly empathetic, and it's something I've struggled with my entire life. It never really felt li…
I would argue that it's a disadvantage only from the self-centered perspective that modern society encourages us to cultivate. Empathy is an incredibly useful tool for humans that exist as part of a community, but our societies are structured to benefit those who seek to maximally exploit others, our role models are sociopaths, and the cultural narrative is that our only value is either in being them or being useful to them.
Re: Altruism under stress: cortisol negatively predicts charitable giving
#10Psychologist measured that people differ by personality, and can be roughly grouped into 16 categories based on traits. I used to think everyone was more or less the same. I'm not sure if 16 is the correct number. But my understanding of the world has been helped by the concept that there are people that do and act in particular patterns. For example some of the battles on twitter that are going on, are just extensions of these personality clashes.