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Altruism under stress: cortisol negatively predicts charitable giving

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Re: Altruism under stress: cortisol negatively predicts charitable giving

#71

Post by dQw4w9WgXcQ »

Trasmatta wrote: post #52
SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m deeply sorry that you didn’t have the necessary support network to navigate your empathy when you were young. Now that you’re older, have you had any success in developing navigational skills and regaining your levels of empathy?

Thank you! I've only begun to put the pieces in the last couple of years while trying to figure out why my behavior is the way it is. Haven't made a ton of progress, but knowledge feels like a good first step. Planning to try to find a therapist, but one of the challenges is that many people in this position apparently avoid therapy, because they fear empathizing too much with the therapist, rather than focusing on t…

You're a person to be loved, not a problem to be solved.

Re: Altruism under stress: cortisol negatively predicts charitable giving

#72

Post by ganzuul »

white_dragon88 wrote: post #61
supertofu wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Empathy, also called compassion or karuna in Buddhism, is one of the most sublime mental states that exist. The trick is to learn how to experience compassion without also wounding yourself. This is what Buddhist practice teaches you how to do.

Basically don’t be a schmuck. Common sense should dictate one’s practice well.

People made a religion out of turning others into schmucks with the dual whammy of sorrow and shame. The only correct use of sorrow is to attain stillness when someone uses humor to deflect emotions, but that doesn't keep a priest gainfully employed.

Re: Altruism under stress: cortisol negatively predicts charitable giving

#73

Post by qwertyuiop_ »

Trasmatta wrote: post #2

Having 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…

Thank you for writing this. You helped me realize my own condition which is similar to your and the more I research, the more it lines up with what you have described here. Do you avoid social gatherings and prefer to work remotely ? I love spending time mostly with my family and go out of my way to avoid social contact even with relatives.

Re: Altruism under stress: cortisol negatively predicts charitable giving

#74

Post by Der_Einzige »

catchclose8919 wrote: post #21
mountainriver wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Just FYI "schizoid personality +/- disorder" has absolutely nothing to do with (the spectrum of) schizophrenia, they're about different things on different systems on different axes etc. And yeah, psychologist REALLY suck at naming things! And one of the reason to avoid ever discussing about "schizoid personality" with people who aren't trained psychologists since they're 90% likely to think you're talking about the…

"schizoid" is just another word for "person with avoidant personality disorder"

Re: Altruism under stress: cortisol negatively predicts charitable giving

#75

Post by SpodGaju »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #70
SpodGaju wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vagueness of the Dao De Ching is not in the book, it is in reader. It is not myself that creates the Dao, but I can thank you for creating the Dao! When a superior person hears of the Tao, She diligently puts it into practice. When an average person hears of the Tao, he believes half of it, and doubts the other half. When a foolish person hears of the Tao, he laughs out loud at the very idea. If he didn’t laugh,…

While I can appreciate a well crafted burn as much as the next guy, that was really taking the long way around.

Not a burn, it was effortless empathy. :)

Re: Altruism under stress: cortisol negatively predicts charitable giving

#76

Post by Trasmatta »

Der_Einzige wrote: post #74
catchclose8919 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just FYI "schizoid personality +/- disorder" has absolutely nothing to do with (the spectrum of) schizophrenia, they're about different things on different systems on different axes etc. And yeah, psychologist REALLY suck at naming things! And one of the reason to avoid ever discussing about "schizoid personality" with people who aren't trained psychologists since they're 90% likely to think you're talking about the…

"schizoid" is just another word for "person with avoidant personality disorder"

APD and SPD are not the same thing.

Re: Altruism under stress: cortisol negatively predicts charitable giving

#77

Post by brimble »

cletus wrote: post #16

Quoted post unavailable.

> My experience in Australia is that there are basic standards of decency that can be expected. This is not the case in the US.

This varies, perhaps regionally but definitely from individual to individual. I can assure you that some of us in America grew up learning to be more like how you characterize Australians, and totally bought into that, only to be rudely awakened by the actual reality in much of this country. The shock took me about a decade of adulthood to really start to get over.

Re: Altruism under stress: cortisol negatively predicts charitable giving

#78

Post by supertofu »

white_dragon88 wrote: post #61
supertofu wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Empathy, also called compassion or karuna in Buddhism, is one of the most sublime mental states that exist. The trick is to learn how to experience compassion without also wounding yourself. This is what Buddhist practice teaches you how to do.

Basically don’t be a schmuck. Common sense should dictate one’s practice well.

I don't understand your response. It's very common for empathetic people to feel great suffering. It's not "common sense" knowledge to learn how to maintain deep compassion while preventing the pain from affecting your own being. In fact, most highly empathetic people, like OP, feel burdened by this emotional state because the untrained person experiences compassion as double suffering (the suffering of the object of compassion and the suffering to oneself that comes from untrained empathy). The result is that highly empathetic people try to numb out or attempt to restrict their capacity for empathy.

The early Buddhist texts (the canonical suttas) describe meditations and trainings to develop this skill. The reason the suttas devote so much time to explaining these techniques is because they are NOT common knowledge.

The etymology of compassion means "suffering with". It's baked into the word (in English) the assumption that compassion involves suffering for both parties.

In Buddhism, we learn that compassion doesn't have to create suffering for the holder of compassion. We learn that it's possible to dwell in the state of compassion as a way of moving out of suffering, rather than moving into it.

Re: Altruism under stress: cortisol negatively predicts charitable giving

#79

Post by dwaltrip »

Trasmatta wrote: post #52
SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m deeply sorry that you didn’t have the necessary support network to navigate your empathy when you were young. Now that you’re older, have you had any success in developing navigational skills and regaining your levels of empathy?

Thank you! I've only begun to put the pieces in the last couple of years while trying to figure out why my behavior is the way it is. Haven't made a ton of progress, but knowledge feels like a good first step. Planning to try to find a therapist, but one of the challenges is that many people in this position apparently avoid therapy, because they fear empathizing too much with the therapist, rather than focusing on t…

Congrats on your progress so far :) This stuff is very difficult and it takes a lot of courage to face these things.

I believe high empathy has contributed to some of my difficulties. I've tried therapy a few times before without much luck. Recently I've found a therapist who has helped me immensely. We have a good connection, which is very important. She also uses somatic approaches, with I think is more effective for people who need help working with and processing their emotions. It also seems to be better than standard talk therapy when working with trauma.

Somatic therapy might be helpful for you :) And make sure you feel comfortable and safe with your therapist.

Re: Altruism under stress: cortisol negatively predicts charitable giving

#80

Post by xcyu »

srcreigh wrote: post #27

> To reach this conclusion, researchers asked the participants to make donations before they were asked to undertake a stressful task; they were asked to donate things again after the task was over. While people who were found to have high empathy donated more than the others did before undergoing the stressful task, their charitability declined sharply afterward. Isn’t asking for 2 unexpected donations in short succ…

Depends on if the study tried to control for this by also testing 2 more groups with single donation before/after the stressful task. Can't access the original paper to confirm though.
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