The Roots of Empathy

Empathy, what is empathy?  In Webster's Dictionary it defines empathy as, "intellectual or emotional identification with another."  For my presentation on the chapter titled "The Roots of Empathy", in the book called Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman, we explore the various aspects of empathy.  How empathy unfolds, when we begin to learn it, and the consequences of not learning empathy.  In the book it explains that the rational mind is expressed with words, and emotions are expressed through nonverbal cues.  Goleman states; "One rule of thumb used in communications research is that 90% or more of an emotional message is nonverbal.  And such messages - anxiety in someone's tone of voice, irritation in the quickness of a gesture - are almost always taken in unconsciously" (pp. 97-98).  Responding to a person's nonverbal cues is a part of empathy and how sensitive we are to this can be tacitly learned.

The whole idea of empathy relates to driving because empathy is our ability to emotionally identify with another person.  Without empathy we would be road rebels, constantly causing havoc and chaos on the road.

How Empathy Unfolds

The book explains how empathy begins to unfold, and that signs of empathy can be seen as early as infancy.  From the day we are born, psychologists have noticed that infants react to disturbances around them, as if it were there own distress.  For example, they will cry when they see or hear another infant crying.  At about one year of age infants begin to realize that another's hurt and misery is not their own.  Although infants realize this, they are uncertain of what to do, they want to help relieve the suffering, but do not know how to go about doing it.  This was observed by psychologists when a one-year-old brought his own mother over to comfort another crying infant, also when infants imitate the distressful behavior of another infant.  This imitation of behavior is called motor mimicry.  At around two years of age, this motor mimicry begins to fade and the toddler begins to realize that another person's pain is different from their own.  Another finding that was discovered, which was very important in teaching empathy, was how parents disciplined and treated their child.  They found that children who were more empathic were so because the parents called strong attention to the child's misbehavior, which caused distress to another person, so instead of saying, "that was naughty", they would say, "look how sad you made that person feel".  Because of this, researchers believe that the type of discipline a parent instills in their child is very important

As it states in the book we start learning empathy at a young age, and the learning process continues throughout most of the child's life.  Dr. Driving also states that we begin to learn our aggressive driving behaviors from the time we are driven home from the hospital, we constantly watch and observe the way other people drive, thus learning how to be aggressive drivers. Since each is a learning process which starts from early childhood then can we not say that we must teach our children how to be responsible drivers, or to drive with "empathy", since these children look to us for guidance, than it is us, the adults, that should make sure that we are teaching our children how to be responsible drivers by being responsible drivers ourselves.

The Well-Attuned Child

Attunement is the determining factor in how much empathy a person develops.  Being attuned with a child simply mean being in harmony with him/her, understanding and knowing the child's needs.  It is believed that the small, repeated, and intimate exchanges/moments between child and parent is where emotional life begins.  These moments are the most crucial of times, letting the child know that their own emotions are accepted, reciprocated, and met with empathy, thus strengthening the bond between child and parent, and ultimately teaching the child empathy.  Attunement does occurs tacitly, for instance, it is through attunement that mothers let their babies know that they understand what the infant is feeling at that time.  For example, if the baby smiles or squeals in delight the mother affirms this emotion by responding almost the same way.  These small, minute displays of attunement is what reassures the infant of being emotionally connected and thus teaches the child empathy.

I view attunement as how much love a child receives from either his parents or people who are a big part of his life.  A child needs to feel well-attuned in order to know that he is loved, thus teaching the child empathy within the child.  How is attunement related to driving?  Well, if a child realizes that he is cared and loved for, this emotional message will show later in life as he too will reciprocate what was taught to him.  Therefore, a child who is well-attuned should display less aggression while on the road. The well-attuned person will usually not take offense to another driver's reckless behaviors because he is more likely to think of alternative explanations as to why that driver maybe driving recklessly.  Thus, an action which may have enraged another person will have little effect on a well-attuned person.

But what happens when there is misattunement between the child and parent?  In the book, it explains that misattunement can take a massive emotional toll on a child.  For instance, if a parent fails to show empathy, like cuddling, smiling, showing joyful reactions and even tears, the child will also avoid expressing and perhaps feeling such emotions, this in turn can create lack of empathy within a child.  The book gives examples of babies born to depressed mothers.  These babies were said to 'mirror' their mother's moods, which were feelings of anger and sadness, they were less spontaneous, curious and not as interested in things around them.  Fortunately, the child is not doomed to grow up as an unemotional individual, there is hope in what the book calls reparative relationships.  These relationships occur throughout an individual's life, with his friends and relatives.  These relationships consistently redefines a persons views on relationships.  Therefore, if a child did not get the emotional attunement earlier in life, that misattunement can later be corrected by other relationships throughout his earlier life.

Misattunement can take a toll on a child's emotional growth, when misattunement happens the child feels unloved, uncared for and alone, but what does any of this have to do with the child's driving abilities?  Well, when a child is brought up feeling as if he is unloved, or uncared for then chances are he will retaliate against not only his parents, but also against society.  He will probably lack empathy or respect towards others in society, and if this occurs, chances are this type of behavior will be prominent in his driving.  The lack of empathy causes the individual to disconnect from his feelings towards others, therefore why would he care about the person in the next vehicle, especially if that person accidentally cut him off.  These types of people would probably take unnecessary risks on the road and have little care or concern about not only his own safety but another driver's safety too.

The Neurology of Empathy

The book explains the nurture side of empathy, but is there any evidence that empathy is part of our biological make-up?  Lesie Brothers, a psychiatrist, conducted a study concerning this very issue.  She concluded that there is a biological make-up to empathy.  Brothers study, which was conducted on non human primates, conditioned a group of monkeys to fear a particular tone by shocking them whenever the tone was heard.  The monkey then learned to avoid the shock by pushing a lever whenever they heard the tone.  What Brothers did next was to separate the monkeys into pairs and put each of them into a separate cage.  The only way the monkeys could communicate was through closed circuit television, which allowed them to see each other's face.  Brothers proceeded to expose only one of the monkeys to the feared tone.  The second monkey, who saw the look of terror on the first monkey's face began to push the lever that would have prevented the shock.  This act alone showed empathy.  Now that Brothers reinforced her idea that non human primates can read emotions in their peers faces, she proceeded to insert long, fine-tipped electrodes into these monkey's brains.  These electrodes enabled researchers to record the activity of a single neuron.  What Brothers found was that there were neurons in the visual cortex that fire only in response to specific facial expressions or gestures.  These findings suggest that the brain is designed to respond to certain emotional expressions from the beginning, which suggest that empathy is part of our biological make-up.

Empathy and Ethics: The Roots of Altruism

Goleman now turns our attention to altruism.  It is said that empathy, which is the ability to share another's feelings, and ethics, which is moral standards, are the basic roots for altruism.  Martin Hoffman, a empathy researcher, argues that morality can be found in empathy.  He says, "empathizing with the potential victims - someone in pain, danger, or deprivation, say - and so sharing in their distress that moves people to act to help them" (p. 105).  He goes on to say, "the capacity for empathic affect, for putting oneself in another's place, leads people to follow certain moral principles" (p. 105).  Hoffman says that there is a natural progression in empathy.  Until around age one, an infant will feel distress whenever she sees another infant in distress.  After the first year, the child realizes that they are distinct from others, thus they try and soothe another crying infant.  At around age two, they become aware that their feelings/emotions differ from others, therefore they become more sensitive to cues that reveal other people's true feelings, in other words, they become more empathetic.

The book states that the more empathy you feel for a person, the more likely you are to help another person.  I feel this statement is very true because empathy is the ability to emotionally identify with another person, so if you lack empathy it is almost impossible to "feel" what pain or suffering another person might be going through.  If you can empathize with someone, then chances are you can also express unselfish concern for the welfare of other people.  To be able to display concern for the welfare of other's means you are able to put yourself in that person's shoes, therefore in a driving situation when someone cuts you off, you are able rationalize why that person did what he did.

Life Without Empathy: The Mind of The Molester, The Morals of The Sociopath

Now that we have seen how empathy can affect an individual, what happens to a person who lives with a life without empathy?  Earlier in the book, Goleman had discussed how misattunement can dull empathy, and how the constant emotional neglect and misattunement can eventually cause lack of empathy.  This lack of empathy, or inability to feel distress for another person, allows an individual to tell himself lies, which ultimately encourages their crime.  For example, rapists will tell themselves that, "women really want to be raped"; child molesters will say, "I'm just showing her how much I love her"; and physically abusive parents might tell themselves, "I'm just disciplining the child."  It is these lies, which help the perpetrator justify his/her cruel acts.

  

Questions Asked

Some of the questions that were asked in class, and which seemed to be a popular topic amongst my peers was if psychopaths can be taught empathy, and if it is genetically inherited or nurtured based?  As I have read in the book, researchers have presented two sides to empathy; the nature and the nurture sides.  Although scientists have found some evidence that there maybe some biological roots in empathy, the findings are still inconclusive.  Yes, when we are born,  we are imprinted with a biological code and within this code lies a vast amount of information as to who we are, but can this biological make-up tell us about our emotional capabilities and limitations?  I believe that with the information we have acquired so far, it is impossible to present factual knowledge about our emotional capabilities, whether or not empathy is something genetically programmed within our DNA system.

Because there is little information about the biological side of empathy, we should turn our attention to the other side which is: Can empathy be acquired?  The book presents a lot of evidence that appears to lean towards empathy being acquired through an individual's environment.  It also looks at studies, which were conducted by researchers in a more thorough and efficient way, therefore I would have to conclude that empathy is more learned than inherited.  I suspect that we are all predisposed to some kind of biological make-up where an individual has a greater tendency to go in one direction versus another, but I believe it is your environment that determines what direction and to what extreme that person goes in.  For example, an individual may have a  tendency to become upset while driving in traffic, but how angry that person becomes depends on how he/she was raised and their interactions with their environment.  Therefore, can psychopaths be taught empathy?

In my personal opinion, I would have to say that in some rare cases empathy can be instilled in a rapist or psychopath, more so in a rapist than a psychopath.  I say rare because in most studies that involve psychopaths, there have been very little evidence that suggest an emotional change within the individual.  It is difficult to teach a person empathy and remorse, especially if the person has lived all his life without it.  You see, psychopaths are a breed apart from others.  They are usually characterized as smooth talkers, charming, cool, and suave.  They see people as objects, and are disconnected from their feelings and cannot sympathize with others.  Therefore they always try to mimic the feelings and emotions of other people around them, the only emotions they show or display are that of anger and rage.  Studies have shown that psychopaths are very narrow minded, they are not able to see other options, therefore these people should go through some kind of program which helps build their cognitive skills.  By teaching them cognitive skills it helps them to see other options of achieving their goal.  Can this kind of program teach empathy?  No, I do not think so.  It merely teaches them how to stay out of trouble, it would not teach them how to feel empathy for others.  I believe that after a certain age, if empathy has not been taught in a child, it would be difficult for the child to feel empathy.  Therefore I believe that you can teach a person how to stay out of or minimize the amount of trouble he/she gets in, but it would be very difficult if not impossible to teach an adult empathy.

My Reactions

First of all, I have to say that my presentation was a catastrophe.  My mind went a blank, and  I forgot everything.  I did the best I could do, but I know it was not good enough.  My fellow classmates were very empathic to my situation because some of them gave me words of encouragement after class which made me feel a little better.  During the question and answer period, I felt I did a much better than the presentation itself.  It was a little strange, because I was able to answer my classmates questions by using the information I learned in the book and of knowledge I had obtained in other classes.

Comparison

I feel that Generation 12 did a great job on their oral presentation.  Although both of our generations were reporting on the same book, they had great ideas on how to organize their reports so it wasn't to hard to search through.  As a matter of fact, I ended up formatting my page by incorporating a couple of page designs that I liked.  I got the feeling that we (G13) approached the topics in the same manner as G12, perhaps again, it is because we were reporting on the same book.

 

Suggestions For Future Generations

One of the only suggestion I have for future generations is not to be nervous while giving their oral presentation.  Be clam, and remind yourself that you can do it and it will be a breeze.  One thing I did, which helped me with my second oral presentation, was to repeat out loud everything I wanted to say to my classmates.  This exercise was suggested tome by some of my friends because they knew I had failed the first oral presentation.  Sure enough that exercise helped me get through my second presentation feeling more confident.