The types of information we consume have also shifted in recent decades; specifically, Americans have abandoned reading in droves. The number of adults who read literature for pleasure sank below 50 percent for the first time ever in the past 10 years, with the decrease occurring most sharply among college-age adults. And reading may be linked to empathy. In a study published earlier this year psychologist Raymond A. Mar of York University in Toronto and others demonstrated that the number of stories preschoolers read predicts their ability to understand the emotions of others. Mar has also shown that adults who read less fiction report themselves to be less empathic.
Whereas the sources of empathic decline are impossible to pinpoint, the work of Konrath and Twenge demonstrates that the American personality is shifting in an ominous direction. Still, we are not doomed to become a society of self-obsessed loners. Konrath points out that if life choices can drive empathy down, then making different choices could nurture it. “The fact that empathy is declining means that there’s more fluidity to it than previously thought,” she says. “It means that empathy can change. It can go up.”
This article was originally published with the title What, Me Care?.
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Add CommentUnfortunately, as a high school English teacher, none of this is surprising. First of all, that reading fiction makes us more empathetic (that's one of the main reasons many of us decide to teach literature--because we realize the power it has to ignite compassion), but secondly, that levels of empathy are decreasing as narcissism rises.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn the classroom, I increasingly see kids who are completely detached from the rest of the world, largely because they don't read or watch the news and aren't exposed to it at home (I wrote about this here: http://bit.ly/hkMSl0). This detachment seems to spread into their personal relationships, which are fast and frequent through electronic means, but often leave the students' interpersonal skills cold (another topic I broached: http://bit.ly/eMyQVx).
These are certainly generalizations, as I know many empathetic young people, but the trend outlined in your article, as I said, has been witnessed and discussed by educators in the lunch room for the five years I've been in it.
Thanks for reading.
www.fiveseptembers.com
Reading may be linked to empathy, but natural empathy may drive people to read, rather than the other way around. In my own case, when I was in school (long before the Internet), I remember being bored by the stories I was forced to read. For example, Wuthering Heights was full of characters and plots that were basically not my problem. If I had met these people in real life, I would have kept walking.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs an adult, I might now be able to appreciate the book. At the time, however, it was torture. Those who believe that the cure for low empathy is more reading in school should not be surprised when they find their student wishing even more fervently that they were dead.
Perhaps low empathy levels could be improved if people were given the time and space to find each other interesting. I'm saying nothing new, but people are overloaded with fast-paced activities and amusements. People, meanwhile, are represented by that stupid, slow person at the DMV, that classmate who gossips about you, or that teacher that gave you the book report on Wuthering Heights that you haven't yet finished. Obstacles, in other words. If it were somehow necessary for people to depend on the kindness of strangers, they might find reasons to care about them.
Unfortunately, that kind of widespread empathy seems to occur primarily after disasters. Society, when it's operational, tries to optimize it out.
After careful research of 74 news reports, scientific articles, and documentaries, I have concluded that about 1 in every 3 U.S. men is likely a psychopath (as defined by Hare in his PCL-Revised and PCL-Screen Version for non-violent psychopaths).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn 10-15 years, about 3 of every 4 U.S. men will likely be psychopaths.
For details and references, please read my article "The Fall of the U.S.- From "The Land of the Free" to "The Land of the Free-Range Psychopaths"" at:
http://www.selfrepresentedfool.org/id81.html
I used to be very empathetic toward people but then I got listed on a SEX OFFENDER Registry. I have been on the pariah list for over a decade and it has completely killed most empathy that I had for most other people.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne thing that I learned within just a couple of years of being listed is that most Americans (and I'm sure people in general) are bad people. They are only concerned about other people if it is convenient for them or makes them feel good.
SEX OFFENDER Registration and especially, especially all of the tag-along laws that Registration has enabled (e.g. Banishment), are not just worthless, they are much worse. The laws are counterproductive, immoral, anti-factual, negligibly beneficial, often clearly idiotic, often illegal, anti-religious, and un-American. Informed, good Americans do not support these laws.
The "people" who zealously support the Registries are nothing more or less than terrorists. The Registries are why I tell most people to shove it. The Registries are why I am around children all the time. It is the moral response to the immoral harassment campaign supported and promoted by the nanny, criminal governments.
Keltner and Kraus at the University of California San Francisco have published research findings that show class has an impact on empathy. Wealthier individuals were shown to have lower levels of empathy. This makes me think the reason research shows these lower levels of empathy is that wealthier individuals are going to college and universities in larger numbers--and that those who can no longer afford tuition are not going.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisContrast these 2 statements to get a sense of a generational shift-- 'Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country...' with 'Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for yourself...' One statement comes from JFK's inaugural address, the other from Reagan's second inaugural address. This represented a dramatic shift away from a call to help your fellow man, to help accomplish better things for your country towards asking you to think in terms of yourself.
So I would say the shift toward a more conservative nation requires a less empathetic people, and closing opportunities for the less fortunate causes us to become a more hardhearted, less caring-- and realistically speaking an entirely different American people (known previously as being enormously generous).
More's the pity.
Here's a potential contributing factor for social psychologists to ponder: in 1980 the population of the planet was estimated at 4.5 billion personalities. It is now estimated that there are nearly 7 billion.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat's more, during this same period rural populations continued to migrate to cities, further increasing urban population densities. These global trends are also reflected in the U.S., primarily through immigration.
Also, it's worth noting that the personal computer became available in the early 1980s and with the advancement of electronics came video games.
You might want to include such variables as these in your unscientific polls of university student populations, so that even more invalid extrapolations of unfounded conclusions can be extended.
By the way, I suspect a strong correlation of the number of television channels available to young adults' diminishing ability to empathize! Each new release of Microsoft Windows may be producing increasing social isolation! Stop this madness!
I don't buy the reading hypothesis. I have always been an avid reader, but I have never felt as isolated from others as when, after spending the previous night reading a good book, I went to school or work to hear everyone else talking about something that was on the TV the previous night.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBetween cell phones, IM and Facebook, young people nowadays seem, if anything, more connected to each other than they were 30 years ago. Perhaps it is what they see in others that is making them feel less connected to people outside their social group. It certainly seems to me that public discourse by older people has become much more vitriolic and biased than it was when I was young.
"Never trust anyone over 30" was the catchphrase when I was 20. Sadly, it seems far more true now than it was then.
First of all, because a study made in US seems to show less empathy among the individuals studied, that doesn't make it at global fact. In my country, Denmark, at study recently published shows more empathy during the last 9 years, and this study has been done since 1979.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisApart from that, if a study is based on self assessment, there will quite likely be a bias towards what seems to be "just the thing" at a given time.
If it seems positive to say "I'm emphatic", this trait will probably be exaggerated, if it's hip to be narcissistic, this will be exaggerated.
Maybe the study tells more about what is smart, than about how people actually behave.
Remember, far more boys have sex with many different partners than girls, according to US studies!
Since capacity for empathy seems to be inborn, then perhaps empathy has a positive and negative expression. Negative: avoid harming others. Positive: Do good for others. The decline in empathy appears to be of the positive type: less readiness to help, to do good for others. But this does not mean that they are more ready to do harm to others? I think not. Ignoring others does not add up to doing them harm. Perhaps our culture has caught up to one of the hedonistic mantras of the 60s: Do whatever you want as long as you do not harm others.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe are a meritocratic society, not an egalitarian or humanist or religious society. We believe that we get what we deserve when we get good things, we've earned it. So it's easy to conclude, perhaps not very consciously, that people get the bad things that they deserve. You can see this in liberals: intellectualized empathy, but an avoidance of those who need help, except in structured volunteer settings, which reflect so well on our meritocratic high status and bring us in touch mainly with other volunteers, deserving people like ourselves.
Any correlations to the record high rates of volunteering among college students, or to increased majoring and minoring in business?
Population pressure reduces empathy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisInteresting article...in 79-83 I hitchhiked a lot and picked up others to help them to their destination...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNow days I don't even blink an eye when I drive by someone hitching(not many any more)....
Somewhere along the way it just got to dangerous(maybe wrong)...any thoughts....
It could depend on the "safety measures" for infants.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAll the newborn and small infants you see around are "safely" tucked away in a carrier, no child/mother physical contact.
Another teacher here: do you think the liberal feel-goody "You are the center of the universe" movement could have anything to do with it?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs a liberal political activist for over 20 years, I've come to the conclusion that conservatives tend to be less empathetic than liberals. (E.g, liberals tend to support social welfare programs, while conservatives hew more to "every man for himself.") The upswing in conservatism in the U.S. in the last decade, coupled with the increasingly open and vitriolic rhetoric coming from the right-wing after Obama's election, might also help explain the decrease in empathy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis recent event shocked me! A good friend has a daughter who is 8 years of age. She heard me complain about the air freshener her dad has hanging under his rear view mirror. I get bad cluster headaches and vomit , my eyes water, etc... every time I smell these scents. The 2nd time she met me and I was getting into their car she yells out "daddy, daddy, take down the air freshener , because it will give oxyman headaches and make him sick!" . I was floored. And still cannot comprehend a 8 year old girl who btw is at a grade 5 reading / comprehension level was so empathetic and thought of me. Have you seen this or a similar story? I would love to know!!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYoung people less empathic than 30 years ago???
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm from the UK and I don't think it's isolated to the US, however I do feel it is driven by politics and media and not just isolation as the article suggests.
I occasionally sense that empathy and sensitivity is seen as a sign of weakness amongst my generation. Consideration and conscientiousness are both qualities of empathy which are both lacking. In saying that I feel the generation following us in the UK will improve. They have grown up to see the benefits of support from government and know what it is to receive help and they might want to return the gesture, whereas our generation didn’t really benefit from government support.
There is a good series on the human brain on the BBC over here at the moment and pretty much concluded that empathy is taught not inherent it's not really a surprise.
I think the problem stems from what was originally a typically right wing attitude of “Everyone stands on there own two feet”. This attitude seems to not be exclusive to the middle class and has started to rub off on working class as well "no one cares for the poor and you've gotta look after your own".
The only way to fix it is to get people that aren’t empathic to see a better way, which is a hard task. The personality trait of unsympathetic people is that they are unlikely to see error in their ways as there ways serves them just fine. It's a kind of “It works for me so why isn’t everyone else like me?" attitude. It takes an open minded person to realise it's in all of our interests that we look through the looking glass occasionally and realise the consequences of the actions we inflict on other people and not just the consequences that affect ourselves.
Personally I'm not convinced by the quality of the sample for the study. I suspect that the study only sampled a particular strata of society which consisted of affluent middle class students with strong right wing values. This statement isn't intended to be a dig at the middle class and I know that not all middle class people have this attitude, but sadly it is the prevalent attitude amongst upper and middle class sections of society.
If empathy is truly less common in people it must have impact with regards to diplomacy and future relations with other countries. Are we less tolerant as a result of less empathy? Maybe it did target the correct strata to survey as they will eventually become the leaders of our countries in the future. It begs the question do we really want heartless, somewhat selfish leaders ruling us?
This is an interesting article with thought-provoking comments. As a mom, grandmom and former 3rd grade & college teacher, Sunday School leader and children's social worker, I've often worked with youth. At 75, I'm a social justice activist and in my city I've observed more young people who are now involved in protests against war, cruelty, and greed than in 2001. Maybe the times really are a-changing. What I've noted growing in American youth is a fear of sentimentality, which, when you consider the gushiness of Hitler toward animal pets, may be healthy skepticism. The sad part is that many kids can't differentiate between sentimetality and sentiment, which I think is another word for empathy. Their "cool" anomie which began in the 50s, violent music and video games--which trouble me--reinforce this. So do liars on TV/radio.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs for encouraging reading--yes! I built a bookcase in my next-to-Newark multi-ethnic industrial ghetto's 3rd grade classroom and brought in "The Wind in the Willows", "Bambi", ethnic stories, myths and legends, which the pupils could borrow. (No book reports; they read for the joy of it and never lost or damaged a book.) I taught them about metaphors and similes, then they wrote poems and essays every day, plus sci-fi & family adventure multi-page novelettes--which I collected every so often, typed into 20 pages, traced their artwork and "published" via the old smelly hectograph. Rich or poor, dyslexic or fast learner, jock or awkward, they were kids who cared for each other. All but a Mafia mobster's son were easy to love, and he, who came to school black & blue, was easy to empathize with. Creating THEIR OWN literature helped bring out feelings for each other, nature ("the moon is like a boat standing on its nose") & social problems ("Abraham Lincoln lived back when the Passaic River didn't stink"). Creative writing helped them learn about themselves. One class's most popular boy, a fine baseball player, wrote a poem about how he always feared striking out. This 8-year-old admitted trembling and sweating at the plate and concluded, "I might strike out but always try to get a homer. All I can do is my best, just like my teammates, but we all know that we will sometimes strike out." The revealing writing, which I often re-read, still brings tears to my eyes.
Learning how to be creative and express oneself, receiving warm praise and gaining confidence may be more precious than rubies in instilling empathy in young persons! If parents can't, then teachers MUST.
Obviously 30 or 40 years ago was the age of hippies and love power pease was idolized
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thissimilar survey covering adults might show to what extent adults are also affected.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe socialization of the growing infant depends a great deal on the cohesiveness of the family, on the bonds between siblings and parents. The effects of instability and discord can be truly disorienting.
As I recall, hitchhiking definitely peaked by the early 1970s - it used to be a great way to meet new girlfriends and find what was happening. By 1980, Ted Bundy and the ilk had long since discouraged everyone from being friendly with strangers. Flower power and free love were no longer available.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOn an individual basis, however, I think naivete tends to peak at around 20 years of age (I happened to turn 20 in 1970).
The growth of right wing fanaticism in the US is a big indicator of a lack of empathy. The motto of the right is, every man for himself. There is no sense of social responsibility or even simply paying for that which society has provided you. What is driving that movement? I doubt it is the latest tech gadgets. Perhaps it is because as people age they tend to become more conservative. Maybe the change in students reflects a change in the general population. The Bush era seems to have been one of ignorance, selfishness and fear. Maybe the Bush Dark-Age is to blame. It is difficult to empathize if you don't understand, have insatiable needs or fear those around you. It was a very divisive administration that legitimized the worst aspects of humanity. Without substance the, republican party grabbed for the low hanging fruit of common enemies and entitlement rather than trying to come together as a nation or participate in world consensus. I would be interested to see the results of the survey cross referenced with political affiliation. Perhaps the results would be as polarized as the American people.
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Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMaybe people are not less empathetic as they are less inclined to lie to themselves about it.
I think that, as an English teacher, "fiveseptembers" will appreciate this quote from Richard Adams' "Watership Down":
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"'Are you angry, El-ahrairah?' asked Lord Frith.
"'No, my lord,' replied El-ahrairah, 'I am not angry. But I have learned that with creatures one loves, suffering is not the only thing for which one may pity them. A rabbit who does not know when a gift has made him safe is poorer than a slug, even though he may think otherwise himself.'
"'Wisdom is found on the desolate hillside, El-ahrairah, where none comes to feed, and the stony bank where the rabbit scratches a hole in vain.'"
Today's generation of young Americans may be poorer than slugs. That doesn't mean there's something irremediably wrong with them. Remember Flight 93.
Empathy has all but vanished in a large percentage of the world. Reason? 'But know this,that in the last days critical times hard to deal with will be here. For men (and women) will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, self-assuming, haughty, blasphemers,disobedient to parents, unthankful, disloyal, having no natural affection, not open to any agreement, slanderers, without self-control,fierce, without love of goodness, betrayers, headstrong, puffed up with pride, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.'....
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow is that for hitting the nail on the head!
Straight from a prophecy written about 2000 years ago. Clearly describing these times in which we live, eh? Struggle as we may to try to figure out the reasons why people lack empathy, which is 'your pain in my heart'; it is what it is, and will not change until the earth is cleansed of wickedness by the Creator Himself! Soon, as prophesied in detail as well, in that widely known book The Bible.
Thanks for reading. Looking forward to any replies.
The only thing the bible seems to excel at is implanting delusions in its gullible followers. What empathy was there in the Islamic pilots who flew their planes into those buildings or those that carry out endless terrorist attacks against civilians? What empathy was there in the Christian loyalists of George Bush when they supported his desire to invade Iraq without just cause and rain bombs down on the heads of tens of thousands of civilians? The only thing that made the Americans want to leave Iraq was the death of hundreds of Americans rather than deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians. What empathy is there in the hearts of the Jewish settlers building settlements in Palestinian lands? Like many in the US you hang your hat on words while ignoring your actions. Religion has brought the world ignorance and war. The bible is a book of hate, one that claims that a certain people are preferentially selected by god to rule the world, commanded to rape, kill or enslave those who god does not favour. Christ's message supports this old testament venom and is in itself quite vacuous. He offers no solutions just platitudes. You think your bible makes you a good person? The fact is it makes you ignorant. Ignorance of the plight of your fellow man is not empathy. Loving only those that think as you think is not empathy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI taught in a prison for a number of years where students read books and watched films to talk about the characters and themes. One of the curricula developed in prisons (in Canada) showed that reading literature raised the empathy level of individuals. I found this to be true, even in the case of the incarcerated. I certainly found this to be true with creative writing as well--where men would wait and listen respectfully to others read what they had written.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMany of these students had the misfortune of not only coming from poor neighborhoods and families, but of school teachers who were often non-attentive to their needs.
I often heard a student comment that if they had had a teacher like me when they were younger, they would have liked school. As a result of hearing that, I left prisons to teach in the schools. I found the schools to be less attentive to student needs than the prisons were, and I felt the students were falling further behind.
I think the prisons are actually part of the problem--just as other failing institutions are.
We used to believe a man or woman could be rehabilitated--actually, we used to believe we had a responsibility to try and rehabilitate. But no more.
I retired several years ago, after being hounded from education by a tyrannical principal who convinced me that the most Capone-like warden I knew could not begin to match the meanness of the principal. I saw kids expelled from school illegally without compunction, kids who were suffering from disabilities. All this, in pursuit of an illusory API score.
We have begun a sad and mean people, and I am so sad for my country. Fifty years ago, John Kennedy asked what Americans can do for their country, and we believed we owed it to our country and our fellow man or woman to do something for one another. But that seems gone now, replaced by a paucity of spirit that has been fed by a needless greed.
I think the kind of work you did with your students is essential in creating a better country. Thank you for caring about your students so deeply, and helping construct activities that expanded their horizons.
People are so universally able to be empathetic, but empathy needs to be at the core of school curriculum.
In my class, the number one expectation was 'Be Kind'.
It seems that was number one in your class, too.
I have observed the link between empathy and reading fictions in my children; those who read (my two daughters) are more empathic than those who don't (my two sons.) Has gender got anything to do with it?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have discovered earlier that my two daughters were quite good at understanding why some members of our immediate or greater families behaved in certain ways and in developing their own strategies to deal or respond to them. On the other hand, my two sons were more reactive to what happened and without an explanatory model of the person towards whom they were reacting.
I understood then that reading fiction was what made my daughters able to think of how and why others felt or behaved in certain ways.
I think that the ability to have a model of how and why people behave in certain ways is only one step toward being empathic because a model tells of hidden processes of pain, suffering and fear that are not usually seen by a person who does not reflect on what goes on bellow the surface.
Jabr Alnoaimi
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I have observed the link between empathy and reading fictions in my children; those who read (my two daughters) are more empathic than those who don't (my two sons.) Has gender got anything to do with it?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have discovered earlier that my two daughters were quite good at understanding why some members of our immediate or greater families behaved in certain ways and in developing their own strategies to deal or respond to them. On the other hand, my two sons were more reactive to what happened and without an explanatory model of the person towards whom they were reacting.
I understood then that reading fiction was what made my daughters able to think of how and why others felt or behaved in certain ways.
I think that the ability to have a model of how and why people behave in certain ways is only one step toward being empathic because a model tells of hidden processes of pain, suffering and fear that are not usually seen by a person who does not reflect on what goes on bellow the surface.
Jabr Alnoaimi
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Empathy is a case of nurture not nature. This is a no brainer; the lack of the common courtesy and respect for others has become a way of life in the U S of A. The attitude of it's my world to do as I please, and my pleasure is more important than your existence, has become viral. Why have we become so egotistical? I believe it is because of the lack of proper nurturing; the process of socialization begins within the family unit.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisExcellent observation on the empirical distinctions between boys and girls regard both reading fiction and empathy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have no expertise in this area, but in my general experience it seems there are likely brain physiology and/or hormonal/chemical effects involved with producing a statistically significant gender distinction. If this observation is correct, it must be said that there is a 'nature' component to in additional to 'nurture' effects in the ability to empathize with others.
I understand that an inability to empathize with others may have also been clinically demonstrated, to varying degrees, for those with autism spectrum disorders.
While I object to the unscientific sample selection methods commonly used by social psychologists, if there is any trend towards an inability to empathize with others I suspect it is primarily a product of significantly increasing population densities, in the U.S. and worldwide.
I doubt that genuine empathy can be learned in a book or even taught by example -- at least not to school-age children. Empathy is a non-analytical mirror response to the perception of another person's feelings. On the other hand, I think sympathy, the analytical cousin of empathy, can be honed through reading. A broad knowledge about types of people and life situations can make it easier to walk in someone else's shoes. Moreover, the ethical aspects of literature help to inform one's conscience and deeds beyond mere sympathies.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat happened? Why are you registered as a sex offender?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMaybe, it would not be until wealthier people start losing their wealth because of their lack of empathy that they would be forced to become empathetic?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThese trends are probably signs of the times and the circumstances, probably more of the latter (yo soy you y mi circunstacia.) In a historical context,it is hard to believe, for example, that generally speaking, the ordinary citizen in Nazi Germany would be more empathetic than the ordinary citizen today. What the article failed to account for was the social milieu in which the respondents were operating. It might then have been found that the same person might have responded differently living in an isolated town or village, or an ethnically homogeneous group, or even as a member of a group with a very circumscribed agenda or identity. In other words the results of the survey done in a local environment might be at odds with the historical survey as a whole, simply because it is a highly localized result, with highly localized circumstances(circunstancias). My belief is that empathy is indeed inborn,but it can be unlearned permanently, polarized through training or conditioning, or set aside even without the subject realizing it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSEX SEX SEX
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNow that I have your attention, did anybody look at sex differences in reporting empathy? In our culture, boys and men are not supposed to show emotion. We might have these feelings, but we don't wear them on our sleeves and we're not likely to admit them to strangers, e.g. researchers. Then again, it might be advantageous for combat soldiers to be unempathetic, at least as regards the pain of people outside the group. I do not want to feel the pain of another man when I'm running a bayonet through his gut.
It is, I believe a natural consequence of the times, ie the wave motion of our particular civilization. When times are hard, and people are hungry, they know surivial requires more empathy. On the other hand when your stomach is full, indeed half the population are obese and bored out of their wits, what need is there for empathy? If I am not likely to need you tomorrow, why should I care about you and spend my time, energy and resources on you today? When I am hungry and needy, then I may help you and together we may have a better chance.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisKamranBehzad: Empathy is not linked to need or the idea of a future rewards. Empathy is an urge to assist an unrelated individual in trouble. The individual does not have to be human. Its kindness.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWomen generally tend to be more kind then men, however the more children they have the less kind they are. Women also tend to have less empathy for other women.
The more children a woman has the less kind she becomes? Who are you to make such an idiotic statement? I am one of ten children and as such, can tell you with authority that your statement is ridiculous.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEmpathy and other human traits are developed in children by parents who take the time to rear them. Children with parents whose careers take priority--especially from the newborn to school-age stage--would, not surprisingly, be less developed in empathy and other good human traits. It takes a lot of time and energy to rear children, but the return on this investment is more than worth it. To families AND to society.
Scientific Earthling said "Empathy is not linked to need or the idea of a future rewards. Empathy is an urge to assist an unrelated individual in trouble."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPartially true! I am a computer analyst. My hobby is simulating Artificial Life. In one experiment I simulated a population with a mix where some would show [1] pure altruism (help all regardless), some would show [2] reflective altruism (help only those that you have seen helping plus some random help) and finally [3] some who were selfish and never helped.
If category 2 were omitted, category 3 would always wipe out category 1 and fast! But if category 2 were present, through reciprocal altruism (ie as you say helping those whom you don't even know) would allow category 2 population to dominate - not meaning that the other categories become extinct. Search within yourself. You know it to be true.
I am actually focusing on Emapthy as part of my PhD and I am suspicious of the methods used by the researchers mentioned. Firstly the scale used to measure self report empathy has been criticised in recent years for not really measuring empathy but sympathy in allot of its questions. Furthermore, empathy is usually split into affective empathy (gut automatic emotional response to the emotions of others) and cognitive empathy ( aka perspective taking) and if one was really on the decrease amoung the tested US population hen that doesnt mean that the other type is.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAny self report measure is always plagued with issues. people are not very good at judging things like their ability to understanding the emotions of others, most people have trouble understanding their own ability to distinguish emotional states allot of the time. So it may just be that people THINK they empathisise less. Also peoples self report emapthy has been documented to change according to context and the "social idnetity" they person chooses to evoke at any given time (see Dr Cordelia Fine's "delusion of gender" for a really interesting review, but its a book, so according to the article most of you may not actually read it ;))
Finally the book hypothesis also seems odd.
anyway, i am not afraid that we are turning into sociopaths. It will take more than a few less childrens books, violent videogames and 20 years to turn a creature who has survived for thousands of years because of its social sensitivity into heartless antisocials.