Americans seem to be losing their ability to empathize. Emotion researchers generally define empathy as the ability to sense other people's emotions, coupled with the ability to imagine what someone else might be thinking or feeling. You try to imagine yourself in their place in order to understand what they are feeling or experiencing. Empathy is the tangible sense of our interconnectedness.
When I was growing up in the '60s, empathy was fashionable. The term was coined in 1908; then, social scientists and psychologists started integrating the concept into the culture after World War II, basically out of fear. The idea was that we were all going to annihilate each other with nuclear weapons -- or learn to see the world through each other's eyes. Civil rights activists also embraced the idea. During the '60s, an evolved person was an empathetic person, choosing understanding over fear.
Then, about a decade ago, a skepticism about empathy started to creep in, particularly among young people. One of the first people to notice was Sara Konrath, an associate professor and researcher at Indiana University. Since the late 1960s, researchers have surveyed young people on their levels of empathy, testing their agreement with statements such as: "It's not really my problem if others suffer misfortune and need help" or "Before criticizing somebody I try to imagine how it would feel to be in their place."
Konrath collected decades of studies and observed a very clear pattern. Starting around 2000, the line chart starts to go down. More students say it's not their problem to help people in trouble, not their job to see the world from someone else's perspective. By 2009, on all the standard measures, Konrath found, young people on average measure 40 percent less empathetic than my own generation!
It's odd to think of empathy, which is an innate human impulse, as fluctuating up and down in this way. But that's exactly what happened. Young people just started questioning what my elementary school teachers had taught me about the "golden rule" or principle of empathy and reciprocity, the basis of all social morality.
Their feeling was: Why should they empathize with someone else, much less someone they considered an enemy? In fact, cutting someone off from empathy was the positive value, a way to make a stand.
The new rule for empathy seems to be: reserve it, not for your "enemies," but for the people you believe are hurt, or you have decided need it the most. Empathy, but just for your own team. And empathizing with the other team? That's practically a taboo. And it turns out that this brand of selective empathy is a powerful force -- a way to keep reinforcing your own point of view and blocking out any others.
We can't return to my generation's era of progressive empathy, but we can't give up on it either. Empathy is the bedrock of intimacy and close connection. Without it, we are unable to navigate our social worlds or sustain meaningful relationships. The end of empathy is the end of civility.
When I was growing up in the '60s, empathy was fashionable. The term was coined in 1908; then, social scientists and psychologists started integrating the concept into the culture after World War II, basically out of fear. The idea was that we were all going to annihilate each other with nuclear weapons -- or learn to see the world through each other's eyes. Civil rights activists also embraced the idea. During the '60s, an evolved person was an empathetic person, choosing understanding over fear.
Then, about a decade ago, a skepticism about empathy started to creep in, particularly among young people. One of the first people to notice was Sara Konrath, an associate professor and researcher at Indiana University. Since the late 1960s, researchers have surveyed young people on their levels of empathy, testing their agreement with statements such as: "It's not really my problem if others suffer misfortune and need help" or "Before criticizing somebody I try to imagine how it would feel to be in their place."
Konrath collected decades of studies and observed a very clear pattern. Starting around 2000, the line chart starts to go down. More students say it's not their problem to help people in trouble, not their job to see the world from someone else's perspective. By 2009, on all the standard measures, Konrath found, young people on average measure 40 percent less empathetic than my own generation!
It's odd to think of empathy, which is an innate human impulse, as fluctuating up and down in this way. But that's exactly what happened. Young people just started questioning what my elementary school teachers had taught me about the "golden rule" or principle of empathy and reciprocity, the basis of all social morality.
Their feeling was: Why should they empathize with someone else, much less someone they considered an enemy? In fact, cutting someone off from empathy was the positive value, a way to make a stand.
The new rule for empathy seems to be: reserve it, not for your "enemies," but for the people you believe are hurt, or you have decided need it the most. Empathy, but just for your own team. And empathizing with the other team? That's practically a taboo. And it turns out that this brand of selective empathy is a powerful force -- a way to keep reinforcing your own point of view and blocking out any others.
We can't return to my generation's era of progressive empathy, but we can't give up on it either. Empathy is the bedrock of intimacy and close connection. Without it, we are unable to navigate our social worlds or sustain meaningful relationships. The end of empathy is the end of civility.
