Empathy is the emotional response of one person to the state of another. It's not just about external manifestations such as support and sympathy. This ability involves deep reflection, which largely affects internal sensations. A similar psychological property begins to develop in a person under the influence of external and internal factors since childhood.
It is difficult to say why empathy is needed. It develops on its own or is artificially trained for some purpose. In children, this trait manifests itself in the form of a response to someone else’s emotion. So, a child can smile at his mother without even knowing what this gesture means, because he simply feels something pleasant and joyful.
Or an adult often cries and laughs when watching a movie or reading a book, as if echoing the main characters. Even animals experience something vaguely similar when they imitate someone else's behavior. This is why parrots repeat words and phrases they hear, and monkeys imitate humans or other animals.
When feeling empathy from an interlocutor or colleague, a person becomes liberated. And we’re not just talking about friendships and love relationships, where openness is the key to sincerity and harmony.
The ability to reflect is also valued in business life. If a manager senses an employee’s mood, he can influence him more effectively. In turn, subordinates find it more pleasant to be under the command of a sensitive leader, which creates conditions for high-quality and fast work.
What promotes the development of empathy?
Everyone has the ability to feel a person from the inside to one degree or another. The only exceptions, perhaps, are some clinical cases of imbalance. Factors influencing the development of empathy include:
- Integrity of the nervous system (activity of mirror neurons).
- Life experience.
- Genetic features.
- Social and everyday environment.
- Personal characteristics (introvert or extrovert, for example).
So, depending on one or another component, reflection is expressed to varying degrees.
Physiological reasons
In the field of science, the sensory characteristics of the body remain not fully understood. There are theories that a large number of mirror neurons and their active work cause pronounced empathy.
Some scientists believe that the reason for the strength of this ability, like some other personality traits, lies in the genetic code. So, if the parents carried the corresponding gene, then there is a high probability that the child will also inherit it. Externally, this property can manifest itself as sensitivity and empathy.
Environment
The environment indirectly participates in the process of socialization, as it creates the conditions for the formation of the individual. There is a stereotype that provincial residents are more responsive and hospitable than urban residents. Perhaps a more closed, isolated lifestyle is one of the reasons for the decrease in empathy.
Excessive communication, especially virtual, also contributes to self-isolation and the formation of a protective barrier. This most invisible layer not only prevents you from feeling someone else’s mood, but also prevents those around you from breaking through it.
Individuality
By acquiring experience (emotional, everyday, intellectual), a person develops new specific traits. It is widely believed that empaths are more common among melancholic and phlegmatic people. However, with the proper lifestyle and active, thoughtful communication, such a feature is easily formed in choleric and sanguine people.
Regardless of the type of temperament, reflection develops or fades for many reasons related to the psyche. Outward indifference, as well as feigned interest, do not always indicate a high level of empathy.
Unrealistic communication, including excessive or insufficient, busyness, indifference, inattention, haste - signs that suppress the development of empathy. If everything is in order with a person’s genetics and psyche, then it is enough to adjust his lifestyle and his attitude towards the world.
Internal balance and attentiveness to others promote reflection. It is important to want to understand what the other person feels, what he wants, fears, and avoids. If you don’t hide your own emotions and don’t push people away, then sooner or later you will be able to come to an understanding.
Where does it come from
To answer the question of where empathy comes from, we need to turn to neurobiology. A group of Italian scientists discovered so-called mirror neurons during experiments on macaque monkeys, which were injected with miniature electrodes into the frontal lobe of the cerebral cortex. In humans, such nerve cells have been found in the frontal and parietal regions thanks to magnetic resonance imaging and electroencephalography. The full picture of the functions of these neurons is still unclear, but it is believed that they are responsible for imitative behavior, so a young individual learns from an experienced one through imitation.
A number of researchers accept the point of view that these cells are also responsible for conscious empathy for the current emotional state of another person. Empathy is the ability to understand the behavior of others, which makes it possible to synchronize your actions with it. The evolutionary background of this phenomenon is that it is easier for individuals with such neurons to survive: it is easier to cooperate with each other, hunt, and rally against the enemy and disasters.
Innate temperament is of great importance. Thus, in a weak type of nervous system, in which inhibition processes predominate, empathy is more pronounced. People with this temperament are sensitive, impressionable and take everything to heart.
Benefits of Highly Developed Empathy in Humans
For a person, a high level of empathy has its advantages. It is difficult to deceive such people. They are good at feeling the intentions of others and can guess them by gestures, facial expressions and intonation.
Empaths are always people with great creative potential. They can succeed in professions that require appropriate qualities. It is easy for them to create something new, model, and think creatively.
The ability to understand people around you ensures high positions and easy career advancement. The ability to find an approach to everyone is an indispensable quality for managers. People who can put themselves in the shoes of others have a unique ability to resolve any conflict situations. They understand both sides and act as an independent arbiter.
Empaths easily establish relationships with other people, find friends, acquaintances and like-minded people. People are drawn to them and want to communicate with them because of their openness and ability to empathize. The ability to understand others allows you to correctly perceive barbs and not get offended just like that.
People with a developed level of empathy never get bored and look at the world with interest. Every day brings them new emotions. There are no boring interlocutors for them. The ability to understand others is first and foremost an understanding of oneself. Empaths have a good understanding of their own inner world.
Introspection
The ability to analyze your own behavior, reactions and actions can help you better understand others. To do this, you can use a diary or simply analyze yourself carefully, without distractions, in a calm environment. Typically, people with highly developed empathy are not only naturally good psychologists who understand people. They know themselves very deeply. This is what allows them to empathize with others, since nothing human can be alien to them.
Why is it bad to be an empath?
In addition to the positive aspects that strong empathy has, it also has negative aspects. These include:
Frequent mood changes.
Since a person takes on the feelings and emotions of even strangers, his condition may worsen when problems begin not in his close circle, but in another country or with a person about whom the newspapers wrote.
Difficulties with self-control.
The experiences of other people's emotions take over a person so much that he periodically loses the ability to control his feelings.
Frequent depression.
This is something that many empaths struggle with. They are immersed in the negative moods of other people and can no longer cope with the mental burden on their own.
Hot temper.
If you are constantly in a state of emotional instability, it is inevitable that it becomes difficult for a person to remain reasonable and cool-headed.
Feeling lonely.
This is due to the fact that there are not many clearly expressed empaths and it is difficult for them to find like-minded people.
Play the role of another person
Empathy can also be developed when a person imagines himself in the place of another. It can be done either in a group or alone. To do this, you need to make a list of all your friends and relatives, and then take turns trying on the role of each one, answering questions.
- What is your name?
- How old are you?
- What are your favorite books?
- When was the last time you were on vacation?
- What do you like best?
- What causes sadness?
- What brings you into a state of delight?
- Under what circumstances do you feel nostalgic?
- What are your fears?
- What and who do you usually place your hopes on?
Types of empathy
Psychologists distinguish 3 main types of empathy depending on how much a person can control this state.
Emotional empathy. It is characterized by spontaneity and suddenness. A person, like a mirror, reflects the emotions of others, even strangers. He takes plane crashes, fires, floods and other situations in which someone suffers hard. It is almost impossible to control such empathy.
Cognitive or rational. In addition to emotions, a person uses his mind and tries to analyze a negative situation. This is very useful for establishing business connections. Such empathy allows you to better understand others and put yourself in their place.
Predicative or intuitive . A person can predict the reaction of others to a particular event. There are no thoughtless actions here, and every step is thought out in advance. This type of empathy is expressed in tactful words and actions.
Tip #2: Look at the person
Stop for a second, let go of any thoughts and try to see who is in front of you. Maintain eye contact. Recognize that your counterpart is an ordinary person with fears, hopes, insecurities, pain and joy. Accept that his life may be much more difficult than you think.
If done sincerely, this practice will produce amazing results. By understanding why another person is worried, happy, or hoping for something, you will stop focusing only on yourself.
Levels of empathy
Depending on how empathy is expressed, it comes in five levels.
Level 1. A person easily feels and perceives the emotions of others, accepting them as his own. This happens on an unconscious level, in addition to one’s own desire.
Level 2. It allows you to more consciously understand the emotions of others, being close to them, communicating, or simply observing from the side.
Level 3. In this case, a person separates his own emotions from others and can purposefully understand what other people feel.
Level 4 . It is not difficult for such people to control their emotions. They perfectly understand the experiences of other people, but may not transfer them to themselves.
Level 5 . Empaths not only know how to clearly control their feelings, but also influence the emotional background of other people.
Features of feeling
Before learning how to develop empathy, it is useful to familiarize yourself with the features of this phenomenon. It is immediately worth noting that a person is not born with empathic abilities. Although this happens, it is extremely rare. Usually, a person masters empathy along with other skills and abilities, in proportion to the life experience gained. Most often, empathy manifests itself as sympathy, empathy, and also attraction to the individual with whom this psycho-emotional connection has arisen.
How to find out your level of empathy?
It is important to know your level of empathy so that you can control it if necessary. One of the most common methods is testing with questions that help understand a person’s possible reaction in different situations.
A 36-point test by the famous Kazan psychologist I.M. Yusupov is often used to determine the level of empathy. It will take no more than 12-15 minutes to complete. It is important to answer as honestly as possible, otherwise the results will not correspond to reality.
“The better we understand ourselves, the better we will understand others”
— How can you develop the ability to empathize?
- Considering what I said about the special difficulties of expressing empathy, I would divide this question into several parts - the attitude towards empathy itself, empathy as feeling, experiencing and expressing empathy.
If a person is concerned about developing his empathic ability, then most likely he has an attitude: he wants to be empathic and considers it important. But even for students who come to study in the area of psychological counseling in which much attention is paid to empathy, we try to show with examples why it is important, how exactly it helps a person, that is, to strengthen this attitude. Empathy motivates us to help others effectively, this has been proven in numerous studies. Personal distress inhibits helping because the person is focused on their condition, but other forms of empathy are often directly related to specific helping actions.
But empathy is important in itself, it is already help. First of all, because a person feels that he is not alone with his misfortune, his feelings are shared. In the end, happiness is when you are understood, as the hero of the film “We'll Live Until Monday” said. Plus, understanding from another can lead me to some kind of breakthrough in self-understanding, in solving my problem. The person who empathizes with me draws on his own experience, which is somewhat similar, but still different, and this gives me the opportunity to look at the situation a little differently.
I’ll give you an example when my friend once helped me a lot with just one phrase. On the same day, several very important things in different areas of my life fell through at once, and by the evening it seemed to me that I was in a deep crisis. Many people sympathized with me, advised me what to do, and this was important and necessary. A friend said, after listening to my complaints, only this: “Yes, for one day it’s definitely too much.” She saw the situation a little differently, from a different angle, and this helped me a lot. I realized that it really is a matter of such a “cumulative effect” that I see some kind of global failure here, but if you look at them individually, then these “crises” are nothing more than difficulties, and they can be calmly overcome gradually.
If we talk about our experience, the feeling of empathy, then an important consideration here will sound a little paradoxical - to develop an understanding of ourselves and our feelings. The better we understand ourselves, the better we will understand others. I repeat - the basis of empathy is our empathy. As my teacher Fyodor Efimovich Vasilyuk said, in empathy we make our experience an “organ of empathy.” For example, psychotherapists usually undergo personal, personal therapy, gaining what is called the experience of self-knowledge. The corresponding section of professional training is present as mandatory in 9/10 of all psychotherapeutic approaches - personal experience must be realized, reflected and as accessible as possible. This needs to be done for many reasons, but it also helps with empathy in a professional situation.
Photo psychologies.ru
The “rules” for expressing empathy are described very well in the book by Yulia Borisovna Gippenreiter “Communicate with a Child. How?". They are suitable for everyone, not just parents
What is the difference between empathy and sympathy?
Both concepts are associated with empathy for other people and a friendly attitude towards them. But there is also a significant difference between them.
Sympathy is a positive assessment of another person, which can evoke pity, a desire to provide support, give advice, and help. At the same time, everyone remains in their place and looks at emotions and experiences from the outside. In this case, there is a search for parallels in states and life situations, but there is no substitution of roles. A person analyzes his own feelings, assuming that they are identical to others.
Empaths are not just bystanders. They pass other people's emotions through themselves and experience the situation together with the other person. It's a feeling of being more involved.
The difference between epmatia and sympathy is explained in interesting and simple language in the video:
Methodology “Similarities and differences”
How to develop empathy in an adult using this technique? As in the previous exercise, this will require the help of a partner. The technique consists of two stages. In the first of them, both partners take turns saying to each other a sentence beginning with the phrase: “You look like me, you have...”. First one person speaks, then the second, and so on. At the same time, everyone strives to adapt to the partner’s manner - to pronounce words with the same timbre of voice, intonation.
In the second stage of execution, which begins approximately 7 minutes after the start of the first, the partners say to each other the phrase: “I am very different from you, I...”.
After completing the technique, partners can discuss what feelings arose during the task; what emotions accompanied the first stage, what - the second.
Empathy and assertiveness - what's the difference?
There are common features between empathy and assertiveness. Both can be developed, and at the core of these qualities is respect for others and for oneself.
At the same time, assertiveness is more directed at oneself than at others. It is expressed in the ability to maintain confidence and independence, remaining part of society and not fencing off from it. This is the ability to be in harmony with other people, but not to be influenced by them.
Empathy, on the contrary, is aimed at others and consists of empathy, sympathy and the transference of other people's emotions to oneself.
“In psychopathy, the ability for involuntary empathy is significantly impaired”
— What about the example of parents? Does it greatly influence the child's behavior?
- Of course, the child always has before his eyes the example of his own parents, who care about him and his feelings. Our study of children (only girls so far) from 19 to 32 months showed that already at this age children are able to express sympathy with a look, gesture, and words, not only to their mother, but also to an unfamiliar adult. Although towards a stranger, of course, it is less detailed. If children of this age somehow effectively, through actions, express their empathy in order to reduce the pain of an adult, to console him (at this age this is still relatively rare), then they are clearly doing what adults usually do towards them. And of course, most children show personal distress (in psychology this means destructive stress): they are worried and frightened by the suffering of an adult. But in the age dynamics it is clearly visible how this distress is gradually overcome and replaced by empathic care and compassion.
We observed one phenomenon that can in some sense be considered a transition point between personal distress as an immediate, involuntary form of empathy, and its prosocial, well-being-oriented forms: at the age of 22-24 months, many children imitate the external manifestations of their mother’s experience: repeat her words or moaning, posture, actions (for example, rubbing the same place that hurts mom, rubbing yourself). That is, they seem to strengthen their empathy, imitating their mother’s state, and “clarify” in this way what is happening to her.
It is clear that this all concerns children with “good enough parents” (this is what they usually say about a normal developmental situation), and in other cases, adults, by their behavior towards the child or the circumstances of life themselves, can practically “turn off” mirror neurons, regularly inhibiting or negatively reinforcing their work. For example, at least the regular “Don’t feel sorry for her, she’s a crybaby.” There is a certain degree of heritability of empathic abilities, dependence on temperamental properties, etc. In psychopathy, the ability for involuntary empathy, etc., is significantly impaired. And quite normal, healthy people have one problem that they most often complain about: “I seem to understand everything, sympathize, “empathize,” but only inside. I don’t know how to express all this to a person.”
Photo gazeta-pedagogov.ru
There is a certain degree of heritability of empathic abilities, dependence on temperamental properties, etc.
What is intercultural empathy
This concept means the ability to understand people who differ in nationality, mentality, age and other parameters. The level of cultural empathy depends on many factors. Some researchers believe that even a person’s gender influences it.
As John Green said, “The only way out is to imagine yourself becoming someone else.” Intercultural empathy helps in socialization and allows you to get used to the changing world around you.
This concept is used in the study of various aspects of society, including negative ones, such as racism.
Exercise "Shelter"
Since it will be very difficult to develop empathy for those people who are too susceptible to the negative experiences of others, this technique can be extremely useful. If a person has not taken care of his own psychological well-being, then it will be difficult for him to understand another. After all, it is not easy to have compassion for others at a time when you yourself are overwhelmed with conflicting experiences. The technique will help those who want to learn to show empathy even in the most difficult situations - for example, when the goal is to learn to sympathize with an unfriendly counterpart.
The exercise is to mentally transport yourself to a “place of complete peace and comfort” (refuge) during times of conflict or misunderstanding. It could be a personal island, a castle somewhere in a parallel universe. The main thing is that you feel completely safe there. This exercise helps to significantly reduce emotional stress.
Tip #3: Imagine your interlocutor is a small child
It may sound strange, but if you imagine that your interlocutor is a small, vulnerable child, it will be easier for you to feel his emotions. If you find it difficult to show empathy for a friend who is in a difficult situation (perhaps you feel that he just needs to “pull himself together”), think about how you would feel if you saw a four-year-old child scared and confused. I blame myself for once telling my frightened friend to “act like a man,” even though I would never say that to a toddler crying in fear. Try to see a small, weak child in a person. This is a great way to awaken your sense of empathy.
