Today's Saturday • 13 mins read
— By Dr. Sandip Roy.
Empathy lets us understand another’s struggles from their unique point. But why is empathy important in society and life? And what did Stephen Hawkings say on it?
Do you sometimes wish you had someone to talk to who would listen without interrupting or offering solutions? Have you ever wanted to hug someone who was in distress, even if they didn’t tell you what was wrong?
Feeling heard and understood, and being able to do both, is a human need. Narcissists, because they lack empathy, do not have this quality.
The beauty of empathy lies here: While we yearn to receive it from others, we also feel the urge to give it out to others.
Empathy is our ability to understand and feel another person’s struggles from their unique standpoint (“feel where the shoe pinches on their feet”).
But why is it important to have more empathy in today’s world? Wouldn’t it drain us?
Find out what Stephen Hawking and other scientists said.
Why Is Empathy Important In Society: Stephen Hawking And Four Other Scientists
- Empathy in society is a key part of social intelligence and social groups.
- It allows us to connect with others at a meaningful level and build a humane society.
- Research shows we are more helpful to others (prosocial) when we have greater empathy.
These are 5 incredible insights by five outstanding scientists on empathy to understand why empathy is so important today.
1. Stephen Hawking: “The quality I would most like to magnify is empathy.”
Stephen Hawking (8 Jan 1942 – 14 Mar 2018), one of the most loved cosmologists on Planet Earth, best known for his book A Brief History of Time, was noted for his sense of humor.
One amusing remark he made about being one of the world’s most popular scientists,
“The downside of my celebrity is that I cannot go anywhere in the world without being recognized. It is not enough for me to wear dark sunglasses and a wig. The wheelchair gives me away.”
Hawking strongly believed in love and family. He famously said, “It would not be much of a universe if it wasn’t home to the people you love.”
This is the inspiring story he left us with:
Adaeze Uyanwah, a 24-year-old student, had won a prize to go on a tour of the Science Museum, London, accompanied by Prof. Stephen Hawking. Uyanwah asked the late celebrated physicist which human trait the professor would most like to change.
Hawking answered:
“The human failing I would most like to correct is aggression. It may have had a survival advantage in caveman days, to get more food, territory, or a partner with whom to reproduce, but now it threatens to destroy us all.”
Mark it, Hawking called aggression a human failing.
Hawking said that he felt aggression had outlived its survival value in the modern world, and to get aggressive towards another is to fail miserably in our humanness.
Hawking specifically mentioned that it is this failure that could trigger a nuclear war and destroy the whole of humanity.
Uyanwah remembered asking the professor which human traits he would like to see more often. Hawking said he would like to see more kindness and understanding in this world. He advised us to grow our empathy.
His words:
The quality I would most like to magnify is empathy. It brings us together in a peaceful, loving state.
— Stephen Hawking
Stephen Hawking dedicated much of his life to explaining the existence of black holes. He died in 2018 without being honored with a Nobel Prize.
However, his friend and research colleague Roger Penrose received the 2020 Nobel Physics Prize for proving the formation of black holes in the case of a gravitational collapse of a star.
2. V S Ramachandran: “Mirror Neurons Allow Us To Empathize With Other’s Pain”
Mirror neurons can make us feel more empathy.
That’s what the mirror neurons are doing, allowing me to empathize with your pain.
— V S Ramachandran
One of the world’s most influential neuroscientists, and the director of the Center for Brain and Cognition at the University of California, San Diego, V S Ramachandran, talked of the relationship between empathy and our brain cells — the mirror neurons.
The concept of mirror neurons first came to light in the 1990s.
A group of Italian scientists, led by neuroscientist Giacomo Rizzolatti, discovered that certain brain cells that got active when a monkey performed an activity, also became active when that monkey observed another monkey performing the same action.
They suggested that the monkeys’ brains had mirror neurons that fire when they observe or hear any activity that is identical to their own action.
Later studies found humans have mirror neurons that are much more intuitive, flexible, and evolved than those in the monkeys.
Mirror neurons occur in several areas of the brain—the prefrontal cortex, the posterior parietal lobe, the superior temporal sulcus, and the insula.
A horde of studies on empathy for pain using fMRI revealed the anterior insula and the anterior cingulate cortex were routinely activated, both while experiencing pain and when seeing another person in pain.
Prof. Ramachandran has been a passionate flag-bearer for mirror neurons. His NYT bestseller book — The Tell-Tale Brain — walks us through his argument why mirror neurons might be crucial in helping humans go leaps beyond the apes in developing self-awareness, humor, and complex thinking.
He famously said, “… mirror neurons will do for psychology what DNA did for biology.”
Asked to introduce mirror neurons, he replied,
These are neurons which fire… when I simply watch another person—watch you reach out and do exactly the same action. So, these neurons are performing a virtual reality simulation of your mind, your brain.
Therefore, they’re constructing a theory of your mind—of your intention—which is important for all kinds of social interaction.
Relating these to empathy, he said,
These (mirror) neurons are probably involved in empathy for pain. If I really and truly empathize with your pain, I need to experience it myself. That’s what the mirror neurons are doing, allowing me to empathize with your pain—saying, in effect, that person is experiencing the same agony and excruciating pain as you would if somebody were to poke you with a needle directly. That’s the basis of all empathy.
He also regretted that he might have been the one responsible for the popular misconception that mirror neurons are responsible for everything we humans are today.
And I myself am partly responsible because I made this playful remark, not entirely serious, that mirror neurons will do for psychology what DNA did for biology and open up a whole new field of investigation. Turned out I was right, but it’s overdone—I mean, a lot of people, anything they can’t understand, they say it’s due to mirror neurons.
3. Brené Brown: “Empathy communicates that incredibly healing message, ‘You’re not alone.’”
Brené Brown is a research professor at the University of Houston, where she holds the Huffington Foundation Endowed Chair. Her books include Rising Strong, Daring Greatly, and The Gifts of Imperfection.
She’s fond of saying,
Empathy has no script. There is no right way or wrong way to do it. It’s simply listening, holding space, withholding judgment, emotionally connecting, and communicating that incredibly healing message of ‘You’re not alone.’
According to Dr. Brown, there are four attributes of empathy:
i. Perspective-taking.
Perspective-taking means our willingness and ability to view and feel the world through the eyes of another person, like “walking in their shoes.” It demands that we place our own issues aside and truly listen to what others are dealing with.
ii. Staying non-judgmental.
Dr. Brown feels judging another person’s grief or hardship degrades the experience. We usually do it trying to shield ourselves from the pain they are going through. When we step away from the judge’s chair, we open up to their feelings and do not say things that dismiss their experience or make them feel bad about expressing it.
iii. Recognizing emotions.
Recognizing the emotion involves searching within the self and finding what it’s like to experience what the other person is experiencing. It means we are willing to completely accept, and possibly give a name to, what they are feeling. We can confirm if we have correctly identified their emotion, for example, by asking, “I’m sorry, it seems like you’re feeling sad about that.”
iv. Communicating correctly.
Dr. Brown warns we must control our urge to say we “understand their pain” and offer solutions (or worse, a guilt trip). We rather need to validate their experiences and emotions. To paraphrase Dr. Brown explicitly, “It sounds like you are in a hard place now. Tell me more about it.”
Brené Brown reminds us that empathy is a skill. We can train ourselves to have more empathy, and with frequent practice, get more proficient at empathizing with our fellow humans.
Empathy is important because, according to her, when we give others empathy, we encourage compassion, authenticity, and intimacy to flourish in our relationships.
4. Bruce Perry: “Empathy is what makes us human.”
Are we losing our ability to empathize?
“Empathy is what makes us human,” says brain scientist Dr. Bruce Perry, a trauma expert and co-author (with Oprah Winfrey) of the book What Happened To You.
Human beings are biological creatures with genetic gifts… The only way we survived was by forming relationships, collaborative relationships… Human beings are neurobiologically meant to be connected to others: to live, work, hunt, play, invent, and die in groups.
Our brain is a social organ; we are social animals. We don’t have any natural body armor, camouflage, stinging other things. We form groups. Human beings are ‘meat on feet’ to the natural world.
The only way we survive is by forming collaborative groups, by sharing what we hunted and what we gathered with everybody else in our group.
Bruce Perry outlines the 4 qualities of empathy:
- to be able to see the world as others see it
- to be nonjudgmental
- to understand another’s feelings
- to communicate our understanding of that person’s feelings
The typical American spends 11 hours a day interacting with digital devices, and not with fleshy objects! And I want to talk about the consequences of this for how we end up expressing our ability to be compassionate (or not).
You see it all the time, complaints in the psychological literature about the disconnectedness of multitasking constantly with our phones… but we do it ourselves. It breaks the rhythm of social contact, of empathic engagement — and the truth is: those things are physiologically meaningful.
- Did you know, people with a positive mindset have these 6 traits: MOGRAH: 1. Mindfulness 2. Optimism 3. Gratitude 4. Resilience 5. Acceptance 6. Honesty?
5. Izabela Zych: “Bullies and Victims, Both Score Low on Empathy”
Are the victims of bullying low on empathy? Read that again: bully victims, not bully perpetrators.
Izabela Zych Ph.D. is an Associate Professor in Psychology at the University of Córdoba (Spain). Her major research interest focuses on bullying and cyberbullying (trolling). She holds empathy plays a significant role in bullying.
School bullying is a form of aggression that can harm both in the short-term and long-term.
Bullying involves three parties: the perpetrator, the victim, and the bystander audience.
Zych reminds us that school bullying often has an element of the unwritten “law of silence.”
Students who see or know about the act do not report it to the authorities or their parents out of fear that they could be the next victim.
In both cases, face-to-face bullying, and the “faceless” trolling, the bully chooses its victims as those who can’t defend themselves easily.
Furthermore, there is a strong correlation between the two. Real-world bullies are often cyberbullies, though many trolls are people with normal social behavior.
Zych and her colleagues found (Empathy and Callous–Unemotional Traits in Different Bullying Roles) school bullies scored low on total empathy, which is both cognitive empathy and affective empathy, as compared to non-bullies.
Boys and girls showed no difference in this.
The bullies also scored high on callous-unemotional traits (a childhood version of psychopathy marked by a disregard for others, a lack of empathy, a low sense of guilt, and emotional “coldness”).
A somewhat surprising finding was that victims were low on empathy when compared to non-involved students. The victims also scored high on callous-unemotional traits as compared to non-victims.
Read that again: they found the victims to be more emotionally “cold” than non-victims.
Izabela Zych has co-authored the book Protecting Children Against Bullying and Its Consequences.
The book defines bullying as a public mental health issue and prevention as a deterrent for future antisocial and criminal behavior.
Cyberbullying or trolling is aggressive behavior towards others on the internet using electronic devices. Learn how to handle the trolls most effectively, according to an expert.
Empathy vs. Sympathy
| Aspect | Empathy | Sympathy |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | The ability to understand and share the feelings of another person as if experiencing them oneself. | The ability to express culturally acceptable condolences for another’s plight. |
| Emotional Response | Involves feeling with the person, often leading to a deeper emotional connection and understanding their pain. | Involves feeling for the person, often including pointing out a silver lining, which may not always be helpful. |
| Perspective | Involves feeling with the person, often leading to a deeper emotional connection and understanding of their pain. | Involves recognizing another’s feelings without necessarily sharing them. |
| Action | Often leads to supportive actions that validate the other person’s feelings and express understanding. | It may lead to offering condolences or expressing concern, adhering to social norms. |
| Connection | Fosters a sense of connection and understanding between individuals. | It can create a sense of separation, as it maintains a distance between the sympathizer and the person suffering. |
| Focus | Focuses on the emotional experience of the other person. | Focuses on the situation or misfortune of the other person. |
Final Words
Maya Angelou once said, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
That is the value of empathy, which helps us carry the warmth or the coldness with us long after we forget their word.
When we offer empathy, we play down our urge to give advice or explain our own feelings. As Marshall Rosenberg, author of The Surprising Purpose of Anger, gently advised:
Empathy… calls upon us to empty our mind and listen to others with our whole being.
Finally, some advice:
Empathy is to understand another person’s emotions, but it does not involve taking responsibility for their feelings.
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√ Also Read: The 5 Dangers of Empathy
√ Please share this if you found it helpful.