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How Empathy Works · Stuff You Should Know

0:00
Speaker 1: Hey, you may have noticed this past Saturday, you got
0:05
Speaker 1: an extra episode of Stuff you should know. That's why,
0:08
Speaker 1: as case selects. That's right, it was not a mistake.
0:11
Speaker 1: What we decided to do here after nine plus years
0:14
Speaker 1: is um you know. Maybe you don't know that we
0:17
Speaker 1: have nine plus episodes. Uh, so we're gonna start throwing
0:21
Speaker 1: out all I don't want to call it a rerun. Well, no,
0:25
Speaker 1: it's a it's a hand selected curated episode by us. Yeah,
0:30
Speaker 1: a classic if you will that. Joshua, pick one out,
0:33
Speaker 1: I'll pick one out. Might be Newsy, it might just
0:36
Speaker 1: be one of our favorites, and we're gonna run those
0:37
Speaker 1: on Saturday. If you haven't heard it, check it out.
0:40
Speaker 1: If you have, we'd love for you to listen again. Sure,
0:43
Speaker 1: so check it out in your podcast feed. It's as
0:46
Speaker 1: simple as that. Welcome to Stuff you should know from
0:51
Speaker 1: how Stuff works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
1:01
Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck, Lena, my Shoulder,
1:06
Speaker 1: Bryant and Jerry. How about a hug Roland No, actually,
1:12
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, Jerry's here in spirit. Our guest producer today
1:16
Speaker 1: is Noel no my beard heels all Brown yes, everybody
1:22
Speaker 1: knows it's Noel Brown. Are you using your empathy voice? Yeah?
1:26
Speaker 1: Is it working needful? In nobody? Really? That's the b
1:31
Speaker 1: D eyes. Let's say I cut you for ten dollars. Oh,
1:36
Speaker 1: how are you, sir? I'm feeling empathetic good. I'm doing good.
1:42
Speaker 1: I have some very strong opinions on empathy, and not
1:46
Speaker 1: just empathy, but empathy research in particulars. I'm sure you're
1:50
Speaker 1: not at all surprised to hear. I'm not at all
1:52
Speaker 1: surprised to hear. Did you come to the same or
1:55
Speaker 1: similar conclusions as I did? I don't know yet, because
1:58
Speaker 1: we don't talk about this stuff beforehand. That's true, that's
2:01
Speaker 1: how we that's the magic going blind. Did you know
2:07
Speaker 1: that there's like an Atlanta magic thing? Now, what do
2:10
Speaker 1: you mean? Society something something along? I just saw a
2:14
Speaker 1: sign for it, an old fourth Ward. But there's like
2:16
Speaker 1: a seems to be a legitimate magicians with's that castle
2:20
Speaker 1: in l A. Oh, the magic Castle. It's not that,
2:23
Speaker 1: but it's probably something that the people who do the
2:26
Speaker 1: Atlanta thing or I'm sure aware of the magic Castle.
2:29
Speaker 1: Probably And then you did a double ticket to sign
2:31
Speaker 1: and it disappeared in a poop of smile. It would
2:36
Speaker 1: be great. I went to the Magic Castle once, Lucky. Yeah,
2:40
Speaker 1: it's awesome. I think we had this conversation because I
2:43
Speaker 1: asked you if you've seen that documentary about the kids
2:45
Speaker 1: competition at the Magic Castle. Yeah, and I have not,
2:48
Speaker 1: but um, it's a really good choke. Yeah, if you
2:50
Speaker 1: can highly recommend it. If you can get in, you
2:53
Speaker 1: gotta know somebody. You gotta know Ben Stiller. Oh really no,
2:58
Speaker 1: there's a movie that he was in that took place
3:01
Speaker 1: in the Magic Castle and he was like the bad guy.
3:03
Speaker 1: I think I don't remember what it was. Maybe it
3:06
Speaker 1: was that documentary. Well, let's talk empathy, chuck. Wait, hold on,
3:11
Speaker 1: I have an intro. I have an intro. Are you
3:14
Speaker 1: familiar with Frank Rich, the left leaning, well lefty as
3:18
Speaker 1: heck essayist. I don't think so. He Uh, he's good.
3:22
Speaker 1: He's about his He's about as good an essayists as
3:26
Speaker 1: you'll find on the left. Um, he's a consultant on Veep.
3:30
Speaker 1: He just he's hilarious and he knows his stuff right.
3:33
Speaker 1: He usually writes for Harper's but he's also got a
3:36
Speaker 1: regular gig in New York Magazine and in New York magazine. Recently,
3:40
Speaker 1: he published a column I think this week, um, well
3:44
Speaker 1: this week as of when we're recording this, and I
3:47
Speaker 1: think it was called like no Sympathy for the Hillbilly
3:49
Speaker 1: or something like that, and it was basically, this is
3:53
Speaker 1: really astounding coming from him, But it was basically him saying,
3:57
Speaker 1: you know what, Um, I know that on the left
4:01
Speaker 1: people tend to be bleeding heart liberals and want to
4:04
Speaker 1: empathize with everybody and feel everyone else's pain and understand
4:08
Speaker 1: where people are coming from. But I believe that if
4:12
Speaker 1: you voted for Trump and you're angry, or if I
4:15
Speaker 1: believe if you're angry at the people who voted for Trump,
4:17
Speaker 1: are angry that Trump is president, you should be angry
4:20
Speaker 1: at the people who voted him into into office as well.
4:23
Speaker 1: And he basically is beating a drum, which I also
4:27
Speaker 1: started to see in other places as well, where it's like, no,
4:30
Speaker 1: you don't have to understand people who voted for Trump,
4:33
Speaker 1: you don't have to love your enemy. Let's just go
4:35
Speaker 1: to war with these people. And it's it's it's legitimate.
4:38
Speaker 1: He's totally serious too, and it amounts to basically a
4:42
Speaker 1: call to go to the dark side. To resist everything
4:45
Speaker 1: that you know, the left has traditionally prided itself on,
4:49
Speaker 1: and just go full bore like culture war against the right,
4:55
Speaker 1: and um, it just seems like a really bad idea
4:58
Speaker 1: to me. But one of the things that stuck out
5:01
Speaker 1: to me about it the most was that it was
5:03
Speaker 1: so contrary to the um ethos, the prevailing thought of
5:09
Speaker 1: the time, or at least what made up the Obama administration,
5:12
Speaker 1: which was we need to be more empathetic, we need
5:15
Speaker 1: to understand people's plight more. And even after Hillary lost people,
5:18
Speaker 1: one of the big post mortems was Hillary didn't connect
5:21
Speaker 1: with blue collar workers who were out of work. She
5:24
Speaker 1: was totally out of touch with that, she couldn't empathize
5:26
Speaker 1: with them. Well, I think a further post mortem has
5:29
Speaker 1: been like Hillary could empathize with those people all day,
5:31
Speaker 1: but they hated her and they were never going to
5:33
Speaker 1: vote for And now Frank Rich is saying, so hate
5:36
Speaker 1: them back is the thing Again. I disagree with that,
5:40
Speaker 1: but it really points out how what a fragile turning
5:43
Speaker 1: point we're at right now this path in history on America.
5:47
Speaker 1: Are we gonna stay and just keep trying to be
5:49
Speaker 1: empathetic or we again just gonna go full board to
5:53
Speaker 1: the dark side, and and just everybody's gonna hate everybody
5:56
Speaker 1: who's just who's not like them. White an intro, thank
6:01
Speaker 1: you for a coastal elite. Oh, I'm not a coastal elite.
6:06
Speaker 1: I'm just kidding. I just like that phrase. I hope
6:08
Speaker 1: I'm not. Man. I really don't think I am, and
6:11
Speaker 1: I hope people don't think I am. I do stick
6:14
Speaker 1: my pinky in the air when I take SIPs of water,
6:17
Speaker 1: and that water has been strained through a m Franciscan
6:21
Speaker 1: monks mouth. First. I don't think the only water I'll drink.
6:25
Speaker 1: I don't think you can be a coastal elite if
6:27
Speaker 1: you have your roots in Toledo right exactly, you know,
6:31
Speaker 1: And I don't forget where I'm from man, and my family,
6:34
Speaker 1: you know, has long roots and Tennessee and Mississippi. If
6:38
Speaker 1: you know this by reading my Wikipedia page, right, does
6:42
Speaker 1: it say that you're part Choctaw on there yet? I'm
6:44
Speaker 1: sure it will soon, all right, So we're talking empathy here. UM.
6:49
Speaker 1: A lot of this sounded familiar, so much so that
6:51
Speaker 1: I like Quadripple checked that we had not done this. Um,
6:55
Speaker 1: and I think we've just talked about it a lot,
6:57
Speaker 1: and namely and uh in our Mirror Neurons episode. Yeah. Um,
7:03
Speaker 1: and I thought about that one a lot when I
7:05
Speaker 1: was researching this. Well, I think it's definitely a component
7:08
Speaker 1: of empathy, but it's not to be confused with empathy.
7:11
Speaker 1: It's like part of it, I think is the impression
7:13
Speaker 1: I have agreed. So, um, empathy if you look at
7:16
Speaker 1: our not a great article, Uh, they do define it. Um.
7:22
Speaker 1: You know, everyone kind of knows what it is. But
7:24
Speaker 1: just to be clear, it's not sympathy. It's a it's
7:27
Speaker 1: if you can feel and share someone else's emotions. Is empathy,
7:32
Speaker 1: which is different than sympathy, and that uh you're don't
7:37
Speaker 1: You're not feeling it, but you do care about it,
7:40
Speaker 1: right right. It's like, um, you can understand why someone
7:43
Speaker 1: would be feeling like they're feeling. Is intellectual yea, Like
7:47
Speaker 1: sympathies from the brain and empathy is from say, the heart. Yeah,
7:51
Speaker 1: and a lot of these words. When we get into
7:53
Speaker 1: the definitions of empathy and versus compassion, it gets a
7:56
Speaker 1: little Uh, I don't know. Some times I feel like
8:00
Speaker 1: people are kind of splitting hairs with that. To me,
8:04
Speaker 1: chuck is a huge red flag that the field is
8:08
Speaker 1: not nearly as established as people like to think. Like
8:11
Speaker 1: if there's still confusion on basic terms like empathy and
8:14
Speaker 1: sympathy and they're used interchangeably, it just means that no
8:19
Speaker 1: one is doing the right kind of hardcore researcher publishing
8:22
Speaker 1: the right kind of hardcore papers that say this is
8:24
Speaker 1: what it is, or this is what it not, this
8:26
Speaker 1: is what it isn't almost just said this is what
8:29
Speaker 1: it not is, this is what it ain't. No coastal elite.
8:35
Speaker 1: But there was an original German word um einfilung, which
8:39
Speaker 1: means feeling into and that's where empathy comes from. And
8:42
Speaker 1: if you talk to an expert or a researcher um
8:46
Speaker 1: these days, they're gonna talk about a couple of types
8:48
Speaker 1: of empathy, um effective or maybe emotional empathy and cognitive
8:54
Speaker 1: empathy and um the distinction is, as it turns out,
8:59
Speaker 1: is pretty important it and to me, well, to me,
9:03
Speaker 1: this is where a little bit of the splitting hairs
9:06
Speaker 1: comes in, because as far as talking about um effective
9:10
Speaker 1: empathy versus compassion, like is it the same thing? Or
9:14
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, cognitive empathy would be more like compassion because
9:18
Speaker 1: you're not really taking on someone else's pain. So compassion,
9:22
Speaker 1: I think, is even like a third word. This is so,
9:26
Speaker 1: this is what I came up with. You've got cognitive empathy,
9:29
Speaker 1: which is sympathy, right, you can understand why someone would
9:33
Speaker 1: be feeling a certain way. Then then you've got effective empathy,
9:38
Speaker 1: empathy which this one dude calls it okay, which is
9:41
Speaker 1: like you're really putting yourself in that person shoes and
9:44
Speaker 1: you're feeling how they're feeling. Right then, But then compassion,
9:47
Speaker 1: it seems to me, is the end goal of this
9:50
Speaker 1: That's where you actually moved to act. That's where you
9:52
Speaker 1: do something about it. That's where you put your hand
9:56
Speaker 1: on someone's shoulder and say it's gonna be all right,
9:59
Speaker 1: or know, here's a check for five dollars um, get
10:04
Speaker 1: some groceries with it. Who knows what you're gonna do.
10:06
Speaker 1: But I think to me, compassion is the act, like
10:10
Speaker 1: the action, the end goal of empathy, whether it's cognitive
10:14
Speaker 1: or um or effective. And that's that's what I think.
10:17
Speaker 1: And you know what, this field is so unestablished that
10:21
Speaker 1: I can just say that stuff. Yeah, and it's probably right.
10:24
Speaker 1: Let's just say that that's true. No one can really
10:26
Speaker 1: come along and say definitively that you're not right right. Uh,
10:30
Speaker 1: So you know, to put giving you an example of
10:32
Speaker 1: what that might mean effective or emotional empathy. Um, if
10:35
Speaker 1: someone if you have a friend or family member going
10:37
Speaker 1: through a very hard time, uh, and they're distraught, and
10:41
Speaker 1: then you are also distraught just like they are, then
10:44
Speaker 1: that is definitely effective empathy. Whereas you're not just like,
10:48
Speaker 1: oh man, you know your your uncle passed away. I'm
10:51
Speaker 1: really sorry to hear that, and I feel terribly for you.
10:54
Speaker 1: But if if you are you know, actively taking that
10:58
Speaker 1: on to the point where you're crying too, and you
11:01
Speaker 1: didn't know the uncle, because that would be the differentiation rights,
11:06
Speaker 1: like you don't have a personal stake in it, but
11:08
Speaker 1: you're still taking it on as if it is your own. Yes,
11:12
Speaker 1: and then depending on your view of things, And we'll
11:16
Speaker 1: talk a lot about this. There's this really great psychologist
11:19
Speaker 1: named Paul Bloom who has basically dedicated a lot of
11:22
Speaker 1: his life to shooting down ideas of how great empathy is. Yeah,
11:26
Speaker 1: I thought he was. I thought he made a lot
11:28
Speaker 1: of good points, and some quite agree with either. But
11:30
Speaker 1: he's great. He's really good at poking holes in the
11:33
Speaker 1: concept of empathy. But he points out that, um that,
11:38
Speaker 1: I guess it's probably good if somebody's something, someone's in
11:41
Speaker 1: a great mood and you're empathetic and sharing in that
11:44
Speaker 1: great mood and amplifying it. But on the flip side
11:47
Speaker 1: of the coin, if somebody is in a horrifically tragically
11:51
Speaker 1: sad mood and you're sitting there amplifying that by joining
11:55
Speaker 1: in part and parcel with it, then you're you're doing
11:58
Speaker 1: a disservice, right, So in some in some ways, Um, well,
12:03
Speaker 1: I'll just say Paul Bloom's whole basically, his whole thesis
12:08
Speaker 1: and I subscribe to it as well, is that cognitive
12:10
Speaker 1: is far and away the superior of the two types
12:14
Speaker 1: of empathy as far as the ultimate goal, which again
12:17
Speaker 1: to me is compassion. Yes, you want to just pepper
12:20
Speaker 1: in some of his stuff as we go. Does that
12:22
Speaker 1: make sense because here's a great spot too. Uh. And
12:26
Speaker 1: this is one of the studies I imagine. I don't
12:29
Speaker 1: know if you had a problem with it, but I
12:31
Speaker 1: had a problem with a lot of these studies. Um.
12:34
Speaker 1: But there was a study, um at least one where
12:36
Speaker 1: psychologists said, um, how much money will you donate to
12:40
Speaker 1: develop a drug that would save one child's life. Um.
12:43
Speaker 1: And then another group was asked, how much would you
12:46
Speaker 1: donate to develop a drug that would save eight kids?
12:49
Speaker 1: And it was about the same answer. Um. Where things
12:52
Speaker 1: changed was when they asked a third group about the
12:55
Speaker 1: one child. But they showed a picture of the kid
12:57
Speaker 1: and like, you know, I said, this is this little Joe.
13:00
Speaker 1: He's fourteen years old, and this is his sad little face.
13:04
Speaker 1: And then donations really shot up. And this is where, um,
13:08
Speaker 1: what was his name, Paul Bloom, Paul Bloom, a psychologist. Yeah,
13:11
Speaker 1: this is where Paul Bloom says that, um, this emotional
13:15
Speaker 1: empathy is for the birds because A it's it's um,
13:20
Speaker 1: it's narrow, and B it's very like people tend to
13:24
Speaker 1: want to help people that are like them. So it's
13:28
Speaker 1: I mean biases that the right word super biased. Yeah,
13:32
Speaker 1: and and it it makes no sense. Not only does
13:34
Speaker 1: it not scale upward as the number of people affect by, say,
13:38
Speaker 1: like a tragedy increase, it actually goes the other way,
13:41
Speaker 1: where the more people that are affected by something, the
13:44
Speaker 1: less empathetic a person tends to be. Whereas if say
13:48
Speaker 1: it's one person and you know that person's name, and
13:51
Speaker 1: you see that person's picture on the news, and yeah,
13:54
Speaker 1: they look like you or your neighbor, your daughter. You're
13:56
Speaker 1: gonna empathize a lot. But at the same time, there
13:59
Speaker 1: could be you know, the same thing could be happening
14:01
Speaker 1: to fifty other people, and if you'll just vote a
14:04
Speaker 1: certain way you can alleviate their suffering. You wouldn't lift
14:07
Speaker 1: a finger to do it, especially if it meant slightly
14:09
Speaker 1: higher taxes for you. So in that sense, empathy makes
14:13
Speaker 1: no sense whatsoever. Yeah. I mean he even quoted Mother
14:16
Speaker 1: Teresa in his uh in this essay, which is um quote,
14:21
Speaker 1: if I look at the mass, I will never act.
14:23
Speaker 1: If I look at the one, I will, So he's
14:26
Speaker 1: going with the heavy hitters there, you know, when you
14:29
Speaker 1: bring Mother Teresa in there to kind of make a point. Yeah,
14:33
Speaker 1: but you know he makes a good point. Um oh yeah.
14:36
Speaker 1: Like and and that study does. I didn't have a
14:39
Speaker 1: big problem with that study because it does kind of
14:41
Speaker 1: prove that out right. That was Telea Coca and uh
14:44
Speaker 1: Alana Ritov, their psychologists, and then Ritov in another UM
14:49
Speaker 1: co author, conducted another study where UM that kind of
14:53
Speaker 1: pointed out one of the problems with empathy, which was
14:56
Speaker 1: they said, Okay, UM. Two different groups of people heard this,
14:59
Speaker 1: that UM that a vaccine maker cost a child her life,
15:05
Speaker 1: kill the child because of the vaccine. Now, UM, should
15:09
Speaker 1: the vaccine maker be fined? And then one group was
15:12
Speaker 1: told that the fine would probably make the vaccine maker
15:17
Speaker 1: UM follow guidelines even more strictly and would probably prevent accidents,
15:22
Speaker 1: and then the other further accidents, and then the UM.
15:24
Speaker 1: The other group was told that this fine would probably
15:29
Speaker 1: make the vaccine maker get out of the business and
15:32
Speaker 1: more people would die because they couldn't get the vaccine,
15:36
Speaker 1: and both groups said that yes, the vaccine maker should
15:40
Speaker 1: be punished with UM the highest fine possible. Extreme prejudice. Right.
15:44
Speaker 1: So the upshot of all of this is that especially
15:47
Speaker 1: with UM effective empathy as we understand it, we we
15:54
Speaker 1: it doesn't it doesn't follow any kind of rational guidelines,
15:57
Speaker 1: and the basis of rationality being that who is more
16:00
Speaker 1: important than one right and empathy just doesn't go in
16:04
Speaker 1: that direction. Yeah. But UM, Interestingly, UM, while you can
16:09
Speaker 1: train yourself to be more empathetic, it definitely to me
16:13
Speaker 1: feels like something that you were sort of born with
16:16
Speaker 1: to a certain degree, or maybe in the formative years
16:19
Speaker 1: you might gain um but uh In in blooms article,
16:23
Speaker 1: he talks about babies and as as soon as a
16:26
Speaker 1: baby can get up and start getting around, they're gonna
16:29
Speaker 1: try and comfort. Like if you go into a preschool
16:32
Speaker 1: and there's another baby crying, you will probably see another
16:35
Speaker 1: little baby walking over there and patting the little baby
16:38
Speaker 1: and stroking the baby. There's nothing more adorable. It's a
16:41
Speaker 1: pretty adorable um. And you know it happens in the
16:45
Speaker 1: animal kingdom. Um. Although they did note um this, Franz
16:50
Speaker 1: de Wal the pramatologists notes that it kind of follows
16:55
Speaker 1: humans in a way and that um, a chimpanzee might
17:00
Speaker 1: really um like put like hug a victim of an attack,
17:05
Speaker 1: but it's got to be another jimp. Like if they're
17:08
Speaker 1: like they will smash the brains out of another kind
17:11
Speaker 1: of monkey maybe if it wanders into their little village.
17:14
Speaker 1: That to me kind of underscores this whole, this whole thing,
17:17
Speaker 1: like when we when we look at empathy, the first
17:20
Speaker 1: question that people have is like, why don't we have
17:22
Speaker 1: more empathy or why don't we have empathy for everybody?
17:24
Speaker 1: We're all here, And it seems like based on France
17:27
Speaker 1: to Walls studies and um other studies about the the
17:31
Speaker 1: evolution of in group and out group behavior. Like we
17:35
Speaker 1: we evolved over hundreds of thousands, if not millions of years,
17:39
Speaker 1: but I guess more than that if you're if you're
17:41
Speaker 1: also looking at the grade apes right to see other
17:46
Speaker 1: groups that aren't like us as threatening, right, it makes
17:49
Speaker 1: sense in an evolutionary speaking, right, And it's it's only
17:53
Speaker 1: in like the last uh ten eleven thousand years that
17:56
Speaker 1: we settled down and started forming cities. But even then
17:59
Speaker 1: there was in group and out group people. You didn't recognize,
18:01
Speaker 1: we're coming to kill you for your crops, so you
18:03
Speaker 1: needed to fight those people. You didn't need to empathize
18:06
Speaker 1: with them that, oh you're hungry, so you're gonna take
18:08
Speaker 1: my life. I understand, right. That didn't That didn't jibe
18:11
Speaker 1: with natural selection. But then you add jets into the mix,
18:16
Speaker 1: and then TV and then the Internet, and all of
18:18
Speaker 1: a sudden, we're exposed to more in groups and out
18:21
Speaker 1: groups and are expected to get along more civilly than
18:24
Speaker 1: ever before. But our evolution hasn't caught up quite enough, right,
18:28
Speaker 1: So now we're faced at this point where it's like, Okay,
18:30
Speaker 1: we just need to figure out how to empathize more,
18:32
Speaker 1: and this last vestige that's holding back out completely civil
18:36
Speaker 1: global society will fade away. In France, to all put
18:39
Speaker 1: it pretty well, he said, this is the challenge of
18:41
Speaker 1: our time globalization by a tribal species, and that's where
18:45
Speaker 1: we're facing right now. And right now it feels like,
18:48
Speaker 1: at least in the United States, we're backsliding. Yeah. Well,
18:51
Speaker 1: that's a good place to take a break, I think, Yeah,
18:54
Speaker 1: all right, Well, we're gonna come back in just a
18:56
Speaker 1: minute and talk a little bit about something called the
18:59
Speaker 1: racial empathy gap right after this. All right, so I
19:27
Speaker 1: promised some talk about race. And there's something called the
19:31
Speaker 1: racial empathy gap. Um studies of kind of. I mean,
19:36
Speaker 1: if you walk around as a living breath and human
19:38
Speaker 1: human being, you can probably tell that that's something. But
19:41
Speaker 1: they have done studies on it, and um, a lot
19:44
Speaker 1: of these studies are a little hinky to me. But uh,
19:47
Speaker 1: in one they showed video clips of a needle going
19:52
Speaker 1: into someone's skin, uh, notably a white person's skin at first,
19:58
Speaker 1: and what they found was, um, white people reacted more
20:03
Speaker 1: or with more empathy when the needle went into white
20:05
Speaker 1: skin than when it went into dark skin, right, or
20:09
Speaker 1: they had they showed more signs of distress, like they
20:11
Speaker 1: started to sweat a little more, sure, their hearts started
20:14
Speaker 1: to beat a little faster. Yeah, that's where I think
20:16
Speaker 1: mirror neurons might come into play. Um right, Yeah, that's
20:20
Speaker 1: what they're that's brain wiring. That's a huge problem with
20:23
Speaker 1: reading about empathy in the popular media. They're huge jumps
20:27
Speaker 1: from mirror neurons to full on effective empathy with just
20:31
Speaker 1: the switch of a sentence and then or the the
20:35
Speaker 1: stroke of a headline, like and so people are not
20:38
Speaker 1: talking about the same thing. And I'm sure there's plenty
20:40
Speaker 1: of empathy researchers out there that are just like, guys, guys,
20:43
Speaker 1: this is not like you're making huge jumps at the conclusion.
20:46
Speaker 1: Everybody's like, shut up, doesn't matter, we're selling clicks, you know.
20:51
Speaker 1: But so, yes, that's so. It is surely setting off
20:54
Speaker 1: mirror neurons. I don't understand how it's being translated into empathy.
20:59
Speaker 1: A side from I think a lot of the empathy
21:02
Speaker 1: studies involves self reporting. So I think what they're doing
21:06
Speaker 1: is they're saying, oh well, uh subject twenty nine, Um,
21:13
Speaker 1: their heart really started beating and look at this on
21:15
Speaker 1: this questionnaire they filled out, they really consider themselves an
21:19
Speaker 1: empathetic person. Ipso fact though an empathetic person is responding
21:24
Speaker 1: very empathetically right now to seeing this needle. Yeah, Like
21:28
Speaker 1: what if they showed painted someone's skin green, Well they have,
21:32
Speaker 1: they've done violet tinted and actually can tell you the
21:34
Speaker 1: truth as far as correlating with self reports. Um, that
21:38
Speaker 1: that does tend to be a pretty good, um control
21:42
Speaker 1: to tell you the truth because apparently all people respond
21:46
Speaker 1: to that one. Huh didn't that interesting? Um, there is
21:52
Speaker 1: something going on there though, I mean, we're not like
21:54
Speaker 1: discounting that because they have done studies that show that minorities, um,
21:59
Speaker 1: maybe don't get pain medication like they should compared to
22:02
Speaker 1: white people. Uh, And I don't know. It seems like
22:05
Speaker 1: a racial empathy gap is a pretty decent explanation for
22:08
Speaker 1: that for sure, or in the criminal justice system, which
22:11
Speaker 1: we've talked a lot about, or maybe just in empathy
22:16
Speaker 1: altogether between races. So if you're if you're a judge though,
22:22
Speaker 1: and you're you're not following sentencing guidelines, you're just using
22:27
Speaker 1: your own personal biases to hand out sentences, and you
22:30
Speaker 1: have people's lives and futures in your hands. Yeah, you're
22:33
Speaker 1: not following the law, You're following your own bias. You're
22:35
Speaker 1: a piece of garbage. Well, I nothing to do with
22:37
Speaker 1: you being an empathetic person or not. What about that
22:40
Speaker 1: judge who U remember the guy the swimmer who raped
22:44
Speaker 1: the girl by the dumpster. It was obvious that judge
22:47
Speaker 1: was kind of like, oh, look at this kid, like, oh,
22:49
Speaker 1: I don't want to ruin his future. I don't want
22:51
Speaker 1: to ruin his future, Like that could have been my son,
22:53
Speaker 1: you know, it's kind of like me. It was clearly
22:57
Speaker 1: bias and empathy going on because he was like him.
23:01
Speaker 1: And there's no way if that would have been some
23:04
Speaker 1: black kid that he wouldn't have ruled differently. I just
23:06
Speaker 1: there's no no one can convince me that that that's
23:09
Speaker 1: not the truth, right, And I think that there's like
23:11
Speaker 1: there's another distinction that's eventually going to be hammered out
23:14
Speaker 1: to Like I don't think he was empathizing with that
23:18
Speaker 1: swimmer kid. If he was, I could be wrong, who knows,
23:22
Speaker 1: but I think he was um at the very least
23:24
Speaker 1: exhibiting a bias that yes he was, he let the
23:27
Speaker 1: kid off off the hook Um because he looked like him.
23:31
Speaker 1: I think he might have been sympathizing with him though,
23:33
Speaker 1: because even flat outsaid like this could ruin his life. Yeah,
23:37
Speaker 1: he was definitely sympathizing at least for sure. Boy uh
23:40
Speaker 1: so um. Going back a bit to uh philosopher Adam
23:45
Speaker 1: Smith way back in the day, I think was clearly
23:48
Speaker 1: talking about mirror neurons, even though he didn't know that
23:50
Speaker 1: was the thing at the time when he wrote that, um,
23:53
Speaker 1: persons of delicate fibers who notice a beggar's sores and
23:57
Speaker 1: ulcers are apt to feel an itching or an easy sensation,
24:00
Speaker 1: and the correspondent part of their own bodies. I mean,
24:03
Speaker 1: that's absolutely mirror neurons firing off. And we've been saying
24:07
Speaker 1: that a lot. If you don't know what we're talking about,
24:08
Speaker 1: listen to uh great, feel someone else's pain? Yeah, can
24:12
Speaker 1: you feel someone else pain? It was from a few
24:13
Speaker 1: years ago, but it was one of my favorites we've
24:15
Speaker 1: ever done, just because it's so fascinating. It really is.
24:18
Speaker 1: But the brain is wired like that, and it's it's
24:21
Speaker 1: the reason why and this is the you know, the
24:25
Speaker 1: easiest way to explain it. Like if you see like
24:27
Speaker 1: in a football game, someone's leg gets broken and you
24:29
Speaker 1: literally feel like pain shoot through your body. That's those
24:33
Speaker 1: are mirror neurons. Did you see There's a Simpsons recently
24:36
Speaker 1: where Kirk van Houghton is back in college and he
24:39
Speaker 1: goes to like high five. He's like a lacrosse player.
24:42
Speaker 1: He goes to high five the college mascot, which is
24:44
Speaker 1: like a guy in a suit of armor, and he
24:46
Speaker 1: breaks his wrist in like fifty places and they show
24:50
Speaker 1: they cut to the sideline and Joe thisman takes his
24:52
Speaker 1: head off and throws up into man. I remember that
24:56
Speaker 1: sisman thing. I think we talked about that in the episode. Yeah,
24:59
Speaker 1: I still I don't think I still have ever seen it.
25:01
Speaker 1: You don't need to. I think I do, though, Like,
25:04
Speaker 1: how can I be walking and talking through life and
25:06
Speaker 1: not haven't seen Joe Theisman break his leg. Well, it's
25:09
Speaker 1: one of those things when you see a body get
25:11
Speaker 1: bent in a very unnatural like direction. It's just, Yeah,
25:16
Speaker 1: your your brain is hardwired to not accept that. I
25:19
Speaker 1: know it makes you faint because your brain is like,
25:22
Speaker 1: I can't see anymore. Speaking of the brain, Chuck Um,
25:25
Speaker 1: let's talk a little bit about the brain, right, So, UM.
25:28
Speaker 1: One of the we've already kind of touched on one
25:30
Speaker 1: of the issues that I think we both have with
25:33
Speaker 1: UM empathy research is that the does the designs of
25:38
Speaker 1: the studies are just so shoddy it's mind boggling. But
25:41
Speaker 1: then the other part of it, it's like, well, just
25:43
Speaker 1: leave it to neuroscience. But neuroscience is still using the
25:46
Speaker 1: same old m R S that it was before. And again,
25:50
Speaker 1: all it's showing is that's where more oxygen is in
25:53
Speaker 1: the part of the brain, right, then, so we're gonna
25:56
Speaker 1: correlate that to that part of the brain being lit up.
25:58
Speaker 1: So that means that this part of brain has to
26:00
Speaker 1: do with UM. Looking at pictures of boops, this is
26:03
Speaker 1: the boom region, right, And this is like the level
26:06
Speaker 1: that that neurology is is ad as far as behavioral
26:09
Speaker 1: studies goes. Right, you put these two together, this is
26:12
Speaker 1: the state of the art with with empathy research, but
26:15
Speaker 1: with the brain as far as that goes. They have
26:18
Speaker 1: kind of isolated a few different parts. And again this
26:21
Speaker 1: is kind of like we think that this has to
26:24
Speaker 1: do with this process just because in trial after trial,
26:28
Speaker 1: the same circuit has been followed or the same region
26:30
Speaker 1: has lit up when we've applied this stimulus to different people. UM,
26:35
Speaker 1: so there's a there's there's good evidence that this this
26:39
Speaker 1: does have to do with say empathizing or whatever, but
26:42
Speaker 1: it's still it's just a very it's a rudimentary understanding
26:46
Speaker 1: at this point, I think, compared to say, like fifty
26:48
Speaker 1: years from now. Right. So what what they've what they
26:52
Speaker 1: think they figured out is that there's a UM part
26:55
Speaker 1: of the brain and I love parts of the brain.
26:59
Speaker 1: The effect active effective empathy part of the brain is
27:02
Speaker 1: called the insular cortex. That's where they think that the
27:05
Speaker 1: effective region are part of the effective region lies the
27:09
Speaker 1: anterior insular cortex, and then the cognitive empathy UH is
27:14
Speaker 1: thought to reside or originate in the mid singulate cortex.
27:18
Speaker 1: And actually those came from a Monash University research UM
27:23
Speaker 1: paper that's that looked at the concentration of gray matter,
27:29
Speaker 1: the density of gray matter, and that's like the neurons,
27:31
Speaker 1: whereas white matters like the connecting material. Right. UM. And
27:35
Speaker 1: so they're saying people who have UM, really effective empathy
27:41
Speaker 1: have denser insular cortexes cortices, and then people who have
27:46
Speaker 1: really serious cognitive empathy have dense midsingulate cortices. That's where
27:54
Speaker 1: it's at right now. Yeah, they did a pretty interesting
27:56
Speaker 1: test um this uh Tanya Tania singer and this dude
28:04
Speaker 1: name Mattheo Ricard He's a Buddhist monk. And I get
28:08
Speaker 1: the idea that they picked this guy because he can
28:12
Speaker 1: very much control his brains and emotion. So what they
28:17
Speaker 1: did was, he's a Buddhist monk. They did some F
28:19
Speaker 1: M R I brain scanning on this guy and they said,
28:23
Speaker 1: all right, sir Mr Ricard. Um, he's like, please call
28:27
Speaker 1: me mete you. We would like you to engage in
28:31
Speaker 1: some different types of compassion and h meditate and direct
28:35
Speaker 1: that meditation towards people who are suffering. And then they
28:39
Speaker 1: hooked him up to the to the brain scan magic
28:41
Speaker 1: machine and they found that the meditative states UM. It
28:46
Speaker 1: was actually surprising to them. It did not activate parts
28:48
Speaker 1: of the brain that are usually activated by non meditators
28:53
Speaker 1: when they think about pain. But he said, you know
28:56
Speaker 1: it was it was good for me. Basically it was
28:58
Speaker 1: a warm, positive state. And he said, all right, now
29:02
Speaker 1: put yourself in this what you know they would call
29:04
Speaker 1: the emotional empathetic state. UM. And I guess he's able
29:09
Speaker 1: to turn that on like a switch, right this, Yeah, exactly,
29:14
Speaker 1: and blood just comes out of his nose. Yeah, in
29:16
Speaker 1: different parts of the brain lit up. And he said
29:20
Speaker 1: this empathetic sharing very quickly became intolerable to me. I
29:24
Speaker 1: felt emotionally exhausted, very similar to being burnt out. So
29:28
Speaker 1: that's one of the big arguments against this emotional or
29:32
Speaker 1: effective empathy is that you can't take on everyone else's
29:37
Speaker 1: pain like this. Let's say you're a social worker or
29:39
Speaker 1: you're a nurse or a doctor, like it's gonna drive
29:43
Speaker 1: you insane. Oh yeah, well you'll you'll burn out. It's
29:47
Speaker 1: called empathy distress. Yeah. And when they've talked to patients
29:51
Speaker 1: like hospital patients, they don't want that either. They won't
29:54
Speaker 1: They want maybe someone who has some sympathy. But patients
29:58
Speaker 1: are more likely to feel better. I was just imagining
30:02
Speaker 1: a doctor coming in and just falling to pieces at
30:05
Speaker 1: your your condition. Doctors are coming yeah, well you don't Yeah,
30:09
Speaker 1: like you said, you don't want a doctor like, No,
30:11
Speaker 1: they feel better if their doctor is kind of clinical
30:15
Speaker 1: and reassuring and really seems like they have it together,
30:18
Speaker 1: which makes sense. Yeah, and you don't want somebody who's like, frankly,
30:21
Speaker 1: I could care less whether you live or die. I
30:24
Speaker 1: want somewhere in between those two, which which is where,
30:28
Speaker 1: oh my god, you're gonna die? Like you don't want
30:30
Speaker 1: that out of your doctor. No, But it seems like
30:33
Speaker 1: the middle of that, those two specs, that those two
30:36
Speaker 1: ends of the spectrum is where cognitive empathy comes in. Yeah, well, Chuck,
30:40
Speaker 1: how about we take a break here, second break, That
30:43
Speaker 1: sounds good, and we'll come back, we promise. All right, man,
31:13
Speaker 1: what do you wanna talk about Sasha Baron Cohen? I
31:16
Speaker 1: still have never actually looked up whether that's his brother
31:20
Speaker 1: or cousin or what. Yeah. Psychologist Simon Baron Cohen wrote
31:25
Speaker 1: a book in two thousand eleven called The Science of Evil,
31:27
Speaker 1: and he's he's way down with empathy. Yeah, And I
31:33
Speaker 1: guess that they describe him as a thoughtful defender is
31:35
Speaker 1: what Bloom describes him as of empathy. Um. And he
31:40
Speaker 1: has a ranking system, an empathy curve from zero to
31:43
Speaker 1: six and zero is no empathy basically or sociopath and
31:48
Speaker 1: six is you, I guess, the most hardcore of uh
31:53
Speaker 1: emotional impaths. Yeah, you're in. You call it a constant
31:59
Speaker 1: state of hype arousal. And he had this one woman
32:02
Speaker 1: that he used in his little example named Hannah, who
32:05
Speaker 1: was a therapist. It's probably a great job for her,
32:09
Speaker 1: but she's just one of these people that, uh, by
32:13
Speaker 1: all accounts, is just wired that way, like her friends
32:16
Speaker 1: and her family and her patients, like she just really
32:20
Speaker 1: feels for them all, Like it's not just her job,
32:25
Speaker 1: which is in in some ways that it probably helps
32:29
Speaker 1: some people, but in other ways it's really probably number
32:32
Speaker 1: one off putting and even if everybody liked it, it's
32:36
Speaker 1: bad for her in the end. Like you you're we're
32:39
Speaker 1: not We're not designed to carry everybody's problems and issues
32:43
Speaker 1: with us all the time. Yeah, And that's kind of
32:45
Speaker 1: the main point Bloom is making, is that people like
32:48
Speaker 1: Hannah are headed for headed toward burnout, she said it
32:51
Speaker 1: for And he also does make the point that friends
32:55
Speaker 1: and family don't like they need a certain amount of
32:58
Speaker 1: that empathy. But you don't want one that's always like
33:02
Speaker 1: in that state, Like you also want someone that's like,
33:05
Speaker 1: all right, let's turn that frown upside down and let's
33:08
Speaker 1: go out and take a walk, you know, Like you
33:10
Speaker 1: don't want someone that's always cries when you cry. You know, right,
33:13
Speaker 1: you're just gonna be like I thought, had a bad
33:18
Speaker 1: but and and you can extend that also to um,
33:21
Speaker 1: the way that people react in some ways, to say
33:24
Speaker 1: like a mass tragedy or something like that, like look
33:27
Speaker 1: a look at new Town, right the Sandy Hook shooting.
33:30
Speaker 1: Twenty small kids were killed. Six adults were also killed
33:34
Speaker 1: at the elementary school. It was the most horrific tragedy
33:38
Speaker 1: I think that ever took place in the United States.
33:40
Speaker 1: It was basically the one that everyone who believes in
33:44
Speaker 1: very strict gun control was waiting for. Was New New
33:47
Speaker 1: was gonna happen sooner or later, and thought, this is
33:50
Speaker 1: gonna be the tipping point. And it didn't happen. Right.
33:53
Speaker 1: What people reacted to with was outpourings of donations, lots
33:59
Speaker 1: of stuffed animal moles apparently there were three for every
34:02
Speaker 1: resident of the town were sent. Um yeah, and UM,
34:07
Speaker 1: lots of thoughts and prayers. And if you ever have
34:10
Speaker 1: seen um, you know Anthony Geselnick, he he yeah, he
34:15
Speaker 1: has a Netflix special I think it's still on called
34:17
Speaker 1: Thoughts and Prayers, and you watch that and he explains
34:20
Speaker 1: to you just how valuable your thoughts and prayers are,
34:22
Speaker 1: especially on Twitter UM. But Paul Bloom points out, is
34:27
Speaker 1: like this actually proved to be this outpouring proved to
34:31
Speaker 1: be an additional burden on this town which is already
34:34
Speaker 1: suffering tremendously. But like they had to UM. There was
34:37
Speaker 1: something like eight volunteers who were tasked with handling all
34:40
Speaker 1: the donations UM, whether it was stuffed animals or money,
34:44
Speaker 1: and they apparently had to get a warehouse to put
34:47
Speaker 1: all the stuffed animals in. And I think even some
34:50
Speaker 1: of the public officials were like, please stop sending us stuff.
34:53
Speaker 1: Send stuff, but send it to other people. We've got
34:55
Speaker 1: everything we made, send it to other people. And everyone said, no,
34:58
Speaker 1: shut up, this is about us, not you. And I
35:01
Speaker 1: think that that's part of UM effective empathy, that outpouring
35:06
Speaker 1: of stuff that seems like a nice gesture that makes
35:09
Speaker 1: you feel better but doesn't actually help in any real
35:12
Speaker 1: substantial way. I think that kind of underlies or betrays
35:17
Speaker 1: what UM, what effective empathy is all about, and why
35:21
Speaker 1: why we are moved to do something with effective empathy
35:24
Speaker 1: Because we're feeling something right then, and writing a check
35:27
Speaker 1: or sending a teddy bear is a good way to
35:30
Speaker 1: to feel better. For us to feel better whereas cognitive
35:35
Speaker 1: empathy would be like, um, I'm going to see to
35:40
Speaker 1: it that every senator who blocked the gun control bill
35:44
Speaker 1: following new Town is voted right out of office. That
35:48
Speaker 1: would be cognitive empathy. You're empathizing with the parents, you're
35:52
Speaker 1: empathizing with future kids who haven't been killed yet, and
35:55
Speaker 1: you're gonna do what you can to make sure it
35:57
Speaker 1: doesn't happen, rather than writing a check um or sending
36:01
Speaker 1: a teddy bear. Those to me are the real distinctions
36:04
Speaker 1: between cognitive and effective empathy as far as that ultimate
36:09
Speaker 1: goal is concerned, which is again compassion, but compassion is
36:13
Speaker 1: doing what you can to improve the outcome for the
36:16
Speaker 1: greater good. Yeah. Yeah, that's interesting. And I Another thing
36:21
Speaker 1: that UM kind of jumped out to me was these
36:24
Speaker 1: psychologists Vicky Helgesen and Heidi Fritz. They were researching why
36:30
Speaker 1: women are more likely I think twice as likely as
36:33
Speaker 1: men to get depressed and experienced depression. And they thought,
36:37
Speaker 1: you know, they said, you know what, I think it's
36:39
Speaker 1: because women are more empathetic and and you know, emotionally empathetic.
36:42
Speaker 1: And they take this on and uh, they said that
36:45
Speaker 1: there's a propensity for what they called unmitigated communion, which
36:48
Speaker 1: is a quote an excessive concern with others and placing
36:51
Speaker 1: others needs before one's own end quote. And they you know,
36:55
Speaker 1: gave people And this is one of those like a
36:58
Speaker 1: nine item questionnaire. How much can you really learn? Um?
37:01
Speaker 1: But uh, some of the statements agree to disagree with.
37:03
Speaker 1: We're like for me to be happy, I need others
37:05
Speaker 1: to be happy. I can't say no when someone has
37:07
Speaker 1: for help. Often worry about others problems and kind of
37:11
Speaker 1: across the board, women score higher than men do on
37:14
Speaker 1: this and um, you know, I think a lot of
37:18
Speaker 1: that probably has to do with with evolution to with
37:21
Speaker 1: you know, women having to care for their babies right
37:24
Speaker 1: out of the gate. Which took took his wife. You
37:27
Speaker 1: know although it took took we know never took a wife.
37:30
Speaker 1: Um took took kind of a round. He got around.
37:33
Speaker 1: But the women that took took would would knock up.
37:37
Speaker 1: They would immediately be in charge of those babies. And
37:40
Speaker 1: that's what um that primatologists talked about two was you know,
37:44
Speaker 1: this is kind of straight up evolution. Our natural selection
37:47
Speaker 1: is right out of the gate. We have this empathy
37:49
Speaker 1: because we have to care for young and then um,
37:53
Speaker 1: I think we already mentioned too, and then that definitely
37:56
Speaker 1: evolves into protect the tribe, right, because we're better off
38:02
Speaker 1: if the people around us are healthy and happy and
38:04
Speaker 1: ready to ward off attacks. Um. But the idea that
38:09
Speaker 1: women are more prone to experience, say, effective empathy, or
38:15
Speaker 1: just even empathy in general, it's actually got a has
38:18
Speaker 1: a biological basis. To tell you the truth to chuck
38:22
Speaker 1: um in in adolescence or puberty, apparently girls have they
38:27
Speaker 1: score high for effective empathy throughout their entire adolescence, where
38:32
Speaker 1: between about ages thirteen and sixteen, boys effective empathy declined. Yeah,
38:39
Speaker 1: and they say, oh, oh you feel bad, You're about
38:43
Speaker 1: to feel worse because I'm gonna give you a swirly. Yeah.
38:45
Speaker 1: I don't know what it is, but it's a it's
38:48
Speaker 1: where you stick someone's head in the toilet and flush swirling.
38:52
Speaker 1: Never heard of that, fortunately, I had only heard of it,
38:56
Speaker 1: never witnessed it or had it done to me. We
38:58
Speaker 1: did noggies and uh, was it wedgie's when you did
39:02
Speaker 1: the underwear. Yeah. Yeah, they're terrible. They are terrible, and
39:08
Speaker 1: that's bullying behavior. And there are some theories about bullies too,
39:13
Speaker 1: that they actually use empathy to manipulate people like they
39:18
Speaker 1: they'll use it against them. Well, yeah, yeah, they they
39:23
Speaker 1: used cognitive empathy to calculate the best most effective way
39:28
Speaker 1: to hurt somebody and then um, they turn off any
39:33
Speaker 1: potential like effective empathy, um when they're actually carrying out
39:37
Speaker 1: their active bullying. Yeah. And with the teenagers too. They
39:41
Speaker 1: they say that if you develop effective and cognitive empathy, um,
39:46
Speaker 1: that you're going to be happier, You're gonna argue less
39:49
Speaker 1: with your parents, you're gonna have more healthy relationships, which
39:54
Speaker 1: you know kind of all makes sense. Sure, And they
39:56
Speaker 1: also were saying too, and we will will get into
39:59
Speaker 1: how to increase your own empathy if you think that
40:02
Speaker 1: kind of thing is a good idea. Um. But that
40:05
Speaker 1: babies learn empathy out of the out of the gate
40:08
Speaker 1: by being empathized with, by being treated warmly by their
40:12
Speaker 1: parents and other adults, being responded to in a warm manner,
40:17
Speaker 1: that that actually is the beginning of empathy. And it's
40:20
Speaker 1: like you said, you can see a little kid in
40:21
Speaker 1: a preschool go over and comfort or console another little kid,
40:25
Speaker 1: um who's in distress. Boy, that's why when I hear
40:28
Speaker 1: about neglect like baby and infant neglect is just man,
40:33
Speaker 1: that's like the most heartbreaking thing you can imagine. It's
40:36
Speaker 1: like a baby just like left in a room to
40:38
Speaker 1: cry and cry and cry forever. Plus also when we
40:42
Speaker 1: were talking about the breastfeeding episode, that body to body
40:45
Speaker 1: contact of being held shows or has been shown to
40:49
Speaker 1: affect their development if they don't have it enough. It's
40:53
Speaker 1: just all sorts of terrible things that happened to you
40:54
Speaker 1: when you're neglected as a baby. Yeah, it's terrible, So Chuck,
40:58
Speaker 1: there are plenty of people who's a well, we need
41:00
Speaker 1: to empathize more. So just get out there and learn
41:03
Speaker 1: how to empathize. And there's plenty of people out there
41:05
Speaker 1: here will teach you techniques on empathizing with people more
41:08
Speaker 1: and they may be worth trying. Like I found them
41:11
Speaker 1: very helpful in a lot of cases, especially on interpersonal communication. Right,
41:16
Speaker 1: But as far as like changing the world on a
41:19
Speaker 1: massive scale for for the better, is it a good
41:22
Speaker 1: idea to go out and just empathize, empathize, empathize, because
41:25
Speaker 1: there's a big question mark with that, who exactly are
41:28
Speaker 1: you supposed to empathize with? Like with just about every problem,
41:32
Speaker 1: there's a group that's being helped by something and a
41:34
Speaker 1: group that's being har harmed by something, especially when it
41:37
Speaker 1: comes to public policy, right, So which group you're gonna
41:40
Speaker 1: empathize with? If you empathize with the current victims and
41:43
Speaker 1: you change public policy to help them, well, then you're
41:45
Speaker 1: leaving the people who are currently benefiting out in the cold. Right.
41:49
Speaker 1: So there's a big question of who you should empathize
41:52
Speaker 1: with at any given point in time, which makes this
41:54
Speaker 1: whole behavioral science nudge politics BS that is ultimately behind
42:01
Speaker 1: this whole push to empathize more um that that's not
42:06
Speaker 1: taking that into consideration. And then there's this kind of
42:09
Speaker 1: a second facet to that, which is studies have found
42:12
Speaker 1: that when you increase empathy in people, um, they tend
42:18
Speaker 1: to empathize more with their own group, but it also
42:22
Speaker 1: in kind increases hostility in those people toward out groups.
42:27
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying, Like, they see their friend
42:29
Speaker 1: who's being hurt is more of a victim, and how
42:31
Speaker 1: could you do this to them? And now I want
42:34
Speaker 1: to get you back because one of the sour sides
42:36
Speaker 1: of empathy is that it frequently comes with a taste
42:40
Speaker 1: for retribution too, I think is how Paul Bloom put
42:42
Speaker 1: it the dark side of empathy. So just yeah, there
42:47
Speaker 1: is a dark side. There's a dark side to everything
42:50
Speaker 1: in there. Yeah, except you from all dark side. You're
42:56
Speaker 1: all hit kin. So we'll finish up here with a
43:01
Speaker 1: bit on people with autism, because there's this stereotype, um
43:08
Speaker 1: that if you everyone's probably heard it that you know what,
43:11
Speaker 1: people with autism lack empathy and they don't understand emotions.
43:16
Speaker 1: And if you know, anybody who uh either has autism
43:21
Speaker 1: or is a parent of a child with autism, they
43:24
Speaker 1: will dispel that myth pretty straight up just from their
43:27
Speaker 1: own lives. Um. But these people did some studying and
43:31
Speaker 1: some research because they were like, that's not good enough
43:33
Speaker 1: for me, and it's not good enough to just say that, Like,
43:37
Speaker 1: you know, every autism is different for everyone, So some
43:41
Speaker 1: people have empathy or show people with autism show empathy,
43:44
Speaker 1: so but everyone's different, So who cares about investigating that? Yeah?
43:48
Speaker 1: So I really love the approach they took here. They
43:50
Speaker 1: were kind of really wanted to keep digging, which I
43:52
Speaker 1: really respected. So, uh, they said, you know what, I
43:55
Speaker 1: think it might be going on here. There's this other
43:58
Speaker 1: um condition called alexathemia, and alexithemia means you have a
44:06
Speaker 1: difficult time understanding your own emotions. So you might, you know,
44:11
Speaker 1: you might have a feeling that you're experiencing an emotion,
44:14
Speaker 1: but you just don't know what it is. And about
44:16
Speaker 1: ten percent of people have it in the regular population.
44:19
Speaker 1: About fifty people with autism have alexithemia. But they're not
44:23
Speaker 1: the same thing. No, And these guys actually found that, um,
44:28
Speaker 1: people with autism who do not have alexathemia tend to
44:32
Speaker 1: display empathy. Yeah, and even you know, lots of empathy.
44:38
Speaker 1: Lots of empathy. Yeah, empathy. They got binders full of empathy,
44:42
Speaker 1: finders full of empathy. Oh yeah, we remember when that
44:46
Speaker 1: was the most controversial thing going in politics. Oh man,
44:50
Speaker 1: finders full of empathy. Uh. Yeah, like they had they
44:53
Speaker 1: scored you know, very strong when it came to measuring empathy. Uh.
44:58
Speaker 1: And what they did was they you know, the makes
45:00
Speaker 1: sense the way they did, it's very I really like
45:02
Speaker 1: this study. They had four groups, uh, individuals with autism
45:05
Speaker 1: and alexithemia, Uh, individuals with autism without it, individuals with
45:11
Speaker 1: alexithemia but not autism, and then people that didn't have
45:15
Speaker 1: either one. And it basically seems to kind of prove that. Yeah,
45:21
Speaker 1: it's just not true that people with autism don't have empathy.
45:25
Speaker 1: It's really Alexithemia's what's going on right, Which is I
45:29
Speaker 1: think a novel finding or a novel hypothesis. I don't
45:33
Speaker 1: think this is part of a larger field. I think
45:36
Speaker 1: these these guys came up with that. Yeah, and did
45:38
Speaker 1: you see that other study the UM from Goldsmith's University
45:41
Speaker 1: of London about the facial expressions. I thought that was
45:46
Speaker 1: pretty interesting too. Yeah, that they they investigated that, UM,
45:50
Speaker 1: if you expose people with autism to the sounds of
45:54
Speaker 1: people's voices and ask them to rate what emotion that
45:57
Speaker 1: person is experiencing, they're far better UM calling that correctly
46:03
Speaker 1: then faces. And apparently it's because people with autism tend
46:06
Speaker 1: to spend much less time studying faces, not because they
46:10
Speaker 1: can't empathize. They just aren't using cues that UM people
46:13
Speaker 1: without autism use to UM conclude what emotions people are experiencing. Yeah,
46:20
Speaker 1: really interesting stuff. And I don't know why this didn't
46:22
Speaker 1: get more play because it still seems like people are
46:26
Speaker 1: kind of banging that drum that you know, people with
46:30
Speaker 1: autism that aren't empathetic. Yeah, I don't. I don't know
46:33
Speaker 1: why either just makes sense that, yeah, um, we need
46:37
Speaker 1: to do an entire episode on autism. Yeah, maybe alexophenia.
46:40
Speaker 1: I've never heard of that. We also need to do
46:42
Speaker 1: one on psychopaths too, which is another group that tends
46:45
Speaker 1: to be pointed to. Is kind of incorrectly as far
46:48
Speaker 1: as empathy goes, where if you're lacking empathy, you're a psychopath.
46:51
Speaker 1: What actually turns out that if you have what's called
46:54
Speaker 1: a shallow affect, meaning like you're across the board emotionally,
46:58
Speaker 1: you're pretty stunted and um, shallow or superficial, that's what
47:03
Speaker 1: really qualifies you as a psychopath, not just missing empathy. Um.
47:07
Speaker 1: But yet again, it's another popular misconception that's being allowed
47:10
Speaker 1: to persist. I'm just irritated, Chuck. I've got a great
47:15
Speaker 1: quote though from Paul Bloom, And I also want to
47:18
Speaker 1: say that I think, um that empathy also the different
47:22
Speaker 1: kinds of empathy also get divided among the genders as well.
47:26
Speaker 1: And we even said, we even talked about that study
47:29
Speaker 1: that concluded that women tend to suffer from depression because
47:32
Speaker 1: they're more empathetic. I think that maybe that's the case,
47:35
Speaker 1: and there is a biological basis for it in adolescence.
47:38
Speaker 1: But one thing that seems to persist everywhere is that
47:42
Speaker 1: um different types of empathy or different techniques for empathy
47:46
Speaker 1: to produce empathy can be learned, They can be taught.
47:50
Speaker 1: And I think if you just say, like, well, wait
47:52
Speaker 1: a minute, I really want to solve this problem, I'm
47:53
Speaker 1: not going to fly off the handle or I'm not
47:55
Speaker 1: gonna lose my marbles. I'm gonna like really put some
47:58
Speaker 1: thought into it, and I can still be passionate, but
48:00
Speaker 1: I don't have to completely experience someone else's pain. I
48:03
Speaker 1: don't think that that's a biological imperative one way or another.
48:06
Speaker 1: I think if you decide to make a choice or
48:09
Speaker 1: a change in the way you approach situations, that has
48:12
Speaker 1: nothing to do with gender. So I just wanting to
48:14
Speaker 1: point that out. Yeah, And as far as teaching empathy,
48:18
Speaker 1: like there's been a little bit of poopo ing of
48:20
Speaker 1: emotional empathy, but I think it's I think it's definitely
48:23
Speaker 1: like a pretty good thing to do as a parent
48:24
Speaker 1: to try and teach your child to like, hey, you know,
48:28
Speaker 1: how would you feel if someone was doing this to you?
48:31
Speaker 1: And that's how they learn Yeah, exactly. You don't learn
48:34
Speaker 1: it on your own. I think it has to be
48:37
Speaker 1: imparted by good parents. Agreed. And um. Again, the the goal,
48:44
Speaker 1: and this is a Paul Bloom quote. The goal isn't
48:47
Speaker 1: to to love every single person like you love the
48:51
Speaker 1: people closest to you, but to value other people just
48:54
Speaker 1: for the very fact that they're human beings. Right, that's
48:56
Speaker 1: the goal that everybody's looking for with with empathy, And
49:00
Speaker 1: he says, quote, our best hope for the future is
49:03
Speaker 1: not to get people to think of all humanity as family.
49:05
Speaker 1: That's impossible. It lies instead in an appreciation of the
49:09
Speaker 1: fact that even if we don't empathize with distant strangers,
49:13
Speaker 1: their lives have the same value as the lives of
49:15
Speaker 1: those we love. That's the key. Very interesting. Yeah, good stuff,
49:21
Speaker 1: good stuff. We should subtitle this one Empathy a Lucy
49:26
Speaker 1: Goosey episode, also known as what Paul Bloom says. Thank
49:32
Speaker 1: you Paul Bloom. Yeah, big big ups to Paul Bloom. Uh.
49:36
Speaker 1: And since I said big ups to Paul Bloom, that
49:38
Speaker 1: means it's time for listener mail. Chuck Um, I'm gonna
49:44
Speaker 1: call this hook worms nice um. Hello from the Sunny South,
49:51
Speaker 1: United States. Southerners aren't lazy and dumb, they just had hookworm.
49:56
Speaker 1: Great title. By the way, Josh brought back a childhood memory,
49:59
Speaker 1: and if I only had to write end guys who
50:00
Speaker 1: grew up in Florida. So we spent most of the
50:02
Speaker 1: summer with our shoes off uh, And I remember my
50:05
Speaker 1: mother distinctly reminded me to wear shoes UH so I
50:09
Speaker 1: wouldn't get the ground ditch. This never happened. I called
50:13
Speaker 1: my mom, who was now eighty eight years old, to
50:14
Speaker 1: verify a few facts and about when I was a
50:16
Speaker 1: little girl, I believe around five to seven or eight
50:19
Speaker 1: years before school started, my mother would give me a
50:21
Speaker 1: worm treatment on my feet. I explained to her what
50:26
Speaker 1: I had learned during the podcast about hookworms and how
50:28
Speaker 1: they affected the body. When I mentioned how they cause
50:31
Speaker 1: severe anemia and caused the body to be more susceptible
50:33
Speaker 1: to illness, she remembered a story about my father's cousin.
50:36
Speaker 1: Apparently the cousin was so and became so incredibly ill
50:40
Speaker 1: she was very close to dying. They took her to
50:42
Speaker 1: the hospital and found out she was severely anemic, and
50:45
Speaker 1: before they began any other diagnostics, they decided to test
50:47
Speaker 1: her for hookworm and bingo as my mother said, she
50:51
Speaker 1: was full of them. She had a high worm burden.
50:54
Speaker 1: She did. Uh. Mom said. It took three treatments to
50:58
Speaker 1: get rid of the worms. The story was she was
51:00
Speaker 1: so infested they literally came out of her mouth when
51:03
Speaker 1: she was being treated. Oh my god, Wow, that is
51:08
Speaker 1: the best story I've heard in a while. And she
51:10
Speaker 1: put in parentheses. I know, right, because I think she
51:13
Speaker 1: anticipated that reaction. That's why you don't want to be
51:17
Speaker 1: a six point oh um effective empathetic person. Yeah, that's right. Uh.
51:23
Speaker 1: This cousin is actually still alive and in her early nineties,
51:26
Speaker 1: so uh, this would have been in the nineties. I
51:29
Speaker 1: hope she doesn't listen to this ship Hookworm and Fancy
51:33
Speaker 1: Free in Florida. As from Terry Brunson of Panama City. Nice,
51:37
Speaker 1: Thanks a lot, Terry. That was a great email. I
51:40
Speaker 1: had everything had. It was a roller coaster ride. There
51:42
Speaker 1: was a cousin who had worms coming out of her mouth.
51:45
Speaker 1: I laughed, I cried. There was a mom, an old cousin.
51:52
Speaker 1: I'd like to know what the worm treatment consisted of.
51:54
Speaker 1: I'll bet there was dead cat in there somewhere. Uh.
51:58
Speaker 1: If you want to tell us about your family's weird remedies.
52:02
Speaker 1: We want to know the ingredients, and you can tweet
52:04
Speaker 1: them to us at s y s K podcast or
52:07
Speaker 1: hit me up at Josh Underscore um Underscore Clark. You
52:11
Speaker 1: can hang out with us on Facebook at Facebook dot
52:14
Speaker 1: com slash stuff you Should Know or Facebook dot com
52:16
Speaker 1: slash Charles W. Chuck Bryant Uh, send us an email
52:19
Speaker 1: the Stuff podcast at how stuff Works dot com, and
52:22
Speaker 1: join us as always at our home on the web,
52:24
Speaker 1: stuff you Should Know dot com. For more on this
52:30
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics, is it how stuff Works
52:33
Speaker 1: dot com