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Selects: How Empathy Works · Stuff You Should Know

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