This study tells me what I want to hear, so it must be true, right? Empathic Conservatives and Moralizing Liberals. Political Intergroup Empathy Varies by Political Ideology and Is Explained by Moral Judgment. University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia.
Empathy has the potential to bridge political divides. Here, we examine barriers to cross-party empathy and explore when and why these differ for liberals and conservatives. In four studies, U.S. and U.K. participants (total N = 4,737) read hypothetical scenarios and extended less empathy to suffering political opponents than allies or neutral targets. These effects were strongly shown by liberals but were weaker among conservatives, such that conservatives consistently showed more empathy to liberals than liberals showed to conservatives. This asymmetry was partly explained by liberals’ harsher moral judgments of outgroup members (Studies 1–4) and the fact that liberals saw conservatives as more harmful than conservatives saw liberals (Studies 3 and 4). The asymmetry persisted across changes in the U.S. government and was not explained by perceptions of political power (Studies 3 and 4). Implications and future directions are discussed.
Update: Grim expands on his comment about sympathy vs empathy over at his site. "Empathy is really dangerous."
13 comments:
Let's see--why might that be? Nicer people lean conservative? That's got to be it. Or maybe conservatives include a greater proportion of the observant religious, who get reminded that they're not all that and a side of fries and they're supposed to love their enemies.
Or maybe empathy is a harder thing to measure than they think, or it gets parceled out differently in different circumstances, some of which aren't measured.
The really interesting bit would be How often does said empathy have actual hands and feet to help.
Or are conservatives better at guessing what answers are expected for hypothetical scenarios? I would have thought liberals were...but it shows how elusive some of these things can be.
"Here we define empathy as sympathy for and understanding of another person’s suffering, with an aim to reduce that suffering."
They've "weaponized" the word in the definition by implying that having it requires action. Further, the studies are prejudiced that the action is - or should be seen as - political. It also describes the feeling as directed toward another person rather than any group that person belongs to. This is contradictory, thus not measurable.
Defining empathy as a species of sympathy is also a questionable thing to do. They are distinct concepts with very different etymologies.
Text search for "relig" brought no hits. I would expect people defined as "conservative" to be more likely to be religious, so I'm disappointed the study authors didn't include a reference to religion. As Christianity emphasizes empathy for strangers, it should have been included in the analysis.
Does Christianity emphasize empathy? How?
The Parable of the Good Samaritan?
Let he who is without sin cast the first stone?
Yes and there is also Deuteronomy 10. "You should love the stranger, for you were also strangers in the land of Egypt." The Bible does seem to regard identifying with the other as a tool to become kind. It relies on the natural fellow-feeling that arises when we are inside another's skin. I think popular usage of "empathy" and the more precise usage of Grim are at odds here. In a small constricted community it means something different than when spread across mass media news - and art. It is even questioned in modern times whether the ancients had quite the same internal life we do now anyway, with the most common theories centering on about 600BC as the beginning of a slow emergence of interior life that is still not universal. I tend to distrust that theory, but it's there.
Fellow-feeling can be an aid, and the Bible seems to point to it in key places. Yet not quite. The parable is about behavior, not feelings, though we can easily imagine that the Samaritan did his good works because of some imagining himself in a similar situation. Casting the first stone is a bit more distant from empathy, but does remind of the log and the speck.
Cranberry, AVI - Sympathy better describes the overall emphasis that I glean from Christian texts. Although I'm sure my understanding can use improvement. I can express sympathy without actually feeling someone else's emotions (as the popular use of empathy seems to mean). In fact, I can't believe I'm truly capable of feeling what another feels because I only have my feelings to compare with them. In this sense, Christ is the only "true empath" and it would take a lot of hubris to think myself a god capable of that.
I think that's about right.
AVI, as you have often pointed out, there is also a significant difference between either sympathy or empathy operating at a person to person level, and attempts to make them the operating principles of large organizations or especially the outsourcing of them to the same. (Social promotion of individual empathy would still be a good thing, IMO.)
The redearchers define empathy as sympathy. I don't think it is possible to measure empathy.
Quote from the paper: Due to many different definitions in the research literature, “empathy” is now often considered an umbrella term (Coplan & Goldie, 2014). Here we define empathy as sympathy for and understanding of another person’s suffering, with an aim to reduce that suffering.
And that slogan "Got Empathy?" seems to carry an unspoken assumption that Oh, no one REEEEALLY doubts that the research underpinning our side has taking all important factors and all possible outcomes into account and yielded flawless results; or that the reporting underpinning our side gave the whole truth and nothing but the truth; or that our side's policies WILL do good without harmful side effects, serious ethical concerns, dangerous slippery slopes, or serious risk of losing sight of the end in the means.
Christopher B
Outsourcing empathy to organizations can lead into the attitude of "I love humanity; it's people I can't stand!"
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