Empathy as Connection AND academic booster
The education system forces people to unlearn the empathy they were born with. It’s a system based on always seeming strong, contributing to the economy, and being number one. Being number one is the rule of game, and how we relate to others is fundamentally dismissed.”
–Bernard Amadei, Ashoka Fellow and founder of Engineers Without Borders USA
The curious-minded can look into the debate as to whether we are born with empathy or whether it is a skill we cultivate. In today’s writing, I will focus on ‘what is empathy,’ and ‘how the practice of empathy affects academics.’
I believe empathy to be energy rather than a particular form of speech. In a non-violent communication process, we often use the term “giving empathy” or “receiving empathy.” As a form of speech, these labels are great for practicing and developing skills in empathy because they help us understand which person is the focus of empathic attention.
In reality, we aim to focus this energy on empathically connecting rather than thinking that we are giving something to another. As Marshall Rosenburg, founder of non-violent communication, says, when the giving is entirely from the heart, there is no telling who is the giver and who the receiver. Instead, we enter into an “empathic space” together.
Has someone ever said to you, “Why don’t you try standing in (the other person’s) shoes!”?
This is an organic and first step to understanding the feelings and values of another person’s perspective at any given moment. What sets empathy aside from sympathy is that to create an empathic connection, one need not have ever been in the same situation as the person you are listening to. In other words, even if one has never had a child, this does not mean that they would be unable to empathize with a parent, for example.
Empathy focuses on connection, not on accurate or 100 % understanding of the other’s experience, which is often impossible. However, one can come close with an experience of sympathy – the sharing of a similar experience.
Brene Brown is famous for her rendition of empathy in https://youtu.be/1Evwgu369Jw
In this video, she relays: Empathy is a skill that can bring people together and make people feel included. At the same time, sympathy creates an uneven power dynamic and can lead to more isolation and disconnection.
In a fun study at McGill University in 2012, they discovered that certain mother rats, called “dams,” who, in their laboratory, tended to lick and groom their pups more, especially in stressful situations, reared pups with higher IQs. The rat pups that got a little TLC from mom in their first few weeks in the lab were not only more confident and less fearful than the pups who did not, but they were also better at mazes.
Can you imagine parents and teachers licking their students? Well, no. Again, I refer you to Brene Brown’s video for concrete examples of effective human-style empathy and TLC.
We can learn from this that empathy is considered a motivating factor for unselfish, prosocial behavior. In contrast, a lack of empathy is related to antisocial behavior. And, it isn’t just about hugs and pats on the back. It is a skill that can make young people more productive in work environments that require cooperation. And it has the potential to create future solid leaders.
Empathy and academic outcomes research show a remarkable correlation between students’ empathetic understanding and their academic performance. For example, the researchers Bonner and Aspy have identified significant correlations between student scores on measures of empathetic understanding and their grade point averages. Empathy training/instruction enhances both critical thinking skills and creative thinking (Gallo, 1989).
Empathy works the other way around, too! In 2013, The study, “Reading Literary Fiction Improves Theory of Mind,” was carried out at New York’s New School for Social Research. Researchers paid participants to read various excerpts from books and magazines for only a few minutes before taking computerized empathy tests.
The results clearly show that “reading literary fiction temporarily enhances [Theory of Mind]. The study also suggests that Theory of Mind (aka empathy) may be influenced by engagement with works of art.” These researchers like to use confusing terms like ‘Theory of Mind,’ or “mind-blindness,” which is an inability to see things from any other perspective than one’s own.
And all the mama rats had to do was to lick their pups for all of this brilliance to develop! And I ask, ‘Why are so many schools adverse to training their teachers in empathy skills/instruction?’
Common misperceptions (based on world empathy.org )
Empathy is not sympathy
Sympathy entails a quality of support that requires a degree of agreement with the other person’s views. Empathy means we fully let in what the other express, without agreeing or disagreeing with the content of the expression. Empathy implies seeking to understand, not seeking agreement or disagreement.
Empathy is not “Niceness”
If we mean polite “proper” behavior by being nice, empathy can often be the antithesis of “niceness”. Empathy calls for our authenticity, that we acknowledge what is often kept hidden by the polite, nice world, bringing those uncomfortable issues to the forefront.
Empathy is not Passivity
Being empathetic does not mean I become a limp noodle without my own needs and expression, or indifferent to conflict. Empathy is an active process of presence, listening, observing, and internally opening to someone other than ourselves.
Empathy is not the same as Love
Suppose love is the giving from our hearts without expectation. In that case, empathy is a quality of being fully present to another person, focusing on the other, which often opens our hearts to such giving. In fact, empathy moves us to the center of the conflict. Human beings disagree, misunderstand, react, and so forth. Our world is full of examples of this. Empathy works directly with this noble truth. By deeply understanding another, we can reduce misunderstanding, see clearly how our views differ and build trust through the truly courageous act of letting another human being fully into our awareness and maybe even our hearts. It doesn’t mean we agree or disagree, sympathize, lie down, or be polite; we simply give another the gift of our presence and understanding.
Empathy is not Naive
Empathy is precisely the opposite of naiveté, empathy ends naiveté. How? Because when we fully receive another person, seek to understand, the maximum amount of information is brought into the open. It means we are now aware of another’s needs giving us the maximum opportunity to act on accurate information at the deepest level of trust, opening to the greatest possibility of resolution. We have relieved ourselves of the naive idea that some problems are unsolvable, that violent disagreement is inevitable.
