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Empathy is the ability to sympathize with the emotional states of another person. It allows you to understand his decisions, attitudes and actions. According to psychologists, empathy indicates a highly developed emotional intelligence, and having it depends, inter alia, on from relationships with parents in early childhood, from the environment in which we grow up.

What is empathy? Definition

Empathyis compassion, i.e. the ability to imagine the feelings and emotions of another person, which we callemotional empathy , and the ability to read thinking of the other person, which in turn is calledcognitive empathy .

An empathetic person is able to understand the attitudes and actions of others to a greater extent than someone who is deprived of empathy, thanks to the fact that he can empathize with their internal state. He can look at reality through someone else's eyes and imagine what the other person is feeling, and often even relive certain events with him and enjoy success together or cry over failure.

Often, egocentric people are capable of aggression, while empathy inhibits such behavior.

Opposite of empathy

You could say thatthe opposite of empathy is egocentrism . Such was the opinion, for example, of the Hungarian child psychologist Margaret Mahler.An egocentric is someone who thinks the world revolves around him . He is not able to look at a given situation from a different perspective than his own and he cannot imagine the emotional states of other people.

She often doesn't even realize that other people have feelings as well. Only himself exists for him. Most people, however, can more or less empathize with the other person. For some, empathy is very highly developed, and for others, this process does not take place, they remain egocentric forever.

Empathy in children

The issue of empathy was de alt with by the Swiss biologist and psychologist Jean Piaget. In his opinion, empathy is a certain stage of cognitive development. Young children up to the age of 7 are egocentric, they do not realize that other people or animals feel something. They are unconsciously focused on themselves.

This means that they cannot empathize with another person, they are convinced that they are at the center of the universe. Over time, awareness develops and the child becomesgradually more and more empathetic.

In the 1970s, Helen Borke conducted an experiment on 200 children aged 3 to 8 years. The study consisted of several stages. In one of them, children were shown pictures of faces expressing various emotions, e.g. joy, sadness, fear, anger.

What turned out? Even 3-year-old children were able to correctly identify these emotions, although they actually did better with age.

Already a 3-year-old is aware that other people have feelings and that these feelings vary depending on the situation.

At another stage, the experimenters read stories in which the protagonist was experiencing one of these emotions. The children were to name this emotion or assign an appropriate face to the character.

Even three-year-olds did well here. Small, 3-3.5-year-old children achieved the best results in recognizing emotions that define pleasant or unpleasant things, which is most likely due to the fact that they are focused rather on satisfying their needs, and this is related to the feeling of pleasure when they achieve it what they want or sadness or anger when denied them.

It's different with fear. This emotion was better identified by slightly older children, aged 4.5-5 years. At this stage, the little ones start watching different cartoons and can learn to fear from them. Overall, the results of this experiment contradicted Piaget's theory that until the age of 7 children are self-centered.

And every parent knows that even smaller children, 2-2.5 years old, can give their toy to a child who is crying. So they understand what they feel and what can comfort them. Interestingly, no gender relationship was found in the study, so the claim that empathy is the domain of women is also incorrect.

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Empathy: why is it so important?

The development of empathy is certainly influenced by relationships with parents at an early stage of childhood, and then also by the environment in which a person grows up. Therefore, empathy in each person has a different level.

There are people who are extremely empathetic and those who are completely deprived of this trait. It is worth adding here that extremely developed empathy can become a problem. A person who cares too much about someone else's emotional states may, with time, feel a lack of interest in his own person (by himself and others!), A kind of neglect, and sometimes even plain fatigue.

Can empathy?to learn

Can someone who has not been bothered by other people's emotions throughout their entire life change? Of course. This is not a simple matter, however, and often requires a supportive stimulus.

It may be an event that will affect that person's perception of reality - e.g. selfless help from another person. There may even be a coincidence - a person who has been deprived of empathy so far is asked to spend a day in a shelter for homeless animals, in lieu of someone else, and this experience makes such an impression on them that from now on she wants to help herself.

Having a pet, especially a dog, greatly develops empathy.

Pets are the best teachers in this field, because they unmistakably recognize the emotions of their owners. We can finally shape empathy by signing up for a theater club.

In order to play a character well and reflect the feelings that torment him, you need to feel his emotions as much as possible. So empathy can be learned, but you have to be willing to open your heart to feelings. It is this awareness and the decision that I want to work on myself that is important. This is already half the battle. And in training empathy, the following are helpful:

  • note- watch the situation carefully;
  • listening- not only hearing what someone is saying, but also deep understanding of what you hear;
  • deepening of self-awareness- ability to direct attention deeply into oneself, the ability to name one's own feelings;
  • communication- the ability to communicate both your own feelings and receive signals sent by other people.
Worth knowing

Empathy comes in handy

The ability to empathize turns out to be useful in many life situations. It helps in interpersonal relationships, facilitates building friendly, marriage, parental and professional bonds.

Increases the chance of survival, because it allows you to predict other people's behavior. Knowing that the neighbor's outbursts of anger when the bicycle is led up the staircase, we can prepare for her attack of aggression when we happen to put a muddy vehicle at her door.

Empathy often makes life easier, empathetic people are usually surrounded by friends, which means that they can always count on their help.

Empathy is a very important and desirable trait also in many professions, such as therapists, social workers, teachers, policemen, and above all, nurses and doctors. It would also be good if clerical positions were only entrustedpeople with highly developed empathy.

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Category:

Psychology