Empathy—the capacity to comprehend and share the emotions of others—is a crucial human attribute that nurtures connection, communication, and compassion in our relationships. However, this quality is not equally prevalent in everyone. Individuals who lack empathy can sometimes pose difficulties in social interactions and relationships. Identifying the traits of those who may find empathy challenging is essential for understanding and managing our relationships with them. This discussion explores 25 traits often linked with a lack of empathy, highlighting how these characteristics appear and affect interpersonal dynamics.

Summary: Men who own pets exhibit higher empathy towards animals compared to farmers and non-pet owners. The study analyzed responses from 91 men, highlighting the significant impact of pet ownership on empathy levels.

Researchers emphasized the importance of human-animal interactions in developing empathy, particularly in males. The findings suggest that caring for pets, without financial motives, is most influential in fostering animal empathy.

Recent research challenges the double-empathy problem, suggesting that social interactions and empathy are more complex than this theory proposes. The study highlights the confusion surrounding the theory and its narrow focus on autism, overlooking other social identity factors.

Researchers argue for more neuroscientific studies, like brain imaging, to understand empathy better. They also emphasize that diverse social interactions can enhance empathy, contrary to the double-empathy theory.

Guy Itzchakov

Genuine listening often suffers in life's busyness, especially in romantic relationships.

Deep listening can be transformative and salvage struggling relationships.

A former student's experience demonstrates how practicing deep listening revived her marriage.

Deep listening fosters emotional connection, allowing couples to express vulnerabilities and strengthen bonds.

A new study to be presented at the SLEEP 2024 annual meeting, held in Houston, Texas, June 1–5, found robust evidence that implicates lower alertness, a key outcome of insufficient sleep, as a predictor of muted empathic responding, which suggests alertness may support both cognitive and affective empathy.

Results show that slower response times on objective alertness tests were significantly associated with lower levels of empathic concern, and that lapses and false starts on these tests were significantly associated with poorer empathic accuracy. Additionally, those who were more objectively alert reported significantly higher affective empathy than the control group.

We often sing the song Is Thy Heart Right with God? Have you ever questioned just what your heart could handle if we really called on it?

Keep that in mind as we study this lesson on empathy. Empathy is “knowing another person’s feelings; feeling what the other person feels; and responding compassionately to another’s hardship.” That makes empathy a verb, not a noun!

Empathy is not just agreement. Neither is it sympathy. Nor is it sharing a similar experience. No, it is not just being civil. By no means is it the taking of an intellectual stance.

And, it is in no way going beyond a simple understanding. Bottom line is: when we empathize, we are not obligated to take on someone else’s issue nor or we obligated to fix the problem. Each person is responsible and accountable for his or her life (Romans 14:12)!

Bridging the empathy gap
One of the fundamental challenges in healthcare has been bridging the empathy gap between doctors and patients. Despite their expertise, doctors can sometimes struggle to fully comprehend the physical and emotional experiences of their patients. According to Aurora Israel, this is where OtheReality steps in, offering immersive VR training that allows medical staff to gain a patient's perspective firsthand.

“The doctor needs to look at the patient as a person with a problem and not as a problem,” Yotvat Palter-Dycian, co-founder and chief operating officer of OtherReality told The Times of Israel. 

BY CHARLOTTE HU

Empathy can help people build strong friendships and close family ties. A new study reinforces the power of teaching and practicing empathy, especially during adolescence.

New results from a long-term study published in the journal Child Development found that teens who received “empathic care” from their mother (the only parent included in the study) were able to pay it forward and show empathy to their close friends. The research further suggests that parental empathy is passed down from generation to generation: teenagers who developed empathy skills were more likely to have healthy adult relationships and a supportive parenting style with their own children more than a decade later.

Aparna Rae
In the face of rapid socio-political changes, the need for empathy in professional settings has never been more pronounced. Empathy, often misunderstood and underutilized, is not just about understanding another's feelings but believing in the validity of their experiences as equally important as our own. This subtle yet profound distinction is crucial for fostering an inclusive, supportive, and effective workplace.

In this piece, we explore the importance of empathy as a key skill, the impact of investing in empathy at work and the barriers to building more resilient organizations.

Empathy is more than a soft skill—it's a critical, strategic asset in today’s complex, diverse, and rapidly changing work environment

Mental health problems, loneliness already among the youngest and polarization are rapidly increasing, especially after the Covid19 pandemic. A new large-scale research study, the CovSocial project, led by Tania Singer from the Max Planck Society, is helping people to reconnect with themselves, others and society at large.

Recent findings reveal that a ten-week partner-based mental online training program was able to boost resilience, empathy, compassion and deepen social connections. At the same time, these short daily, app-based practices done with another person, so-called Dyads, decreased loneliness, depression, anxiety and a negative outlook in life. Researchers hope that this training can be scaled worldwide to overcome loneliness and social divisions.

Study looks at when parental empathy emerges in their children
According to the data, 13 years old is something like the "magic number" age for when empathy starts to take root in children's personalities.

The longitudinal study traced how empathy develops across three generations. Morsa Images/DigitalVision via Getty Images

by Jessica A. Stern, University of Virginia and Joseph P. Allen, University of Virginia

Our new research shows that parents who express empathy toward their teenagers may give teens a head start in developing the skill themselves. In addition, adolescents who show empathy and support toward their friends are more likely to become supportive parents, which may foster empathy in their own offspring.

How we did our work
The KLIFF/VIDA study at the University of Virginia has tracked 184 adolescents for more than 25 years: from age 13 well into their 30s.

Starting in 1998, teens came to the university every year with their parents and closest friend, and a team of researchers recorded videos of their conversations. Researchers observed how much empathy the mother showed to her 13-year-old when her teen needed help with a problem. We measured empathy by rating how present and engaged mothers were in the conversation, whether they had an accurate understanding of their teen’s problem, and how much help and emotional support they offered.

Having empathy is such a vital life skill - not just for children but for all of us. Being surrounded by people who show us empathy is so important - it helps us feel good about ourselves - and if we feel good about ourselves then we're far more likely to go on to succeed and achieve in our lives."

The event for schools was organised in collaboration with EmpathyLab by Read Manchester - a partnership between Manchester City Council and the National Literacy Trust to further improve literacy levels in the city and to highlight the benefits of reading for pleasure. 

Empowering the city's children and young people is also at the heart of the city's ongoing push towards becoming recognised as a UNICEF Child Friendly City.

The organisers of Empathy Day (6th June) have launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise £8,500 to give “100,000 new children life-changing empathy education experiences”.

EmpathyLab, a not-for-profit organisation which organises the annual event each summer, said it is accelerating growth of industry-wide empathy movement through the fundraising campaign, a senior information-sharing event and plans.

It is hoped the month-long campaign will help 100,000 children take part in empathy education programme for the first time. Around £2,000 has already been raised within a matter of days.  

Organisers said: “Every child should have the chance to develop this crucial life skill, which

It’s typically good to have empaths among your social circle. After all, an empath is a person highly attuned to others’ emotions, which can allow him or her to understand how you are feeling and, in turn, offer timely support, advice, comfort and help. However, not all empaths are cuddly and safe to have around. If you jump on TikTok, you’ll find the term “dark empath” trending with over 2.5 million mentions. And what dark empaths can apparently do is dark, like really dark.

Dark empaths have been described as people who use their empathy (i.e., the ability to detect and understand others’ feelings and emotions) not to help others but instead to manipulate others for personal gain.

by Patrick Cairns

Main findings:
- Empathy and burnout are negatively correlated in medical students, with a small effect size.

- When looking at sub-components of empathy and burnout, the largest correlation was between cognitive empathy and personal accomplishment (but still a small effect size). Greater cognitive empathy (perspective-taking) is related to a greater sense of personal accomplishment among medical students.

- There was no relationship between affective empathy (feeling with a patient) and burnout, challenging lay theories suggesting empathy leads to burnout.

- We looked for possible moderators of the main relationship, and found a greater response rate and a higher proportion of male respondents strengthened the main finding.

A new study to be presented at the SLEEP 2024 annual meeting found robust evidence that implicates lower alertness, a key outcome of insufficient sleep, as a predictor of muted empathic responding, which suggests alertness may support both cognitive and affective empathy.

Results show that slower response times on objective alertness tests were significantly associated with lower levels of empathic concern, and that lapses and false starts on these tests were significantly associated with poorer empathic accuracy. Additionally, those who were more objectively alert reported significantly higher affective empathy than the control group.

This word has appeared in 155 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year. Can you use it in a sentence?

According to the report, some steps employers can take to do this include:

Practise empathetic leadership
Foster empathy through education
Build bridges across differences
Recognise progress not perfection
Create safe spaces for vulnerability
Lead by example

How do people successfully interact with those who are completely different from them? And can these differences create social barriers?

One recent concept that has become increasingly popular is the double-empathy problem. This draws on research looking at people who are known to experience social difficulties, such as autistic people.

The theory proposes that people who have very different identities and communication styles from each other which is often the case for autistic and non-autistic people can find it harder to empathise with one another. This two-way difficulty is what they mean by the double-empathy problem.

This idea is getting a lot of attention. Research on the double-empathy problem has rapidly grown over the past decade. This is because it has the potential to explain why different people in society might struggle to empathise with one another, potentially leading to personal and societal problems; from poor mental health to inter-group tensions and systemic racism.

by
Luca Hargitai - PhD Candidate, Psychology, University of Bath

Lucy Anne Livingston - Lecturer in Psychology, King's College London

Punit Shah - Associate Professor of Psychology, University of Bath

How do people successfully interact with those who are completely different from them? And can these differences create social barriers? Social scientists are struggling with these questions because the mental processes underlying social interactions are not well understood.

One recent concept that has become increasingly popular is the “double-empathy problem”. This draws on research looking at people who are known to experience social difficulties, such as autistic people.

by Guy Itzchakov
. Identifying the emotions behind repetitive content from the speaker is crucial for high-quality listening.

The solution lies within the speaker; the listener's role is to help draw it out of them.

Prompt speakers to explore deeper emotions and experiences that contribute to their repetitive disclosure.

Reflect on the speakers' concerns and help them articulate their underlying negative emotions.

Researching empathy across generations
Beginning in 1998, the teens, their mothers and their closest friend were all invited into the research lab at the University of Virginia to engage in problem-solving or advice-seeking first with their mom and then with their friend.

Empathy must be a choice. It is to imagine oneself in the position of another, suffering the same hurts and enjoying the same pleasures – without being that other person. That’s why empathy can work as a strategy.

A policeman shows great empathy when he is able to identify the criminal by the circumstances of the crime. He reads this “signature.”

Similarly, in war, the general must have enough empathy to understand his enemy’s capacities. By imagining himself in the same position, he can guess what his enemy will do, and intercept the attack, or close up his own exposed defenses. Wars have been won with ingenious empathy.

Empathy, powered by our brain's mirror neurons, is the unseen force that deeply connects us to others and makes our relationships more fulfilling, as discovered on my podcast episode ‘The bonds that bind’.

Imagine sitting in a movie theatre, completely absorbed in a gripping scene where the hero is dangling precariously from a cliff. Your heart races, palms sweat, and you find yourself leaning forward in your seat, as if you could somehow help pull them to safety. But why do you feel this intense connection to someone who doesn't even exist outside of the screen? The answer lies hidden within the intricate workings of our brains, specifically in something called mirror neurons. Discovered somewhat serendipitously by a team of Italian researchers in the 1990s, mirror neurons are a fascinating set of brain cells that react not only when we perform an action but also when we observe someone else performing the same action.