Empathy Movement Magazine

Part of our very nature is to suffer at the suffering of others," says Bloom. Among babies, crying is practically contagious. As soon they can move on their own, kids will attempt to comfort people in distress and even give up food and toys to those in close proximity to them.Sharing arises from the impulse to ease collective suffering.In other words, greed is not good. Relationships are.

What limits this kindheartedness is how broadly it is extended and to whom. At nine months, babies begin to experience anxiety around people they don't know, a fear of "the other" termed "stranger panic," which Bloom believes is universal. For researchers, stranger panic raises a sort of philosophical puzzle:

Tell us: do you agree? Is this the dawn of a new age of empathy? Are we driven to care?

by Megan Erickson

Sympathy usually means entering into and sharing feelings that another person has verbally and intentionally expressed; empathy involves intuiting something unspoken, of which the other person may sometimes be entirely unaware...

In my view, the distinction between empathy vs sympathy involves the difference between entering into and sharing those feelings that another person may have verbally and intentionally expressed vs intuiting something unspoken, of which the other person may sometimes be entirely unaware. I often find that clients want me to sympathize with what they’re telling me, when in fact, they need me to empathize with and help them become aware of something unconscious they’re afraid to know.

Empathy as a mediator of the relations between parent and peer attachment and prosocial and physically aggressive behaviors in Mexican American college students

Attachment and social support theories are normative developmental approaches that postulate positive social behavioral outcomes for individuals who develop strong relationships to parents and peers; however, research on positive aspects of Latinos in the United States is scarce.

....In general, empathy mediated the relations between peer attachment and both types of social behaviors but mostly for men and not women. Discussion focuses on the importance of attachment relationships and empathy in understanding prosocial and physically aggressive behaviors among Mexican American college students.

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In the real world we do not get to avoid the final episode. It's time to break out of our unsustainable zero-empathy matrix. To be or not to be is now the pressing spiritual question before us.

"Psychopaths are capable of taking the perspective of somebody else, but only to take better advantage of you. They're able to play the empathy game, but without the feelings involved. It's like an empty shell. The core of empathy -- being in tune with the feelings of somebody else -- seems to be completely lacking. They are like aliens among us." - Frans de Waal

 ....

Over a decade ago, the psychiatrist Robert Hare evaluated corporate behaviour toward society and the world by applying standard diagnostic criteria to the business practices of these so-called "legal persons." The diagnosis that fitted best was antisocial personality disorder -- in other words, psychopathy...

by John Stanley and David Loy

 With empathy as the basis of your democracy and economy, the death of millions who are unable to receive proper medical care without health insurance should fill all with discontent. Instead, under the imagined natural equality of capitalism, the poor and unemployed are lazy failures.

With the ability to truly see ourselves in our children, our Middle Eastern counterparts, and in all natural life, pollution, drone warfare, and the dehumanization of the meat industry are revealed to be intolerable and attempts to justify them using arguments of the protection of “freedom” are bankrupt.

With empathy, both our democratic and our economic systems become communal systems, and no longer a mass of competing individuals acting in their personal self-interest.

By Luis Flores, National News Editor

James Williams breaks down how Ron Paul helped his family and puts to rest the idea that libertarians aren’t compassionate or that Ron Paul is a racist. 

The scientists believe that yawning is contagious is a sign people are very interested in your thoughts and feelings of the listener or the person who is nearby.

These results obtained by Italian researchers who studied more than 100 men and women from four continents when leaving work, eat in restaurants, and sit in the waiting room. When one of the volunteers yawned, the researchers noted whether anyone within a radius of 10 feet are infected, which evaporate in the next three minutes.

by Achiee

 The Left endlessly trumpets its "empathy." President Obama, for example, has said that what he looks for in his judges is "the depth and breadth of one's empathy." As he told his pro-abortion pals at Planned Parenthood, "we need somebody who's got the heart – the empathy – to recognize what it's like to be a young teenage mom." Empathy, empathy, empathy: You barely heard the word outside clinical circles until the liberals decided it was one of those accessories no self-proclaimed caring progressive should be without.

Indeed, flaunting their empathy is what got Eugene Robinson and many others their Pulitzers – Robinson describes his newspaper column as "a license to feel." Yet he's entirely incapable of imagining how it must feel for a parent to experience within the same day both new life and death – or even to understand that the inability to imagine being in that situation ought to prompt a little circumspection.

The Left's much-vaunted powers of empathy routinely fail when confronted by those who do not agree with them politically.

What we consider moral behavior can be motivated by religious beliefs, an inherited set of values, empathy and enlightened self-interest.

I believe two other factors lead to “moral” behavior: empathy and enlightened self-interest. First of all, I believe that the capacity to feel what others are feeling, to put yourself in their shoes and emotionally identify with them, is the basis of much behavior sanctioned by moral codes. For me, and I suspect for a great many people, it’s more than a capacity; it’s an inclination, something that happens automatically, whether or not I intend to empathize.

Since humans are a social species and function best in groups rather than in isolation, it makes sense that we can empathize: it improves communication and promotes social cohesion. To be “moral” in this light is to behave in ways that benefit the family/group/tribe/species as a whole, rather than simply gratifying individual desires without regard to the feelings or needs of anyone else.

Can you tell at first glance if someone is likely to be a good partner or parent?

The genetic variation affects the receptor for oxytocin, often referred to as the “love hormone” or “cuddle chemical” because it plays a role in social bonding, trust, empathy and generosity. Levels of oxytocin increase during orgasm and childbirth, and it helps the formation of bonds between friends, lovers, and parents and children.

Research has shown that people with two G variants of the gene are more empathetic and “prosocial,” showing more compassion, cooperation and positive emotion. In contrast, those with the at least one A version of the gene tend to be less empathetic, may have worse mental health and are more likely to be autistic.

by Maia Szalavitz