Empathy
One definition of empathy as an ability to see the logic of somebody else's perspective without embracing it.
According to another definition, empathy can be cognitive and emotional. Most people can experience both, and in fact do in some combination. Emotional empathy is when we feel somebody's emotion without fully comprehending it (somebody is crying and we feel sad). Cognitive empathy is when we understand why somebody feels a certain way (the logic of their perspective) without necessarily feeling the same emotion.
If a person A tells us: "I feel this way" but we don't feel the same way we them, an empathic response would be to try recalling when we were in a situation similar to what the person A is in now and recalling the feeling we felt. As a side note, Stanislavsky's method is based on the same idea as well.
Empathy towards others vs. self-empathy
Five-surprising facts about empathy: https://medium.com/@elizavetafriesem/five-surprising-facts-about-empathy-9246b39687b6
Empathy is not an easy problem-free skill, an ideal solution to all of the world's problem. I believe in the importance of empathy, but I also believe that it needs to be practiced correctly in order to be of any help.
Counterintuitively, our innate empathy can hurt others. Sometimes when we feel another person's pain, we turn our empathy off without realizing it in order to avoid the discomfort that empathy creates in us. This can explain desensitization (like growing thicker skin on soles of our feel if we walk barefoot a lot), a victim-blaming, which can be explained through just world theories.
People who experience traumatic events as children are more empathetic as adults: https://www.psypost.org/2018/11/people-who-experience-traumatic-events-as-children-are-more-empathetic-as-adults-52640
Using empathy is a matter of one's own self-preservation. When we fail to use empathy in a conflict situation, the conflict may get out of control.
We all think empathy is important
But many people think that empathy should be only practiced towards people who deserve empathy
If we are mad at somebody, we usually don’t think they deserve our empathy
Empathy can be very difficult to practice when we don’t think we should waste our time practicing it
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According to another definition, empathy can be cognitive and emotional. Most people can experience both, and in fact do in some combination. Emotional empathy is when we feel somebody's emotion without fully comprehending it (somebody is crying and we feel sad). Cognitive empathy is when we understand why somebody feels a certain way (the logic of their perspective) without necessarily feeling the same emotion.
If a person A tells us: "I feel this way" but we don't feel the same way we them, an empathic response would be to try recalling when we were in a situation similar to what the person A is in now and recalling the feeling we felt. As a side note, Stanislavsky's method is based on the same idea as well.
Empathy towards others vs. self-empathy
Five-surprising facts about empathy: https://medium.com/@elizavetafriesem/five-surprising-facts-about-empathy-9246b39687b6
Empathy is not an easy problem-free skill, an ideal solution to all of the world's problem. I believe in the importance of empathy, but I also believe that it needs to be practiced correctly in order to be of any help.
Counterintuitively, our innate empathy can hurt others. Sometimes when we feel another person's pain, we turn our empathy off without realizing it in order to avoid the discomfort that empathy creates in us. This can explain desensitization (like growing thicker skin on soles of our feel if we walk barefoot a lot), a victim-blaming, which can be explained through just world theories.
People who experience traumatic events as children are more empathetic as adults: https://www.psypost.org/2018/11/people-who-experience-traumatic-events-as-children-are-more-empathetic-as-adults-52640
Using empathy is a matter of one's own self-preservation. When we fail to use empathy in a conflict situation, the conflict may get out of control.
We all think empathy is important
But many people think that empathy should be only practiced towards people who deserve empathy
If we are mad at somebody, we usually don’t think they deserve our empathy
Empathy can be very difficult to practice when we don’t think we should waste our time practicing it
PAGE IN PROGRESS
About this project: Start page
