{"id":155,"date":"2021-02-27T03:28:12","date_gmt":"2021-02-27T03:28:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.harvard.edu\/socialconnection\/?p=155"},"modified":"2021-02-27T03:28:12","modified_gmt":"2021-02-27T03:28:12","slug":"pandempathy-processing-the-emotions-of-a-pandemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/socialconnection\/2021\/02\/27\/pandempathy-processing-the-emotions-of-a-pandemic\/","title":{"rendered":"Pand(empathy): Processing the Emotions of a Pandemic"},"content":{"rendered":"

[Kara]<\/span><\/p>\n

Less than a week after being kicked out of my college dorm and moving back home, there I stood in the middle of my childhood room\u2014a disheveled, half-painted (both the walls and, due to my frantic painting style, myself) mess as I tried to prepare my personal space for what seemed to be a stay-at-home order with an undetermined end. As I took a needed break from painting some time past midnight, I grabbed my phone to look at the most recent news of a disease still new to me. The New York Times had reported an estimated 4,043 new cases of the Coronavirus and 50 new deaths on that day, March 19<\/span>th<\/span> (New York Times). I fell onto my bed in the middle of my room and began reading the stories of those families who lost their loved ones so unexpectedly. As I read, I began to feel the pain of their stories, the fear of the workers who sacrificed their own health to try to save them, and the hopelessness of all the others like me who were reading that the \u201cdarkest days of the disease are ahead.\u201d Needless to say, I felt utterly defeated beyond myself.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nearly a year later and the United States has seen over half a million total deaths and days where the number of daily new cases have reached well above 300,000. However, as the updates came with skyrocketing numbers and increasing rates, I no longer felt defeated the same way that I had in mid-March. The numbers became normal, and I began to wonder\u2014how could I, along with everyone else digesting new tragedy in a constantly changing pandemic, have had such a dramatic change in heart?<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The collapse of compassion is the decrease in empathetic response that we experience as the number of people suffering increases. Some studies have supported the hypothesis that this decrease in affect plateaus as the number of individuals increases, creating a \u201cpsychological numbing\u201d effect (Fetherstonhaugh, Sandlovic, Johnson, and Friedrich, 1997), while others have argued that the decrease in affect continues to decrease as the number of suffering individuals increases. In the case of the pandemic, it seems the latter is more aligned with my personal experience\u2014a \u201cdehumanization\u201d possibly due to the costliness of mentally-draining empathy in a pandemic that has now persisted for a year (Cameron, Harris, & Payne, 2015).<\/span><\/p>\n

The sources of compassion collapse, however, are debated. Theory about the conceptual representation of groups tends to support a \u201ctragedy versus statistic\u201d mentality; individuals require more attention put into perspective taking and therefore more effectively trigger an affective response compared to groups (Hamilton and Sherman, 1996). However, in a study conducted by Cameron and Payne (2011), experiments found initial evidence supporting an alternative theory that compassion collapse is driven by motivated emotion regulation, such as a motive to prevent the experience of overwhelming levels of emotion.<\/span><\/p>\n

A shared theme between these hypotheses seems to be that the costliness of empathy\u2014whether it be in the processing of perspectives or in the emotion-sharing capacity it requires\u2014moderates our ability to empathize with large numbers of people. Recognizing our own collapse of compassion in a pandemic makes us, ironically, recognize the emotionally incomprehensible amount of suffering our society has undergone. Recognition of our limitations to empathize may in turn provide forgiveness for ourselves in navigating the collective long-term effects of an emotionally draining and traumatic year.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[Tyler]<\/span><\/p>\n

I used to watch the news obsessively in March and April and feel terribly for the people who were getting infected and dying from COVID-19 and for the healthcare workers who were risking their lives taking care of them. It was heartbreaking to hear the updates, but I felt like it was the only possible response. How could I be happy in a time like this? As the months went on, I got numb to the news and felt exhausted just thinking about COVID. Since then, I have been experiencing what many people call pandemic fatigue. Empathy involves both the ability to understand another\u2019s thoughts, feelings and perspective as well as sharing in the emotions of others (de Waal, 2008). One of the many reasons for fatigue is the difficulty of sharing in the feelings of another person let alone the over 500,000 people we have lost and so many more who have suffered in ways both big and small.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Although empathy can be overwhelming, it can lead to prosocial behaviors such as cooperation and altruism (de Waal, 2008). As we have all witnessed over the past year, cooperation is an essential component of getting through an infectious pandemic. Cooperation is needed to follow the health guidelines that keep everyone safe. Cooperation is needed to form mutual aid groups to assist people struggling. It makes sense, then, that empathy might impact the way a group of people or an entire country responds to a pandemic. We have also seen over the past year that different countries have responded differently in the face of this pandemic. Could differences in empathy play a role in explaining the differences in people\u2019s willingness to cooperate for the greater good?<\/span><\/p>\n

Aival-Naveh, Rothschild-Yakar, and Kurman (2019) did a review of literature that analyzes empathy differences across cultures. The studies divided cultures into either collectivistic, more concerned with others than the self, or individualistic, more concerned with the self than others. By pure definition, it seems that collectivistic cultures would be more empathetic, but the results were more complicated than that. Several brain imaging studies where participants were exposed to the physical and social pain of others supported the finding that collectivistic cultures have higher empathy (Aival-Naveh, Rothschild-Yakar, and Kurman, 2019). Additionally, studies that looked at cognitive empathy or perspective taking consistently found that participants from collectivistic countries were better able to consider another\u2019s perspective than participants from individualistic countries (Aival-Naveh, Rothschild-Yakar, and Kurman, 2019).<\/span><\/p>\n

One study conducted across 63 countries supported these findings and found that countries with higher empathy also had higher levels of collectivism (Chopik, O\u2019Brien, and Konrath, 2017). However, these data were self-reported, which calls into question the reliability of the empathy rating. It\u2019s possible that people from collectivistic countries see themselves as more empathetic and thus rate themselves as more empathetic. Furthermore, other self-reported surveys found the opposite: that people from individualistic countries had higher empathy than people from collectivist countries (Aival-Naveh, Rothschild-Yakar, and Kurman, 2019). The results are far from definitive but intriguing nonetheless. Future research might directly compare individual countries\u2019 pandemic numbers with their ability to empathize.<\/span><\/p>\n

Even with its limitations considered, empathy can be an incredibly powerful tool for navigating the pandemic. Understanding our ability to empathize with a group is an integral part of a pandemic that has affected everyone, and acknowledging our limits can help us know not to give up even when the costs of empathy become overwhelming.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

References<\/b><\/p>\n

Aival-Naveh E., Rothschild\u2010 Yakar L., Kurman J. (2019). Keeping culture in mind: A systematic review and initial conceptualization of mentalizing from a cross\u2010cultural perspective. <\/span>Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>26<\/span><\/i>(4), 1-25. https:\/\/doi. org\/10.1111\/cpsp.12300<\/span><\/p>\n

Cameron, C. D., & Payne, B. K. (2011). Escaping affect: How motivated emotion regulation creates insensitivity to mass suffering. <\/span>Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 100<\/span><\/i>(1), 1\u201315. <\/span>https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1037\/a0021643<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Chopik, W. J., O\u2019Brien, E., Konrath, S. H. (2017). Differences in Empathic Concern and Perspective Taking Across 63 Countries. <\/span>Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 48<\/span><\/i>(1),<\/span> 23-28. <\/span>https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1177\/0022022116673910<\/span><\/p>\n

Coronavirus in the US: Latest Map and Case Count. <\/span><\/i>The New York Times. <\/span>https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2020\/us\/coronavirus-us-cases.html<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

De Waal, F. B. M. (2008). Putting the Altruism Back Into Altruism: The Evolution of Empathy. <\/span>Annual Review of Psychology<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>59<\/span><\/i>, 279-300.<\/span><\/p>\n

Fetherstonhaugh, D., Slovic, P., Johnson, S. M., & Friedrich, J. (1997). Insensitivity to the value of human life: A study of psychophysical numbing. <\/span>Journal of Risk and Uncertainty<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>14, <\/span><\/i>283-300.<\/span><\/p>\n

Hamilton, D. L., and Sherman, S. J. (1996). Perceiving persons and groups. <\/span>Psychological Review<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>103, <\/span><\/i>336-355.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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[Kara] Less than a week after being kicked out of my college dorm and moving back home, there I stood in the middle of my childhood room\u2014a disheveled, half-painted (both the walls and, due to my frantic painting style, myself) mess as I tried to prepare my personal space for what seemed to be a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9936,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/socialconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/socialconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/socialconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/socialconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9936"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/socialconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/socialconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":158,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/socialconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155\/revisions\/158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/socialconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/socialconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/socialconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}