Andrea: Friends<\/b><\/p>\n
\u201cfyi i know we got lunch yesterday so i wanted to lyk [let you know] i tested positive today\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n \u201cDid y\u2019all know [friend] tested positive too?\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n \u201cyoooo it finally happened i tested positive too :\/\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n In the last week, as COVID cases around Harvard rise, the texts I receive directly or in group chats with friends have looked like some variation of the above. Yet after an initial expression of concern, it seems that getting sick has become a bonding moment, a shared experience as my sick friends make their own group chats (with names such as \u201ccovid cuties\u201d)\u00a0 and talk about what they\u2019re up to in quarantine. In times of stress, it is fascinating how \u201csuffering together\u201d can actually inspire joy amongst friends\u2014a phenomenon we have thanks to empathy.<\/span><\/p>\n When we think of empathy, the first thing that often comes to mind is an elementary-school definition of \u201cputting yourself in someone else\u2019s shoes\u201d. As simple as this is, however, it provides a helpful heuristic on what it actually refers to: \u201cthe capacity to be (a) affected by the emotional state of another, (b) assess the reasons for the other\u2019s state, and (c) identify with the other, adopting his or her perspective\u201d (De Waal, 2008). While this may sound complicated, the underlying idea is the same\u2014we empathize when we consider the situations those around us are facing and feel the same emotional impact that they do.<\/span><\/p>\n Thinking back to our lecture that broke down empathy into mentalization, imitation, and origin monitoring, it\u2019s likely to no one\u2019s surprise that empathy seems much easier to practice when it\u2019s with our friends. After all, these are people we <\/span>want<\/span><\/i> to like anyway, and by that logic, that would entail we try our best to engage in these sorts of pro-social behavior. Mentalizing comes much easier when we have an idea of how our friends think, or what they think about, and imitation is more natural given that it is also more practiced with the friends we spend time with.<\/span><\/p>\n It is interesting to note, then, that when it comes to our friends, it may seem like we\u2019re already \u201cin\u201d\u2014but it is the times when we feel left out that our empathy-attuned behavior shines through. This pattern is remarkable in the context of friends: given that these are people you care about, you have a point of contrast for what being \u201cin\u201d the group <\/span>shouldn\u2019t<\/span><\/i> feel like. Motivated by this, you\u2019d have a higher desire for social connection, and this is exactly what is shown in the studies by Pickett et al. (2004): one key finding was that individual differences in the need to belong was positively correlated with accuracy in detecting vocal tone and facial emotion, both of which are critical for understanding other human beings and thus establishing a real bond.<\/span><\/p>\n Students at Harvard can unite over many shared experiences: the stress of blocking and nerves of Housing Day, the joy of winning at Harvard-Yale, the sadness when we were asked to leave campus in March 2020. It is with our friends in particular, however, that we want to put in the extra effort to figure out what they are feeling and then in turn, feel with them. It is part of our natural instinct to preserve these relationships and our sense of belonging within social groups. More personally, it is thanks to empathic friends that I always have someone to celebrate with, rant to, or cry on their shoulder. Empathy makes friendship a truly beautiful thing.<\/span><\/p>\n Georgia: Strangers<\/b><\/p>\n While it may seem natural that we have an abundance of empathy for our friends and even readily meet acquaintances with empathy, how do strangers fit in?<\/span><\/p>\n With the Russian invasion of Ukraine still raging, many of us have been feeling deep empathy for Ukrainians watching their homes burnt to the ground, family members go off to battle, and loved ones flee their nation. Seeing videos and reading articles about devastation thousands of miles away from us makes us feel deep sorrow, pain, or even anger on behalf of Ukrainians. But, while it certainly serves us to feel empathy for those close to us, with whom we feel a stronger need to belong and interact with regularly (Pickett, Gardner, & Knowles, 2004), why should we feel this way towards total strangers? Moreover, some research indicates that we may have developed a mechanism for <\/span>schadenfreude<\/span><\/i>, a feeling of pleasure in the misfortunes of others, particularly when they are a member of a rival-outgroup (Cikara, Botvinick, & Fiske, 2011).<\/span><\/p>\n De Waal (2008) argues that this form of empathy may be the evolutionary mechanism for altruism, a selfless concern for others and their well-being. Intuitively, this makes sense. For us to be able to work together in larger groups, we need to be able to cooperate with people who we might not know well, and empathy serves as a bridge allowing us to better understand others. Even today, empathizing with people you will never meet helps inspire donations to hurricane relief, humanitarian aid, and food pantry donations, collective efforts that help make our society better by uplifting people that could not be accomplished without empathy motivating individual actions. Moreover, we do not expect these acts of goodwill to ever directly benefit us.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n But if it serves humankind to feel empathy for strangers then why don\u2019t we feel empathetic all the time? For one, we have a finite amount of cognitive resources, and feeling empathetic for each starving child in the world all the time would absolutely overwhelm us to the extent that we would never be able to get anything done. Thus, we often protect ourselves from those overwhelmingly negative feelings by either refusing to engage with bad news behalling other people altogether (much like closing your eyes when someone\u2019s about to be stabbed in a movie) or even by engaging in dehumanization. And as the number of people a tragedy affects gets larger, the amount of empathy we have for the people affected dwindles. It doesn\u2019t make us horrible people to not be downtrodden about all the horrible things going on around the world all the time, it\u2019s just our way of protecting ourselves from a kind of empathy burnout.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Politicians and journalists surely know this, which is why they bring our attention to <\/span>individuals<\/span><\/i> rather than statistics. Presented with the story of one Californian who lost everything in the wildfires last year we may be inspired to donate or feel compelled to lobby for better preventative measures. Presented with massive statistics, we\u2019ll often change the channel.<\/span><\/p>\n Julia: Fictional characters<\/b><\/p>\n Can we feel empathy for fictional characters? I recall a time quite recently where I decided to watch the newest version of <\/span>Little Women<\/span><\/i> on a flight and upon reaching a certain scene in the film (I won\u2019t give any spoilers) had to control the urge to sob, but nonetheless I was crying. After getting some concerned looks from the stranger next to me, I tried to remind myself that it was just a movie, however I could not help but feel the loss that all these fictional characters were feeling. This example and the countless other times I have felt embarrassed for a character in a TV show or felt happy for a character in a book have made me curious about whether these instances are examples of empathy.<\/span><\/p>\n Despite fictional characters essentially being made up strangers with no relation to us, we perceive these characters to be real human beings and likely can still experience their state as our own. Zaki (2014) breaks down the components of empathy into: experience sharing which can describe our tendency to take on the affective state of another, mentalizing which describes our ability to infer how another person would think or feel in a certain situation, and mind perception. If we can \u201cturn up\u201d or \u201cturn down\u201d these empathetic processes, we may be more inclined to mentalize while watching a film or reading a book because we want to understand the internal state of the characters (Zaki, 2014). We discuss our ability to empathize with others and whether or not this is something we have control over. De Waal (2008) suggests that humans have such little control over empathic activation, and that is why one would shut their eyes during a movie when you anticipate that something bad is about to happen. We do not want to feel the terror that character is feeling, despite knowing that it is a fictional depiction.<\/span><\/p>\n In this week\u2019s lecturette, we learned that social group membership is a reason we may be motivated to feel more or less empathy for an individual. The intergroup empathy bias would suggest that we would empathize more with in-group members compared to out-group members (Cikara et al., 2o14). In a fictional world there still remain in-groups and out-groups. One may be more likely to empathize with a character that they share similarities with. Think of the most hated evil characters, like Joffrey from <\/span>Game of Thrones <\/span><\/i>or Voldemort from <\/span>Harry Potter<\/span><\/i>. Those are characters that we are likely to perceive as out-group and we typically experience pleasure from their pain. However, some villains become more complex when writers attempt to humanize these characters by giving backstory to explain where their actions and beliefs come from. It seems that writers have the power to decide who the audience will empathize with by the amount that you are able to mentalize a character and the amount of emotion sharing a character portrays, in addition to whether this character is considered in-group or out-group.<\/span><\/p>\n Empathy is an incredibly powerful tool to unite us with friends, strangers, and even fictional characters. It motivates us to contribute to the common good and inspires us to treat others with more kindness than we otherwise might. However, empathy is not ubiquitous, as wonderfully automatic as it may be our minds often protect us from fully empathizing with everyone else. It\u2019s up to us to tread the line between too much empathy and not enough as we try to be the best versions of ourselves we can.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n References<\/b><\/p>\n Cikara, M., Botvinick, M. M., & Fiske, S. T. (2011). Us versus them: Social identity shapes neural responses to intergroup competition and harm. <\/span>Psychological Science, 22<\/span><\/i>(3), 306-313.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n Cikara, M., Bruneau, E., Van Bavel, J. J., & Saxe, R. (2014). Their pain gives us pleasure: How intergroup dynamics shape empathic failures and counter-empathic responses. <\/span>Journal of Experimental Social Psychology<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>55<\/span><\/i>, 110\u2013125.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n