Empathy – Caring for others is good for you

Editor's note: This article is a reprint. It was originally published on September 21, 2017.

Empathy, or the ability to think from another person’s perspective and understand their feelings and perspectives, is a personality trait that can benefit society and individuals in many ways. For example, empathy training has been shown to reduce stress levels in medical students who have intense emotional encounters with patients.^One

While many parents try to instill empathy in their children, a growing body of research suggests that empathy has deep neurological roots in humans.

One of the first signs that empathy can be imprinted on all of us occurred in 1848, when a foreman named Phineas Gage, working on a railroad construction project, had an accident in which an iron bar penetrated his skull. He survived, but his personality changed significantly. His friends, family, and doctors described him as rude and inconsiderate after the accident.²

Neurological aspects of empathy

The term empathy did not appear until 60 years after Gage's accident, but what the accident essentially took from the director was the ability to feel empathy. In 1994, researchers were able to recreate the accident and see what effect it had on his brain by taking measurements from Gage's skull and using modern neuroimaging techniques.

“The damage affected both the left and right prefrontal cortex, resulting in a pattern of deficits in rational decision-making and emotional processing that has been identified in Gage's modern counterparts,” the researchers concluded.^three

The injury was found to have occurred in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vMPFC), one of 10 brain regions known to be involved in empathy. In his book, “The Zero Degrees of Empathy,” Simon Baron-Cohen, a clinical psychologist and professor of developmental psychology at the University of Cambridge in the U.K., explains the complex neurological basis of empathy, revealing the many ways the brain helps us care for others.⁴

• The medial prefrontal cortex is associated with social cognition, which allows people to become part of social groups and process information about other people.⁵
• The inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) may be involved in recognizing facial emotions.⁶
• More activity in the IFG when people view emotional expressions is associated with higher scores on an empathy scale.⁷
• The amygdala is also involved in emotions, particularly the ability to recognize fear in someone's face.⁸
• When you feel pain or see someone else in pain, neurons in the cACC (caudal anterior cingulate cortex) 'light up'.⁹

Humans also have “mirror neurons,” which, as Psychology Today explains, “respond to and reproduce the emotions expressed by another person.”¹⁰ Deficiencies in mirror neuron receptors have been suggested to explain narcissism and neurotic behavior and thinking.¹¹

Despite this knowledge, Baron-Cohen told Medical News Today, “We still know very little about individual differences in empathy. Unraveling these puzzles will require elegant experimental studies.”¹²

Why Practicing Empathy Is Beneficial

Beyond stress relief, why is empathy so important? Chad Fowler, CTO of 6Wunderkinder, creator of the Wunderlist mobile app, shares why he believes empathy is the most important skill:¹³

However, people tend to empathize most with those they perceive as most vulnerable. In one study, empathic feelings were higher with children, puppies, and adult dogs than with adult men.¹⁴

However, there is good reason to rethink how we compartmentalize empathic emotions, because empathic emotions have the potential to produce positive outcomes in an infinite number of scenarios. For example, between dentists and patients, empathy improved communication and the dental treatment experience for both the patient and the therapist.¹⁵

Researchers have found that empathy is positively associated with treatment adherence, patient satisfaction, and reduced dental anxiety, and it seems to be a common emotion among health care professionals. For adolescents, empathy can also be linked to future success, according to licensed professional counselor Ugo Uche.¹⁶

“Empathetic adolescents tend to be more purposeful and intentional about their academic success, not because they want to get good grades, but because their goal in most subjects is to understand the content and use it as a tool to increase their knowledge…

Highly empathetic teens are much better at embracing failure, because their work involves little ego, and disappointing setbacks are not seen as failures, but rather as learning experiences about approaches that are not appropriate for the current task.”

Different types of empathy

Empathy comes in three different types, and we have varying levels of each type, which together affect our personal and professional lives. Ronald E. Riggio, Ph.D., professor of leadership and organizational psychology at Claremont McKenna College and former director of the Kravis Leadership Institute, briefly explains each type.¹⁷

It is common for a person to be high in one type of empathy and low in another, and the effects vary. Riggio described a study in which hospice nurses performed better when they had empathic concern, but performed worse when they experienced personal distress.

“We hypothesized that if hospice nurses sensed the patient’s pain (and the family’s distress), they would be less likely to provide comfort to the patient and family, because they would have emotions to process, too,” Riggio wrote.¹⁸

By tuning in to your own empathy skills, you can make a mental note of when you need to show more empathic concern instead of personal distress, and vice versa. Psychologist Daniel Goleman (the man behind the theory of emotional intelligence) says that having all three types of empathy is important for strengthening relationships.¹⁹

You can learn to be more empathetic

Since we are all hardwired to feel empathy, we can train ourselves to be more empathetic, even with strangers. Lack of empathy is the cause of many human conflicts, especially those that occur between people of different nationalities and cultures. However, a study from the University of Zurich found that just a few positive experiences with a stranger can increase the empathic brain response toward that person.

Participants were divided into two groups (in-group members and out-group members) and received a shock to the back of their hands. Other study participants had the option of paying money to help someone else avoid a painful experience.²⁰ When people received help from a stranger, their brain responses to empathy for that person increased. According to the researchers, “(S)urprisingly few positive learning experiences are enough to increase empathy.”²¹

In addition to trying to share positive experiences with those around you, you can also develop empathy by simply listening carefully when people talk.

This includes waiting for the other person to finish speaking before formulating a response and responding, and asking follow-up questions after considering the motivations behind the speaker's words to better understand the context of the conversation.²² Here are some other steps you can take to increase your empathy:

• Consider the ongoing disagreement If you are arguing with a family member, friend, or coworker, imagine the argument from their perspective and recognize whether they have valid arguments, good intentions, or positive motivations that you may have missed before.
• Read more novels — Reading literary fiction has been shown to improve a skill called theory of mind, which is the ability to understand the mental states of others and increase empathy.²³
• Watch and wonder — Fowler recommends an activity he calls “observing and wondering,” which can be done virtually anywhere.²⁴

“Put your phone down. Instead of checking Twitter or reading an article when you're waiting for a train or stuck in traffic, look around at the people around you and imagine who they are, what they're thinking and feeling, where they're going. Frustrated? Happy? Singing? Looking at their phones? Do they live here or are they from out of town? Are they having a good day? Actually wonder and care.”

If you’re not sure when to use empathy, Dr. Guy Winch suggests that the best times to use empathy are when you want to understand someone better, when you’re in an unproductive argument with someone, when you want to let go of anger, or when you want to better connect with the feelings of a loved one. Empathy also comes into play when you need to complain effectively.

“Empathy comes more naturally to some people than to others,” says Winch. “But when we take the time to truly picture who the other person is, to imagine ourselves in their shoes, we gain valuable insights and can connect more deeply with those around us.”²⁵