In an unpleasant, difficult or dramatic situation, we expect help and sympathy from others. And above all from those who are familiar with such tests. But, oddly enough, it is precisely such people who are less willing to share our experiences.
The word “empathy” has gained popularity relatively recently. It means the ability to share with another person his experiences, to understand – sometimes even without words – his emotional state and already by this to provide support. At the same time, despite the purely personal and even intimate nature of this very interaction between two people, empathy is now increasingly being adopted by big business. Apple, for example, suggests including empathy exercises in employee training, and business magazine Forbes calls it an “invaluable quality.”.
This should not be surprising, given, for example, the results of the Gallup State of the American Workplace study.1 According to his data, up to 70% of workers in the US, to put it mildly, are not enthusiastic about their work. And in such a situation, an empathetic boss, manager or colleague is one of the main incentives to come to work every day and do it right.
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Of course, the interest of big business has also affected empathy research: there are a lot of them today. However, the results are often unexpected. There is no other way to name, for example, the data obtained by psychologists at Northwestern University (USA), who summarized the results of a series of five of their own studies on empathy.2
So, in one of the studies, the subjects – you can’t pick a better word here – were participants in a massive winter swim in Lake Michigan. They were given to read the story of a man named Pat, who was also going to dive into the hole, but at the last moment refused, afraid of the cold. Some participants were allowed to read this story before the swim, and others after. And here’s what’s interesting: those who read Pat’s story before diving into the water reacted to the hero with much more understanding and sympathy than those who read it after they got out of the water.
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No less significant is another study, the participants of which were asked to express their attitude towards a teenager who became a victim of bullying – harassment by classmates. The opinions of the respondents were divided. Some sincerely worried about the teenager and wished him good luck. Others called him a spineless weakling, unable to cope with pressure and stand up for himself. And now, attention, the question is: guess which of the participants in the study was himself bullied during his school years? You probably already guessed it: these are just those who did not sympathize with the unfortunate teenager at all.
The researchers offer two explanations for this pattern. The first is that we tend to repress negative experiences. For this reason, we do not remember – in any case, we do not remember in detail – how difficult it was for us to overcome. But we remember the fact of this overcoming very well – and this is just the second explanation: since we ourselves could, why can’t others?! The combination of such feelings, according to psychologists, leads to a decrease in empathy and provokes a negative attitude towards people who find themselves in difficult circumstances, familiar to us firsthand.
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Psychologists point out that these findings can be of practical use to many of us. They believe that we too often tend to look for empathy in the wrong people to show it. To prove this clearly, the authors also conducted a survey among parents. They were asked to decide which teacher they would place their child in if they faced the threat of bullying: to the one who himself went through bullying as a child, or to the one who never faced it? Of course, the vast majority of parents chose the first option. However, many social programs are guided by the same logic. For example, people who have themselves suffered from alcohol addiction in the past are often involved in the rehabilitation of alcoholics. It is possible that this approach will have to be reconsidered. As well as the idea of empathic managers, bosses and colleagues who will support you if something doesn’t work out for you – they also went through it. Maybe it’s better to choose those who succeeded from the very beginning?
1 Learn more at gallup.com
2 R. Ruttan et al. «Having “been there” doesn’t mean I care: When prior experience reduces compassion for emotional distress». Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol. 108(4), April 2015.