The Limits of Empathy
January 21, 2018 9:15 AM Subscribe
People who study empathy have a thousand different terms and semantic distinctions when it comes to what empathy is and what forms it can take. “There are nearly as many definitions of empathy as there are scientists who study this phenomenon,” writes Stanford psychologist Jamil Zaki. But most people agree that there is a distinction between empathy in the form of listening, and trying to understand someone’s experience—what many researchers call “empathic concern”—and empathy that takes the form of actually trying to take that experience on yourself—something called “personal distress.” (via RPS)
For years I was sure I understood the difference between sympathy and empathy, and that empathy was superior.
Now I barely get the difference, and furthermore have read critiques of empathy as inserting one's own self into someone else's life, which only helps you understand your own experience, not theirs. I am completely befuddled and try not to think about it anymore, honestly.
This article isn't really helping.
posted by allthinky at 3:19 PM on January 21, 2018 [3 favorites]
Now I barely get the difference, and furthermore have read critiques of empathy as inserting one's own self into someone else's life, which only helps you understand your own experience, not theirs. I am completely befuddled and try not to think about it anymore, honestly.
This article isn't really helping.
posted by allthinky at 3:19 PM on January 21, 2018 [3 favorites]
The bit suggesting that jurors could use VR to relive the experience of both defendant and plaintiff was a bit terrifying. One of the points of adjudication is for a decision to be made by people with a degree of objectivity, who aren't so immersed in the experience as one of the aggrieved parties that they are able to find a resolution otherwise unavailable. I guess it might not matter as much in cases where the accused is pleading guilty, but where there's any dispute over what happened, making jury and/or judge experience the situation seems like a great way to insert personal bias and lack of objectivity back into the proceedings.
posted by Athanassiel at 3:27 PM on January 21, 2018 [6 favorites]
posted by Athanassiel at 3:27 PM on January 21, 2018 [6 favorites]
Ok so I'm not the only one. It read like abuse tourism. That or the artists who put this together are not quite as dialed in as they think.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 4:10 PM on January 21, 2018 [7 favorites]
posted by St. Peepsburg at 4:10 PM on January 21, 2018 [7 favorites]
As it happens, the Black Mirror episode "Black Museum" addresses some implications of this kind of thing.
posted by rhizome at 4:19 PM on January 21, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by rhizome at 4:19 PM on January 21, 2018 [2 favorites]
It is a little distressing to even read this article, which is basically a warning that using VR to help people empathize with the traumatized--certainly an idea rooted in good intentions--can instead backfire by traumatizing those who put on the goggles.
I don't think that's the central point of the article, although it is, of course, a legitimate and important concern.
Rather, I think the point is that when empathy involves literally going through what someone else is going through, there's basically no chance that it will turn out well. Two scenarios are possible:
One, you go through it. And having gone through it, you think, 'man, that actually wasn't so bad.' Remember that a common treatment for phobias and anxiety is to expose yourself to anxiety and phobia triggers. Remember that often some of the most vehement opposition to 'handouts' and the like come from those who who go through shitty life circumstances, successfully manage to overcome them, and believe that therefore all people can and should overcome it. Here's an elegant example of how this happens, from a study I'm surprised wasn't included in this article because it PERFECTLY describes the issue here:
"When I first heard about an online game meant to increase empathy for the poor by showing players what it’s like to live in poverty, I [a researcher] was excited... I decided to test the game’s effect on people’s attitudes and beliefs about the poor by comparing the effect of playing it to playing a control game. To conduct my study, I recruited 54 American undergraduates... After I analyzed the results from this study, I was dismayed to find that playing the game had no effect on positive feelings toward the poor. In fact, the game had a negative effect on attitudes among certain participants—including some people who were sympathetic to the poor to begin with.
What was missing from my initial appraisal of this game was an understanding of how the experience of playing a game differs from the experience of watching a film or reading a book. When I’m playing a game, I feel like I have complete control over my outcomes. I click on Door A instead of Door B, and I find a treasure chest full of jewels. I found that treasure because I choose Door A. This feeling of control over one’s outcomes is called personal agency. The belief that people in general have personal agency is a central component of the American ideology called meritocracy, and it’s highly correlated with anti-poor attitudes.
The strongest driver of dislike toward poor people is the belief that poverty is personally controllable—that is, the belief that being poor is a direct consequence of making bad life decisions (like choosing Door B in my example above). So it makes sense that people high in meritocracy beliefs would tend to dislike poor people— according to their view, poor people just aren’t trying hard enough. Given this relationship between beliefs about the controllability of poverty and anti-poor attitudes, any experience that promotes the belief that poverty is controllable will likely decrease positive attitudes toward the poor.....
The online game had no effect on attitudes because the empathy effects were cancelled out by the effects of feeling personal agency. Even more troubling is the fact that the game actually lead to more negative attitudes when the participants were low in meritocracy beliefs (and likely to feel positively toward the poor). Playing the game convinced them that poverty was personally controllable, turning their positivity into negativity."
Even if the empathy game functions 'correctly', that is people finish playing it and decide that [horrifying thing] is indeed just as or even more horrifying than they imagine, that's not necessarily a good thing! I found this passage particularly striking:
"What studies on these kinds of experiences have found is that after, say, putting on a blindfold and navigating a room without sight, people do feel more warmly towards blind people. They feel more empathetic towards them. But they also develop negative stereotypes to go along with this warm feeling. In one study, published in 2014 in the journal Social Psychology and Personality Science, participants who were asked to step into the shoes of a blind person by putting on a blindfold came out of the experiment with the belief that blind people are incapable of holding jobs or living alone, and that their lives are defined by misery. The subjects are so focused on their own struggles with trying to navigate that they assume that every blind person spends his or her days wallowing in this same state of frustration and confusion.
The authors of the 2014 study concluded that such negative stereotypes outweighed any kind of empathic warmth that the simulation might have also generated. Blind people don’t need warmth, they need people to respect them as fully functional individuals."
In other words, empathy games in their most common form aren't just ineffective, they are usually outright counterproductive when it comes to improving people's attitudes towards others.
posted by perplexion at 6:05 PM on January 21, 2018 [17 favorites]
I don't think that's the central point of the article, although it is, of course, a legitimate and important concern.
Rather, I think the point is that when empathy involves literally going through what someone else is going through, there's basically no chance that it will turn out well. Two scenarios are possible:
One, you go through it. And having gone through it, you think, 'man, that actually wasn't so bad.' Remember that a common treatment for phobias and anxiety is to expose yourself to anxiety and phobia triggers. Remember that often some of the most vehement opposition to 'handouts' and the like come from those who who go through shitty life circumstances, successfully manage to overcome them, and believe that therefore all people can and should overcome it. Here's an elegant example of how this happens, from a study I'm surprised wasn't included in this article because it PERFECTLY describes the issue here:
"When I first heard about an online game meant to increase empathy for the poor by showing players what it’s like to live in poverty, I [a researcher] was excited... I decided to test the game’s effect on people’s attitudes and beliefs about the poor by comparing the effect of playing it to playing a control game. To conduct my study, I recruited 54 American undergraduates... After I analyzed the results from this study, I was dismayed to find that playing the game had no effect on positive feelings toward the poor. In fact, the game had a negative effect on attitudes among certain participants—including some people who were sympathetic to the poor to begin with.
What was missing from my initial appraisal of this game was an understanding of how the experience of playing a game differs from the experience of watching a film or reading a book. When I’m playing a game, I feel like I have complete control over my outcomes. I click on Door A instead of Door B, and I find a treasure chest full of jewels. I found that treasure because I choose Door A. This feeling of control over one’s outcomes is called personal agency. The belief that people in general have personal agency is a central component of the American ideology called meritocracy, and it’s highly correlated with anti-poor attitudes.
The strongest driver of dislike toward poor people is the belief that poverty is personally controllable—that is, the belief that being poor is a direct consequence of making bad life decisions (like choosing Door B in my example above). So it makes sense that people high in meritocracy beliefs would tend to dislike poor people— according to their view, poor people just aren’t trying hard enough. Given this relationship between beliefs about the controllability of poverty and anti-poor attitudes, any experience that promotes the belief that poverty is controllable will likely decrease positive attitudes toward the poor.....
The online game had no effect on attitudes because the empathy effects were cancelled out by the effects of feeling personal agency. Even more troubling is the fact that the game actually lead to more negative attitudes when the participants were low in meritocracy beliefs (and likely to feel positively toward the poor). Playing the game convinced them that poverty was personally controllable, turning their positivity into negativity."
Even if the empathy game functions 'correctly', that is people finish playing it and decide that [horrifying thing] is indeed just as or even more horrifying than they imagine, that's not necessarily a good thing! I found this passage particularly striking:
"What studies on these kinds of experiences have found is that after, say, putting on a blindfold and navigating a room without sight, people do feel more warmly towards blind people. They feel more empathetic towards them. But they also develop negative stereotypes to go along with this warm feeling. In one study, published in 2014 in the journal Social Psychology and Personality Science, participants who were asked to step into the shoes of a blind person by putting on a blindfold came out of the experiment with the belief that blind people are incapable of holding jobs or living alone, and that their lives are defined by misery. The subjects are so focused on their own struggles with trying to navigate that they assume that every blind person spends his or her days wallowing in this same state of frustration and confusion.
The authors of the 2014 study concluded that such negative stereotypes outweighed any kind of empathic warmth that the simulation might have also generated. Blind people don’t need warmth, they need people to respect them as fully functional individuals."
In other words, empathy games in their most common form aren't just ineffective, they are usually outright counterproductive when it comes to improving people's attitudes towards others.
posted by perplexion at 6:05 PM on January 21, 2018 [17 favorites]
The problems with VR for empathy they are emphasizing is why most autistic adults did not like the idea of VR autism. Just like in the article the VR for blindness it makes people think their lives are necessary horrible so we [I'm autistic] need to be "cured" at any cost.
participants who were asked to step into the shoes of a blind person by putting on a blindfold came out of the experiment with the belief that blind people are incapable of holding jobs or living alone, and that their lives are defined by misery. The subjects are so focused on their own struggles with trying to navigate that they assume that every blind person spends his or her days wallowing in this same state of frustration and confusion.
That we need to be pitied, thus stereotyping our lives as if we can never function like an adult just living their lives. For many people it is so distressing that they think nearly any attempt at "treatment" for autism is worth it no matter how unproven it is.
Here's one reaction to it:This Autism Simulator Is Horrifying
Here's one VR for autism. VR is just like all other autistic representation in the media, it stereotypes and makes people think that is what it is like for all autistic people. Sometimes our difficulties would be underplayed, sometimes overplayed thus giving people a false representation that is a template that all autistic people should be like [like people that think that we are all like the man in in the movie Rainman].
I fully agree that this "VR empathy" needs very special handling, especially when representing disabilities. Disability reputation is mostly very inaccurate and unhelpful. Many people that try to represent the disability are not disabled like whom they are trying to represent. If they want to represent autistics in any form of media they MUST consult autistic adults. We lived as a autistic child, so we know what it was like. Parents cannot ever represent their child, especially if they are not autistic themselves. That representation is from their POV, thus often portraying the worst difficulties that the parents face, not the child's difficulties that bother them themselves. [End rant]
posted by RuvaBlue at 6:51 PM on January 21, 2018 [8 favorites]
participants who were asked to step into the shoes of a blind person by putting on a blindfold came out of the experiment with the belief that blind people are incapable of holding jobs or living alone, and that their lives are defined by misery. The subjects are so focused on their own struggles with trying to navigate that they assume that every blind person spends his or her days wallowing in this same state of frustration and confusion.
That we need to be pitied, thus stereotyping our lives as if we can never function like an adult just living their lives. For many people it is so distressing that they think nearly any attempt at "treatment" for autism is worth it no matter how unproven it is.
Here's one reaction to it:This Autism Simulator Is Horrifying
Here's one VR for autism. VR is just like all other autistic representation in the media, it stereotypes and makes people think that is what it is like for all autistic people. Sometimes our difficulties would be underplayed, sometimes overplayed thus giving people a false representation that is a template that all autistic people should be like [like people that think that we are all like the man in in the movie Rainman].
I fully agree that this "VR empathy" needs very special handling, especially when representing disabilities. Disability reputation is mostly very inaccurate and unhelpful. Many people that try to represent the disability are not disabled like whom they are trying to represent. If they want to represent autistics in any form of media they MUST consult autistic adults. We lived as a autistic child, so we know what it was like. Parents cannot ever represent their child, especially if they are not autistic themselves. That representation is from their POV, thus often portraying the worst difficulties that the parents face, not the child's difficulties that bother them themselves. [End rant]
posted by RuvaBlue at 6:51 PM on January 21, 2018 [8 favorites]
One, you go through it. And having gone through it, you think, 'man, that actually wasn't so bad.'
Came here to point this out too: I feel like VR-based empathy is just begging to give people a shallow and superficial understanding of the plight of others that simultaneously convinces them they're now experts about it while minimizing the trauma of those experiences, leading people with privilege to become even worse about this shit.
I mean, part of being in any marginalized group is that the experience *never stops*. Fancy goggles can't show someone else what it's like to be me (or anyone) for the very simple reason that you always know the goggles are coming off at the end.
This is an idea that needs to be pushed back against *vigorously*. (To me, this is 'storm the castle with torches and pitchforks and destroy the mad scientist' territory.)
posted by mordax at 10:14 PM on January 21, 2018 [8 favorites]
Came here to point this out too: I feel like VR-based empathy is just begging to give people a shallow and superficial understanding of the plight of others that simultaneously convinces them they're now experts about it while minimizing the trauma of those experiences, leading people with privilege to become even worse about this shit.
I mean, part of being in any marginalized group is that the experience *never stops*. Fancy goggles can't show someone else what it's like to be me (or anyone) for the very simple reason that you always know the goggles are coming off at the end.
This is an idea that needs to be pushed back against *vigorously*. (To me, this is 'storm the castle with torches and pitchforks and destroy the mad scientist' territory.)
posted by mordax at 10:14 PM on January 21, 2018 [8 favorites]
That article was horrifying for all the reasons the last few comments pointed out, disability tourism especially. One gains empathy from talking to actual people who have had different experiences than you have, who think differently and make different decisions. It's about getting your own ego out of the way and really connecting with the idea that other people's values and pain and feelings and beliefs are as important as your own. That gets totally bypassed in VR where you are the main character; that just reinforces your own centrality again. (Which is apparently what a bunch of studies also found.)
posted by lazuli at 7:07 AM on January 22, 2018 [7 favorites]
posted by lazuli at 7:07 AM on January 22, 2018 [7 favorites]
It's about getting your own ego out of the way and really connecting with the idea that other people's values and pain and feelings and beliefs are as important as your own.
I'm reminded of some of the backlash against #MeToo that essentially comes down to, "well if I was [person who was assaulted], I would have fought back, or said something earlier, or not put myself in that position in the first place..." But that person might be less confrontational, less certain, more shy, more anxious, have a different response to fear, or a million other differences, because they are not you. None of those things make them more deserving of assault.
A person's unique interiority is an absolutely essential component to a person's experience, and so any 'empathy experience' that lacks the ability to simulate that interiority is an incomplete experience. Maybe one day we'll have the technology to simulate just that, and when that happens, we can revisit this debate.
(Although, as a stopgap, I wonder if including a running 'internal monologue' voiceover, or using other abstract methods like frequent flashbacks, could help provide some of that inner experience? It'd be difficult to do it in a way that isn't painfully annoying, though.)
posted by perplexion at 10:20 AM on January 22, 2018 [5 favorites]
I'm reminded of some of the backlash against #MeToo that essentially comes down to, "well if I was [person who was assaulted], I would have fought back, or said something earlier, or not put myself in that position in the first place..." But that person might be less confrontational, less certain, more shy, more anxious, have a different response to fear, or a million other differences, because they are not you. None of those things make them more deserving of assault.
A person's unique interiority is an absolutely essential component to a person's experience, and so any 'empathy experience' that lacks the ability to simulate that interiority is an incomplete experience. Maybe one day we'll have the technology to simulate just that, and when that happens, we can revisit this debate.
(Although, as a stopgap, I wonder if including a running 'internal monologue' voiceover, or using other abstract methods like frequent flashbacks, could help provide some of that inner experience? It'd be difficult to do it in a way that isn't painfully annoying, though.)
posted by perplexion at 10:20 AM on January 22, 2018 [5 favorites]
(Although, as a stopgap, I wonder if including a running 'internal monologue' voiceover, or using other abstract methods like frequent flashbacks, could help provide some of that inner experience? It'd be difficult to do it in a way that isn't painfully annoying, though.)
The best way of doing that would be books. :)
posted by lazuli at 10:35 AM on January 22, 2018 [2 favorites]
The best way of doing that would be books. :)
posted by lazuli at 10:35 AM on January 22, 2018 [2 favorites]
Humanity already has an advanced, refined empathy-modelling technology that has been under development for four centuries — it's called "the novel."
I'm not (just) being glib, either! I'm wondering, to what extent are the backfiring & paradoxical outcomes here are the result of VR being an insufficiently refined form of storytelling? Of the writing just not being good enough yet? Direct simulation of experience isn't equal to a deliberately crafted, chosen narrative. To affect you the way it intends to, a piece of media doesn't just need to exist, it needs to be well-shaped.
18th century novels are just not very enjoyable to read; a lot of people I know are of the opinion that TV writing's only just getting good in the last decade, and TV's been around for a century now; etc. New forms of narrative — like video games and VR — need time to mature, to be developed and refined collectively, to develop a tradition. I've started experimenting with Twine/interactive fiction lately, and it's a totally different skillset from writing a short story.
Like any other kind of art, people who make VR are going to need to learn their way around what the form can uniquely do.
I think perplexion and lazuli have the problem pinpointed, quite right: empathy doesn't just require simulation, it requires interiority: stream of consciousness, memory, thought, what have you. It doesn't sound like the examples in this article are prioritizing that. But VR narratives can potentially be developed in ways that do.
posted by fire, water, earth, air at 2:50 PM on January 22, 2018 [2 favorites]
I'm not (just) being glib, either! I'm wondering, to what extent are the backfiring & paradoxical outcomes here are the result of VR being an insufficiently refined form of storytelling? Of the writing just not being good enough yet? Direct simulation of experience isn't equal to a deliberately crafted, chosen narrative. To affect you the way it intends to, a piece of media doesn't just need to exist, it needs to be well-shaped.
18th century novels are just not very enjoyable to read; a lot of people I know are of the opinion that TV writing's only just getting good in the last decade, and TV's been around for a century now; etc. New forms of narrative — like video games and VR — need time to mature, to be developed and refined collectively, to develop a tradition. I've started experimenting with Twine/interactive fiction lately, and it's a totally different skillset from writing a short story.
Like any other kind of art, people who make VR are going to need to learn their way around what the form can uniquely do.
I think perplexion and lazuli have the problem pinpointed, quite right: empathy doesn't just require simulation, it requires interiority: stream of consciousness, memory, thought, what have you. It doesn't sound like the examples in this article are prioritizing that. But VR narratives can potentially be developed in ways that do.
posted by fire, water, earth, air at 2:50 PM on January 22, 2018 [2 favorites]
How would we be able to find out if there are people who actually are working toward the opposite goal?
posted by de_novo at 8:01 PM on January 22, 2018
posted by de_novo at 8:01 PM on January 22, 2018
I have long held that the best training I got to become a therapist was my undergraduate degree as an English major plus my lifelong love of reading novels. I really do think reading high-quality novels is a reasonable way to activate people's empathy. I also know that I am way more verbally inclined than many others and I have no idea what the equivalent is for people who don't learn super-well from the written word, but (a) I suspect it's really high-quality movies (not VR!) and (b) I know that educators have been working on such things for a really long time, and maybe we should listen to them rather than deciding that random tech bros have some magical insight based on no actual knowledge.
Empathy is good, and can be cultivated. VR, at least in its current form, does not seem the right means of cultivating it.
posted by lazuli at 8:29 PM on January 22, 2018 [2 favorites]
Empathy is good, and can be cultivated. VR, at least in its current form, does not seem the right means of cultivating it.
posted by lazuli at 8:29 PM on January 22, 2018 [2 favorites]
Lazuli, Raymond Mar and his colleagues would agree with you about the reading fiction bit.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 7:00 PM on January 23, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 7:00 PM on January 23, 2018 [1 favorite]
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The article hardly touches on the different definitions of empathy, which is what I expected from the posted summary.
posted by kozad at 2:45 PM on January 21, 2018 [3 favorites]