HUMANITY?

There is a controversial idea that (from a biological perspective) empathy is actually quite selfish. But I if you look deeper, this conclusion is, itself, coming from an overly individualistic perspective.

Why biologists think empathy is selfish

Tests show that people with psychopathic traits do not share any personal discomfort when others are suffering. They understand intellectually that others are suffering (cognitive empathy) but because they do not share the unpleasant sensations (somatic empathy), they do not mind. That we must share discomfort in order to empathise has been further supported by experiments showing that if we ‘normal’ (non-psychopathic) people take pain killing medication—even Paracetamol—our concern for others drops. These observations lead researchers to conclude that concern for others is really concern for our own discomforts. If we cannot personally feel any form of discomfort, our concern for others is minimal; empathy is fundamentally selfish, founded in ‘self’ concern.

The misconception?

This conclusion is (I think) a misconception. Western society assumes that we (body and mind) are separate individuals. This is an important driver for the competitiveness required for our socio-economic system but it does not reflect how minded bodies actually work.   

 As we interact or even just think about other people, our body and mind simulate (copy) what we perceive about them as an attempt to comprehend our surroundings. This is a fundamental intelligence which happens without our knowing. The result is that our brain starts to work like the brains we interact with; our autonomic nervous systems come into sync with those we focus on; and our emotions reflect those of the group. All these experimentally tested observations can be found under the new science of ‘interpersonal physiological synchrony’ and form the mechanisms of somatic empathy.

Although much is made of empathy being a defining characteristic of ‘humanity’, in fact, sharing distress is an essential biological phenomenon experienced throughout the animal world. In experiments, rats are more distressed by seeing another rat receive an electric shock than they are receiving the electric shock themselves (who does these studies?!). This is why bullies/torturers harm others in front of the person they want to distress.

Most of us cannot keep ourselves apart from the suffering of others. This connectivity has been adaptive in our past enabling us to feel and think how the group feels and thinks so that we can act cohesively. It is crucial to survival. Threat to others is threat to self.

Shifting our perspective from ‘me’ to ‘us’, reframing ‘self’ to ‘self within group’, means that empathy is not so much selfish as an adaptive sharing of distress crucial to survival.

When the media presents the suffering of others as unimportant because they are ‘bad’ people, our minded body is not convinced. We unconsciously share the suffering of others (even those we are told are not the right race, religion or social status) and knowing that others are being harmed causes global distress at a somatic level.