VLog #78 – What is Empathy?
Video – VLog #78
How do you explain empathy?
What is empathy simple words?
What are the 2 types of empathy?
Script – VLog #78
David Logan: Hi welcome to The Techno Dinosaur meets the I.T. Geek series number 78.
David Logan: My name is David Logan the I.T. Geek the guy who takes the jargon out of technology for you the techno dinosaurs and make life simpler and easier. Based here in Annan South-West Scotland, United Kingdom.
David Logan: With me today is the usual partner today, Willie Nicol. So, Willie, how are you and where are you?
Willie Nicol: Thank you David I am very well.
Willie Nicol: I am based in Troon, South Ayrshire, Scotland, UK. I am Willie Nicol the Techno Dinosaur and I have that name because I am digitally challenged, however I am also a Personal Development Life Coach, where I help people with the stuff they might be struggling with in their life.
David Logan: Very good Willie. So this week we have a question for you, to the viewer we ask each other questions week in week out.
David Logan: Two weeks ago, on number 76 Willie we talked about apathy, and I mistakenly thought you were talking about empathy. So here is a good laugh for you viewers, have a look at vlog 76, you will see at the end. I mistakenly said empathy instead of apathy. The question here today Willie is, what is empathy? Can you describe it to our viewers and how we know we are empathic or whatever the word is?
Willie Nicol: Empathy, empathetic, sympathetic or whatever or just pathetic. Yes, David it is a good question and I was prompted by a kind of Freudian slip at the end of vlog 76. However, as usual I have done a wee bit of research on this, so that I don’t give the viewers some duff information.
Willie Nicol: Empathy what is it? The dictionary definition is the ability to understand and share the feelings of other people. Researchers have defined empathy as the ability to sense other people’s emotions and to feel yourself what they are feeling. If you are empathic, you will understand other people’s emotions.
Willie Nicol: Now interestingly enough and I wasn’t too sure about this, we tend to think about empathy as a purely human attribute but it turns out it is also applied in the animal kingdom, so primates such as apes chimpanzees even rats apparently have displayed empathy. Here’s an interesting little thing that I found out, they did an experiment with dogs where they yawned at the dogs, so the researchers yawned at a number of dogs and they found to their surprise, the dogs would yawn back. So, here’s the figures 72% of the dogs yawned back when the researcher yawned at the dog, compared with 45 – 60% of humans who would respond with a yawn when you yawned at them and they see this as a very crude form of empathy on behalf of the dog and I being a former dog owner, unfortunately my little dog passed away. I have experienced that with dogs where they will mirror what you are doing although seem to know what you are doing, goofy as that may sound. So, that’s dogs, animals, primates have been found to display some degree of empathy.
Willie Nicol: Just to complicate matters further the researchers have decided that there are two different types of empathy, would you like to know what they are?
David Logan: Yes please, just to confuse the job.
Willie Nicol: Just to confuse things further. So, they have one type, affective empathy, not effective, affective in so far that it affects you. This is the feelings we experience when we see emotions in others. We can sense what the other person is feeling. If they look as if they are stressed, we might get stressed too.
Willie Nicol: Right, then there is cognitive empathy, easy for me to say, thank god I haven’t had any beer. Cognitive empathy, sometimes called perspective taking, our ability to identify and to understand people’s emotions and what they might be thinking, so this is not so much as feeling as sensing. “Oh Willie doesn’t look very happy, look at that look on his face.” Right? Or a big smile he must be happy, so that is cognitive empathy. There appears to be some sort of genetic link to empathy. It is something to do with the pathways in our brains, neurotransmitters we have touched a bit on that before. The researchers and this is all online, have found that in our heads they have mirror neurons and the clue is in the word mirror, so when we see somebody doing something in the same way we would do the same thing, we kind of reflect that. For example, if we see somebody stubbing their toe, you’ll go “oft that looks a bit sore”. We experience the same kind of feeling or sometimes when you knock your elbow at the funny bone, which is not funny, against a door you go “ow, ow I have been there myself”. Showing you empathy for that person’s pain if you like. Moving on from that Bill Clinton apparently when he was running for president, one of his favourite phrases was “I feel your pain”, right so it doesn’t sit well with me, I feel your pain, I am being empathetic right, so, it turns out this might have something to do with genetics.
Willie Nicol: Again researchers have found that it could be down to one single gene in our make-up. It might have something to do with what we inherited from mum and dad, so they found that there are 3 different types of this particular gene, one of which I am reading my notes again here. One of which stimulated our old friend oxytocin, which is also known as the love hormone or the empathy hormone, where we empathise with other people. Now one particular version of this is better than the other two. The people with this particular version are less liable to become stressed and are more likely to show empathy than the other two variations of this gene. That means if you happen to have this good version of the gene, you are more likely to be empathic and less liable to stress. Which we have talked about at length in previous vlogs, finally however, empathy might not be the only reason we want to help other people or understand their feelings or whatever, helping other people in distress for example, it doesn’t necessarily mean that we must do it because you will have people who are empathic, who will help you in a heart beat and other people who are not empathic who will not bother their backside doing, helping you, so there may be other drivers that we think of empathy, for example duty or guilt. We want to help someone or empathise with them, it might not be empathy, we feel compelled to do it for some other reason. However, finally empathy is often a very vital first step towards taking compassionate action, helping somebody else, feeling their feelings, feeling their pain and if you are fortunate enough to be empathic or have high levels of empathy you are much more likely to engage more effectively with other people because they will sense that in you, so I hope that has been useful to you David and useful to the viewers. Empathy what it is and what it does.
David Logan: Fantastic Willie, one quick question for a quick answer, so is it almost like empathy is reading body language?
Willie Nicol: Well, that is an element of it, right, but yes you are right reading body language, it is more like being able to sense. So, as I did earlier, if I put on an angry face, you’ll be able to sense that I am angry, that is the body language helping but empathy goes further than that you’ll be able to sense that I am not pleased. It is a feeling you get, where your “oh I feel as if Willie is a bit angry or I feel as if David is a bit stressed”. It is something you sense internally, and a highly developed sense of empathy will enable you to interact with other people more effectively and they will recognise that in you, “David is empathising with me” or “Willie is empathic.” Now as I’ve said before sometimes it is genetics and if you have not got it, you have not got it. But it can be developed, it is almost like being a nice person, being able to relate to people and in a future vlog I will talk about emotional intelligence which are quite closely related but that’s for another time.
David Logan: Fantastic, so thank you Willie for answering that great topic today. To you the viewer if you want to know more about empathy. See the right word there if you want to know more or you’ve got, need help with stuff, give a shout to Willie. Comment below, send us a private message above, everything you send to us is kept confidential so for now please check us out The Techno Dinosaur meets the I.T. Geek on YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn and we have got a website, search for us spread the word, stay well and healthy. Have a good week everybody, thank you.
Willie Nicol: Thank you, David yes if you have any concerns or stuff you would like some help with, please feel free to contact me, more than happy to have a chat with you, it won’t cost you anything and as David is fond of saying, we don’t bite. So, all that remains for me to say is. Thank you for watching, thank you for listening and stay safe, stay well and remember have some fun. Bye for now.
