As Maia Szalavitz and Bruce Perry point out in the Introduction to their book, Born for Love (2010), 'Empathy remains both intensely important and widely misunderstood'. They describe it as the ability to 'stand in another's shoes and care about what it feels like to be there' and how it underlies 'virtually everything that makes society work - like trust, altruism, collaboration, love, charity.' Like Perry and Szalavitz, many people believe that a lack of empathy is at the root of many social problems and underpins inequality and corruption.
The word itself appears in the early 20th century as a translation of the German word Einfuhlung which means 'feeling into'. It is sometimes confused with the word 'sympathy' which is Greek in origin. It is a subject that concerns philosophers, psychologists and neuroscientists alike.
C Daniel Batson, a social psychologist, pulls all the different research and theories together to suggest there are actually eight different, but related, concepts of empathy.
Concept 1: Knowing another person's internal state, including their thoughts and feelings. This is sometimes called 'cognitive empathy' (Eslinger, 1998) or 'empathic accuracy' (Ickes, 1993). This happens when someone tells you something has happened to them, or gives you information about themselves that makes it fairly easy to understand how they might be feeling.
Concept 2: Adopting the posture or matching the neural responses of an observed other. This sounds complicated but it simply means matching your posture or facial expression with someone. It is also sometimes described as 'I show you how you feel' (Bavelas, 1986).
Concept 3: Coming to feel as another person feels. This is sometimes called 'emotional contagion' where you 'catch' the mood of someone else. They're feeling sad, so you feel sad too.
Concept 4: Intuiting or projecting oneself into another's situation. Imaginatively projecting yourself 'into' someone else's situation is the psychological state originally referred to as 'Einfuhlung' (Lipps, 1903) and for which the word empathy was originally coined (Titchener, 1909) but it is used more in the aesthetic sense that an artist or writer might create another 'self' rather than the psychological sense.
Concept 5: Imagining how another is thinking and feeling. This concept goes deeper in that you are imagining how someone you know might be thinking and feeling, not just because of what they say and do, but also your sensitivity to the way they might be affected by something, based on your knowledge of them.
Concept 6: Imagining how one would think and feel in the other's place. This is quite different from Concept 5, though they are often confused, and also different from Concept 4 as it is more interpersonal than aesthetic. It is about 'you' and not the other person.
Concept 7: Feeling distress at witnessing another person's suffering. You are not distressed for, or as, the other person. You are distressed by what is happening to them or how they are feeling.
Concept 8: Feeling for another person who is suffering. Sometimes this is called compassion or pity, though it doesn't always have to be negative. It can be about feeling happy for them too. The difference is that your feeling doesn't have to be the same as theirs - for example, feeling sad for someone who is anxious (Batson, 2009).
HOW DO WE LEARN EMPATHY?
If the theorists are still trying to make up their minds about what empathy is and how we acquire it, then advances in neuroscience mean that at least we now have a lot more information about which parts of the brain are involved in empathy. This gives us some more important clues about how it is acquired - and what might be happening differently in the brains of those who struggle with empathic thinking.
First of all, we have to know that there is a 'me' and that there are other people who are not 'me' and that they are not the same as 'me'. This is not something that babies know when they are born as it takes time to build up an awareness of self.
In the early months, babies are slowly starting to 'own' their own bodies (Gerhardt, 2010) and are very gradually learning that they can do things intentionally, rather than by random actions. They learn that communication can be deliberate too and that caregivers will respond to their smiles and their movements as well as their cries. They are also learning to trust that there will be predictable responses from others when they are hungry or in discomfort.
This important first relationship with important people - attachment figures - provides the external stress regulation that a baby needs, while shaping the brain to eventually be able to do its own stress regulation. 'And it does so because the brain regions involved in relationships are the ones that modulate the stress response and allow empathy. These systems are interdependent. They develop together.' (Perry and Szalavitz, 2010)
According to Perry and Szalavitz, this is one of the reasons that empathy matters so much. We need others to help us cope with stress, at least in the beginning. And it goes both ways. When a parent soothes a baby, the child feels better - but so does the parent. Something deep is also triggered in the parent's brain from their own experience of being consistently parented and so the cycle continues.
Sadly, some children don't receive the predictable, consistent responsive parenting their brains need to develop that modulated stress response system and it can be harder then (though not impossible) for them to respond appropriately to their own children. And so a generational cycle of poor self-regulation begins, with parents unable to regulate their own inner 'crying baby' enough to be able to respond appropriately to the stress of their children, who in turn don't learn to self-regulate.
When the stress response system isn't able to regulate, it makes it much harder to use other, higher systems in the brain and this has an important part to play in our ability to empathise. If we don't feel safe or are in distress ourselves, it is harder to empathise or be nurturing of others. What's more, if we have never felt empathy or nurture for ourselves, it is very hard to feel empathy for others.
Maria Robinson points out this stark reality in her book, Understanding Behaviour and Development in Early Childood (Routledge, 2011): 'Empathy or sympathy towards someone else can only be learned by the child being shown empathy/sympathy towards their own needs, when they are at their most vulnerable i.e. in infancy and early childhood.'
Positive feedback from parents and other consistent carers helps to develop the baby's self-awareness. The more a baby is aware of themselves, the more capacity they will have to become aware of how other people's minds work. Having less self-awareness makes it more difficult to understand why people do what they do and to predict their intentions.
Sue Gerhardt explores the development of empathy- and what gets in the way of it - in her book, The Selfish Society: How we all forgot to love one another and made money instead (Simon and Schuster, 2011). She describes the duality of the development of empathy - we look inwards to ourselves and outwards to others - and calls this self-awareness 'the first building block of empathy and moral feelings'. (Gerhardt, 2010)
MIND-MINDEDNESS AND THEORY OF MIND
By identifying and talking about a child's own feelings right from the earliest days, we are helping young children 'to recognise that other people have a separate existence with minds of their own'.
Elizabeth Meins in her studies of mind-mindedness in babies discovered that this was crucial. 'The specific process of making "mind-related comments" at six months old is what makes the difference to later awareness of others' minds.' (Meins E et al, 2002).
This has also been linked to the rate at which a child develops 'theory of mind' - the technical term for 'being able to see things from someone else's perspective' which typically develops around four of five years but, research suggests, can develop earlier in children who engage in lots of pretend play and storybook reading as well as being exposed to lots of 'mind-related comments' from a very early age.
MIRROR NEURONS
We all know that very young babies will copy and imitate mouth movements in response to adoring adults poking their tongues at them. They don't do this consciously at this stage and, indeed, they stop doing it around two to three months, when their eyes are no longer locked in what Maria Robinson describes as a state of 'sticky fixation' and 'long looking' at their parents.
This 'mirroring' is firing particular cells in the brain that we now know as 'mirror neurons'. This is because they not only fire up when you do something, but they also fire in a slightly less intense way when you see someone else do something. These somehow show us what it's like to experience what others are doing.
Mirror neurons respond if you see someone cry, if you watch them dance with joy, if you see them in pain. Brain scans show that watching someone in pain lights up some of the same parts of the brain as they would if we were experiencing the pain ourselves (Perry & Szalavitz, 2010). It's why we flinch when we see someone else about to be hit. It's why we involuntarily say 'ouch' and 'ooph' watching someone ski into a tree or slide off a roof on the TV programme, You've Been Framed.
As long ago as 1817, philosopher and economist Adam Smith described this feeling, in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, as 'the basis of compassionate action', which is surely a function of empathy - along with consideration of others (Wells & Lilly, 1817, reprinted 2007).
CONSIDERATION OF OTHERS, EMPATHY AND MORALITY
Whether from philosophy, religion or belief systems, we all have a sense of how 'consideration for others' plays a fundamental role in our views of morality. And although selflessness may play a part in that, it is also rooted in self-awareness of what we would want for ourselves. This fits with the so-called 'golden rule' (Perry and Szalavitz) or 'ethic of reciprocity', which is rooted in psychology, philosophy, sociology as well as religion. (All world religions have a version of 'Love thy neighbour as thyself'.)
For some people, empathy plays a part in morality, linked as it is to our ability to see the world from the perspective of others. Mirror neurons play a part in this, in that they provide us with an automatic sensation or feeling. But it is the choices and responses that we are able to make as a result of other factors that determine the existence and function of empathy.
Mirror neurons provide us with the capacity to 'put ourselves in the shoes of another'; mind-mindedness helps us articulate our thoughts about how that feels and self-regulation allows us to feel safe enough to consider someone else's situation without needing to be defensive of our own.
SAY SORRY?
But it takes time for empathy, mind-mindedness and self-regulation to develop. If the ability to be truly empathic doesn't develop until at least the age of six or seven years, then the knee-jerk demand 'Say sorry' is not only misguided but also pointless. Young children are not really learning anything from the process and there are much better ways to respond to conflict at this age. (See 'Sorry?' by Sue Chambers for good ideas, Nursery World, 25 March 2013.)
ADULT ROLE
As well as its important role in social and psychological development, research suggests that empathy supports academic achievement too. A study in 1987 found a positive relationship between girls' empathy at age eight and nine and their reading and spelling skills at age ten and 11 (Fesbach and Fesbach, 1987).
There have also been research findings that suggest that teachers' empathy with their pupils has a positive impact on achievement and attitude to learning. So it's clear then that those of us working in the early years have a very important role to play in the beginning stages of empathy development:
- Reflect on your own experiences of empathy and how they have impacted on you and your ability to empathise effectively with the children and families you work with, and your co-workers too. Be kind to yourself as well as to others.
- Get to know your children and their families as well as you can - and take the time to 'step in their shoes', trying to see the world from their perspective. We can't always get it right, but we have a professional responsibility to try.
- Talk to babies and young children about their feelings, identify and acknowledge them as important and relevant.
- Talk about the perspectives and motivations of characters in books, stories, TV shows, etc to build children's awareness of internal states as well as their own.
- Use resources and approaches that support young children to explore and experience 'theory of mind' and the perspectives of others.
TOO MUCH EMPATHY?
Some people find it hard to modulate their empathic feelings to the point where other people's distress becomes unbearable for them. This can include children and adults who are on the autistic spectrum and who may experience the sensations of empathy as so overwhelmingly intense that they are unable to respond to others in a way that would typically be described as empathic (Szalavitz and Perry, 2010).
Some adults are unable to pursue careers as nurses or in other 'caring professions' as they are unable to put aside their own feelings enough to be able to cope with others' distress. A total lack of empathy in those professions, however, is equally unhelpful, which is why our efforts to support the development of children who will grow to become adults with a healthy, balanced, empathic ability is so vital to our future. They are the doctors, nurses, geriatric social workers - and politicians, don't forget - who we will depend on in our old age and for the future of our society.
APPROACHES AND RESOURCES TO SUPPORT EMPATHY
Persona Dolls
The Persona Doll approach is a 'way of exploring issues of equality and developing concepts of empathy in young children'.
Louise Derman-Sparks (1992), who developed their use in her work in the US, explains that Persona Dolls become 'people' in the early years setting because 'they are introduced to the children in the first week of school or nursery and have the same problems settling in as the children. Assuming different personas, the dolls can give children opportunities to think about the world from perspectives other than their own and address issues such as teasing and name-calling.'
Roots of Empathy
Roote of Empathy is a charitable organisation whose mission is 'to build caring, peaceful, and civil societies through the development of empathy in children and adults'. There are two Programmes - Roots of Empathy for KS1 children and Seeds of Empathy for children aged three to five in early childhood settings.
At the heart of the programmes are classroom visits by a baby with their parent. 'Through guided observations of this loving relationship, children learn to identify and reflect on their own thoughts and feelings and those of others. Independent evaluations consistently show children who receive Roots of Empathy experience dramatic and lasting effects in terms of increased positive social behaviour (sharing, helping and including) and decreased aggression.' Roots of Empathy was launched in 2010/11 in Scotland and in England in 2012/13.
Pingu
This well-known animation works very well as a resource for exploring what characters might be thinking and feeling. Because the language is non-specific there are very few clues from what the characters say, but a lot can be read from intonation, expression and body language. It explores emotional experiences naturally and in ways to which children can relate easily, for example, sadness, doubt, glee, worry and jealousy. It provides lots of opportunities for 'mind reading' and predicting how characters might feel and what they might do as a result.
REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING
- C Daniel Batson 'What is Empathy?' and N D and S Feshbach 'Empathy and Education', The Social Neuroscience of Empathy, ed J Decety and W Ickes (MIT Press, 2009)
- M Szalavitz and B Perry Born for Love: Why empathy is essential - and endangered (William Morrow & Co, 2010)
- E Meins et al 'Maternal mind-mindedness and attachment security as predictors of theory of mind understanding', Child Development: 73 (2002)
- E B Titchener Lectures on the experimental psychology of the thought processes (1909)
- T Lipps Einfuhlung inner Nachahmung und Organ-empfindungen Archiv fur die gesamte Psychologie1
- N D and S Feshbach 'Affective Processes and Academic Achievement', Child Development: 58 (1987)
- Bavelas, Black, Lemery and Mullet 'I show you how you feel, Motor mimicry as a communicative act. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology: 50 (1986)
- W Ickes 'Empathic Accuracy', Journal of Personality 61
- P J Eslinger 'Neurological and neuropsychological bases of empathy', European Neurology (1998)