Your most important skill: Empathy | Hacker News Reader

Your most important skill: Empathy

chadfowler.com

203 pointschadfowler53 comments

This sentence stood out for me:

> The reason crowds of people exhaust me is that I am constantly trying to read and understand the feelings and motivations of those around me.

To me, this is a symptom of a poor Theory of Mind, or a conflict between the consciously held theory of mind and the internalized one. For the author, it looks like that latter -- he's exhausted because he has to consciously re-process his perceptions of others, perceptions which his internal ToM has already processed but has output conclusions that he might not consider acceptable (which implies a mismatch between the two ToMs).

What he's suggesting as a solution, in my opinion, is an attempt to suppress the symptoms, when the problem is the ToM. The correct way -- or at least the way that worked for me -- is to learn to see other human beings as different versions of myself, with different experiences and neurological makeup. In order to understand a person's behavior, especially negative behavior, I try to first imagine a situation where I would behave in a similar manner (e.g. the boss just yelled at me; I could conclude he is an asshole, or I could try to imagine a situation where I have yelled at someone in my team). Then I try to remember my state of mind from a similar past situation. Then I imagine the other person being under the influence of those same emotions. Suddenly it is easier to understand the person's behavior (but not justify it). Sometimes I ask myself "Had I been born with the same type of central nervous system, had I gone through the same experiences as this person and if I were in this person's situation right now, would I not be behaving in an identical manner?"

To oversimplify: empathy starts with a habit of stepping into other people's shoes. The other habits will follow.

I have a favorite saying:

Tout comprendre, c'est tout pardonner

(French, meaning "To understand all, is to forgive all")

I feel similarly to you, and distinctly remember feeling empathetic even when I was young. Now, I see life as being deterministic, which makes it easy to think "would I not be behaving in an identical manner?"

Do you think that people who struggle with empathy have that issue partially due to a non-deterministic view of life?

Just because his empathy requires effort does NOT mean it is poor.

Your theory, by focusing on the situation rather than personality, at least avoids the fundamental attribution error. Your model however fails for outliers; not everyone can be modelled as "like-me". Sociopaths, borderline personality disorders, senility: there's a long list of ways in which people are different enough that simple unconscious models will not be accurate.

i think it's much worse than that. sociopaths etc are just extremes. people in general perceive the world in vastly different ways. it's because we all waddle around in the same reality and seem to speak a common language that these differences aren't obvious

Much of the time I can understand speech without trouble. Sometimes, often due to certain types of background noise, I have to explicitly concentrate on understanding. I can do it, but it's mentally tiring to maintain conscious focus on something usually taken care of by an "unconscious" mental process.

I mention this because:

> To me, [exhaustion when reading and understanding people] is a symptom of a poor Theory of Mind, or a conflict between the consciously held theory of mind and the internalized one.

It strikes me as likely that someone who isn't neurotypical may similarly be having to explicitly consciously process the reading of the other people around them. This may not be a poor theory of mind, but simply a side effect of a different neural architecture.

Your empathy habits and practices are admirable. I encourage you to cast your net even wider, though, when it comes to imagining versions of yourself with different neurological makeup.

There is a theory of two kinds of empathy: cognitive empathy and affective/emotional empathy.

Aspies/autistics are deficient in cognitive empathy.

But when we find out others' feelings through explicit communication or other clues, we can feel for them.

We are not selfish, uncaring or unable to feel for others.

Suddenly it is easier to understand the person's behavior (but not justify it)

It kind-of sounds like the reverse to me. You're justifying the behaviour by imagining a situation where you would react the same way, thereby saying that you're no better than they are.

What you're not doing is explaining why they behave the way that they do. Whatever you imagining, odds are you're not correct in your guesses.

> The reason crowds of people exhaust me is that I am constantly trying to read and understand the feelings and motivations of those around me.

Your theory is interesting, and I'm curious to hear how you'd interpret my situation. I get equally exhausted from being around people, but my problem is not so much that I am constantly trying to read and understand people, but rather that I seem to pick up and mirror the incessant (negative) emotions all around me when I'm in a group, with little filtering.

So if two colleagues get into a bit of an argument, I pick up on their negativity and feel my energy slowly drain away. Even if I don't really know them or care about them.

For much of my life I tried to address this by trying to understand the details of the situation and ideally by playing a role in solving it. That didn't really help much, and more recently I've allowed situations to just be. But while that gives me more peace of mind, it actually seems to increase my sensitivity to things around me.

It's reached a point where I try to manage it by avoidance: taking a bike instead of public transport to avoid seeing someone cry or get into a fight, focusing on my work as a contractor/freelancer to avoid a draining eight hours in an office, socializing less when my energy levels feel particularly low, etc.

While this solution works, it's not ideal, as I do have a strong desire to interact with others on a meaningful level.

Another big plus in Empathy: Mindfulness meditation.

If you want to, use the Neurosky Mindwave Mobile headset. It's around 100$ and uses EEG to detect whether you are focused (in mindfulness mediation, called "attention"). I even think it can tell if you are experiencing empathy: Neurosky's "meditation" score seems to tilt whenever you think about anything really cute. Everything within limits of course...

Anyway, mindfulness meditation has been shown to at least appear to increase empathy. I've felt the difference too. It's way easier to "do" empathy once you have the mental muscle to stop judging and just observe. This has been shown in research as well.

I mention that very research in the talk I posted in a comment on the parent thread. (Had already submitted before seeing your comments.) It's fascinating stuff.

+1 for meditation. The magical thing about meditation is that it fixes a lot of things all at once, and without you even trying... all you have to worry about is to meditate daily, to harvest the results. You will feel less stressed, more creative, compassionate and happier, not to mention smarter. No wonder it's a central tenet of Taoism and Buddhism. The world would be a better, happier place if more people meditated.

This is the exact opposite of my experience. The more of an asshole I've turned into, the more successful I've become and noticed that people listen to me more.

I would write a pretty article about it but sadly I don't give a fuck.

This will change when you're a bit older. Not everyone else's perception, mind you, but your perception that they listen/appreciate you being an asshole. Their perception will be the same it is today (which, in the asshole case is mainly pretending they accept you so you can shut up quicker). :-)

Not really. I mean they act upon it. I used to be the empathetic good guy, but since the transition, my income has sky rocketed, I feel less pressure and my health has improved.

Being an asshole takes some work and exercise too. All I'm saying is that I'm very surprised by the conclusion this article makes and would definitely suggest the opposite to the very few I care about.

Not too surprised, but I think this is just one data point based on the situations and environment you're in.

I can definitely think of places where coming across as too empathetic makes one appear weak, and coming across as an asshole who has a plan and is going to make it happen (regardless of trivialities like feelings) makes one appear like a leader.

On the other hand, I tend to avoid them wherever possible, as I find this setup toxic to my own strengths and empathy.

Can you give any particular examples that show that you really learned to be an asshole and not just confident and/or assertive?

> I used to be the empathetic good guy, but since the transition, my income has sky rocketed, I feel less pressure and my health has improved.

Perhaps I'm extrapolating to the great extreme, but seeing this comment(especially the health part) I think what you used to be wasn't empahtetic good guy but rather a general good guy who can't say no. If this assessment is correct I think you've 'turned'(to your own diction) into not an asshole, but a self-assertive guy who can say no. That's somewhat different from being an asshole.

Though it may seem like an assholery, it generally is not.

I actually find your post very interesting. It's written in a manner that confirms exactly what you say. On a scale of "empath" to "sociopath", I feel like I am much closer to an empath. And I find that it causes a lot of problems in my life: constantly worrying over what others are thinking, always trying to please everyone, obsessing over the way I construct emails and social exchanges. It's really a drag.

Occasionally I feel envy for people with sociopathic tendencies. How nice it would be to only worry about what makes yourself happy.

I've come to the conclusion though that for the most part, someone's level of empathy is mostly physiological/genetic and there's little I can do to change that. If I tried on purpose to care less towards others, I'd probably start feeling sick/guilty -- a biological reaction that I wouldn't be able to suppress.

I think that being a sociopath and practicing empathy are not mutually exclusive (although I understand that in your case or most cases, empathy probably drives away the sociopathic tendencies). From what I understand, empathy is merely the notion of understanding perspectives other than your own. A sociopath who holds contempt toward a point of view could possibly benefit herself by practicing empathy. Empathy just another means of obtaining information about the world around you.

My point is obfuscated by the fact in many contexts the word "empathy" and "empath" are intended to involve not only the person practicing empathy, but also the interaction with the person to be understood.

What it boils down to is that you can understand what people are feeling and still decide to disregard them.

You are right. Empathy and sociopathy, though both rather ill defined, do not sit at opposite ends of the same spectrum.

As a child, I was highly empathetic, caring, and frequently overwhelmed by others’ emotions. As an adolescent, I did a face-heel turn and became very manipulative, frequently lying, gaslighting, and emotionally abusing others.

But now it’s the positive aspects of both; I don’t feel emotions very strongly but am quite empathetic toward others, accommodating their needs with perceptive and manipulative skills honed by an adolescence of (frankly) sociopathy.

Being entirely self-serving gets old, actually. There’s not really any challenge in picking pockets or getting laid.

You'll probably find 'No more Mr. Nice Guy' interesting if you haven't checked it out yet..

It does not advocating being an asshole, but discusses the "too nice" attitude (which, it turns out, is not nice at all).

This works for you because you live in a society where a significant majority of people are trying to be nice towards other people. Because you choose to ignore the social contract of "let's all try to be nice" you can circumvent the drawbacks of that agreement. If everyone actively pursued your approach, however, we'd be in a mess. Also if you encounter another asshole, it becomes survival of the fittest. And again because you live in a "nice" society chances are the other asshole doesn't have a lot of experience at being an asshole. But sooner or later you come across a colder and smarter son of a bitch than you.

Being an asshole works in the short term. Being empathatic works in the long term.

A CEO can screw his shareholders in the short term. A CEO that takes care of his shareholders does well in the long term.

You can stiff a restaurant and run out on the tab. Helps your pocketbook. But you can never come back.

In essence, being an asshole helps in one round prisoner's dilemma games. Life is about repeat games. Cooperation, and putting yourself in the other person's shoes, is what it's all about.

Male technologists tend to be pretty poor at empathising:

http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/articles/note1271-hudson.pdf

"because of low empathizing skills, male technologists will inherently find it difficult to see problems from a user’s perspective. Coupled with the fact that they are excellent systemizers it is not surprising that they do not understand why a system might be confusing to users"

Do you really think that the user's ability to see things from the technologist's perspective is any better?

There is indeed a great amount of value derived from "empathy". Indeed, I'd go so far as to say trust(worthiness) is the greatest of all economic assets. It's an idea that scales: true for any person (=how much authority you are delegated) and even firms & countries (=more trust=>more teamwork, reciprocicated specialization, and openness to new ideas). The downside, is that empirically the world bifurcates into those who build trust...and those who betray it for opportunistic advantage. Empathy, thus needs to be put in context. It can be used constructively, but (false) empathy is also the halmark of a psychopath. So on that front, caveat emptor. Or as once was put: trust, but verify. But with those minor caveats, this is IMHO a very useful topic for awareness at a strategic level as you build out your career.

Couldn't agree more. (Self-promo alert) In fact, I even gave a lightning talk about the science of empathy and why it's so powerful. Video here: http://www.databoxdigital.com/2013/07/01/science-of-empathy/

To me it's odd to see an article talk about empathy as a skill or a thing you can do. I've always thought being empathy as something you are at a feeling level.

I did some looking a while ago and discovered that psychologists distinguish a couple of different kinds of empathy. One is when you intellectually try to figure out how someone feels - the other is when you just feel it.

"[Y]ou're four times more likely to find a psychopath at the top of the corporate ladder than you are walking around in the janitor's office"

http://www.npr.org/2011/05/21/136462824/a-psychopath-walks-i...

My experience backs this up. The most wealthy and powerful people I know are at least moderately callous, demanding, and manipulative. Instead of empathy I think being emotionally perceptive is crucial. You must know how others are feeling but not feel it yourself so you can choose to act on that knowledge or not.

I just stay away from those people, why would I downgrade my own morals in exchange for getting to work with a douchebag?

I'm smelling a hint towards that special someone wanting to be a butt wiper.

It's one thing to talk about empathy and another to actually have it or feel it. I am sure >80-90% people on HN don't have it only to a certain degree but they think the exact opposite of this.Also you have to take into consideration your character, where, when and how you were raised etc. Empathy is broken in many pieces. Even if you think you have it, sometimes you don't. Others are just gifted with a deeper empathy and so on. If you think I'm wrong or need additional explanation, I will be happy to talk about it.

@TheBiv You just proved you do not understand empathy at all.

If you'd like an opportunity to practice empathic listening, we'd welcome you to join us as a listener at www.7cupsoftea.com/listener. We provide training in active listening and a community of listeners to provide additional feedback and support. We have many people each day that come to us looking for a listening ear.

Another potential positive of empathic caring for another person is an increase in your own personal happiness. It doesn't come directly, but indirectly through helping another person.

It is bad when one thing becomes two. One should not look for anything else in the Way of the Samurai. It is the same for anything that is called a Way. Therefore, it is inconsistent to hear something of the Way of Confucius or the Way of the Buddha, and say that this is the Way of the Samurai. If one understands things in this manner, he should be able to hear about all Ways and be more and more in accord with his own.

I'm guessing you meant to comment on this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7081670

Who has empathy for the empathic? At some level we all project our own issues and past experiences onto our picture of empathy. Meaning just because you can imagine how you would feel in a situation, doesn't mean that your subject feels the same. Empathy should season the dish of human interaction, not be the main course. Thanks for reading this.

I went to a conference last year on people skills for digital workers which had some great talks. If you're interested in this sphere, they're definitely worth checking out as the videos are available online for free.

http://2013.dareconf.com/videos

No affiliation, just a satisfied attendee.

Anyone here read Emotions Revealed by Paul Ekman? I think after reading this book it has helped me better to understand and connect with people's feelings. Building empathy isn't just about listening to people. It is also about understanding their body language, choice of words, tone etc.. More can be read from the body then what they are saying.

An interesting point of view is presented in a book Brain Rules for Baby by John Medina. He talks about how technology is destroying a growing mind to develop Empathy. Kids these days are more engaged on their smart phones messaging friends vs spending time in the play ground with them face to face. Their ability to build empathy by human to human communication is diminished. We are then left with kids that have social skill issues and instead of treating the root cause doctors push drugs into them. A spiral down into oblivion.

On second thought though, technology has allowed us to share our views about this topic right now. The text medium and relative anonymity has enabled us to share a lot more than we would have a hundred years ago.

Of course. But you missed my point that "technology is destroying a growing mind to develop". Once a mind has gone through the development phase, technology helps in ways we could have never imagined in the old days (as you pointed out).

I love how Chad puts the disclaimer at the bottom stating that he believes all of this note is probably obvious, but the hard part is actually practicing it.

That is so very true.

If I try and think about everyone who I know, whom I would describe as 'successful', empathy is probably the most common attribute that they all have. Meaning that within a few seconds of talking to them, I can actually get the feeling that they care about what I am saying and what I am doing. Most don't try and guide me in a particular way, they simply try to see if I know where I am headed on my journey.

Kudos to Chad for putting together this post!

Jeff Weiner, CEO of LinkedIn gives a great explanation of the differences between empathy and compassion as well as why you need both to successfully manage and ultimately help others.

http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20121015034012-22...

You are what you do. As such, it's worthy to take time to practice empathy.

I was recommended to do so when I suffered a bout of burnout and depression in 2012 and it was a self perpetuating movement for the positive.

Bravo to Chad for raising this in a technical forum - I think the industry can only benefit from a pragmatic approach to empathic skills.

Was expecting to find on empathy as an important aspect of invention, innovation and product development; after all we create products or sell services to relieve customers of a specific pain. Would the spreadsheet, visual operating systems and even high-level languages exist without empathic inventors?.

- No it's not.

- Realizing that there always something more than you know is the most important skill.

- Everything else is a consequence.

Why not read something established instead of discussion this black grey white home-made scale? Like the jung derivates example mbti. Also the author is biased, he shows no understanding that people are different instead he claims that his nerotypical archetype is superior and the rest of us should strive to emulate him. It is nothing wrong with becoming a wholesided person, but saing that empathy is the best skill is biased and in majority of the cases wrong, i promise you that you don't program a computer with empathy no matter how hard you try. My view on the matter is that most of you are connecting empathy with intellectually feeling witch i would map to feeling extrovert and then you guys discriminating continue to map feeling introverted to sociopat. Which is ironic because it would seem the author probably is a feeling introverted dom or aux.

http://mbtitruths.blogspot.se/2013/01/the-functions-explaine...

"Feeling

Extraverted Feeling - Fe users take as their primary focus group values and feelings. Their own emotions are strongly influenced by the emotional atmosphere and other peoples' emotions. If others are having a bad day, they're having a bad day. When asking about the ethical thing to do, they refer to societal norms - what OTHER people feel. They want their peers to agree with their opinions and may feel bad if others disagree. If they've done something immoral, their strongest cues will not be how they feel, but if those around them have an unfavorable reaction. But because they are more aware of others' feelings then Fi users, they are better at deliberately doing or saying things that give people positive feelings. These are the types of people who can be referred to as "people-pleasers." Their facial expressions are often quite animated, with big flowing natural smiles. Teachers, hosts, caretakers, diplomats, politicians, salespeople, receptionists, waiters/waitresses, PR reps, missionaries.

Introverted Feeling - Fi is basically Feeling turned inward. Those who use this function have feelings that are more hidden from view; they are less obvious and they may only share their true feelings with their close friends and family members. To decide if something is moral, they simply ask themselves how THEY feel. So if everyone thinks that eating chocolate chip cookies is okay, but they feel that it's truly wrong, they will have a personal problem with seeing people eat chocolate chip cookies and not eat them themselves. They are not as expressive as Fe users, but they probably feel their emotions more acutely since they don't convey them directly. If Fe is direct expression, Fi is indirect expression. Instead saying "great job, you rock!" they would give thumbs up with a sincere smile. They also focus on individual feelings rather than group feelings. Their facial expressions are rather constrained and may give the impression of pride and passion. Artists, poets, composers, therapists, counselors, writers, speech pathologists, photographers."

Since there's bound to be some discussion about MBTI's validity now that you brought it up, I'd like to point out that there's some interesting research emerging that seems to reliably correlate MBTI type with observed brain activity patterns:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGfhQTbcqmA

http://www.slideshare.net/AnnholmMSCCC/identifying-neurocorr...

http://www.keys2cognition.com/papers/EEGandSocialCognition.p...

"i promise you that you don't program a computer with empathy no matter how hard you try"

Perhaps non-intuitively, I believe this is not true. You can tell the programmers who lack empathy -- they write code with no consideration for those who will use the end result or work with it later on. It requires empathy to make an effort to be understood and to be useful to others.

And in the case of anything with a UI, empathy shows up in spades (or doesn't). Just compare that app that seems to anticipate your every need and "just works" to whatever alternatives it's usually competing against. You can't just get away with it by copying whatever Apple does or having a cargo cult "design philosophy" -- you actually have to develop some kind of empathy for the people who use your product.

Still not a requirement. A person with a strong talent for structure will be able to construct an efficient UI. Not all programmers are like this, many programmers are tech-nerds that just want to cramp all the cool things up in to UI and these people are the main problem.

One downside to having a lot of empathy. If you are a really great tipper, you will observe most people tipping worse than you. If you are super empathetic, you'll observe most people being relatively insensitive.

> If you are super empathetic, you'll observe most people being relatively insensitive.

Not really. I mean, I empathize with those who view charity differently than me. Besides, I have more empathy for the gas attendant who can't take tips (not allowed) who work 8 steps away from a Tim Hortons attendant who I tip everyday.

You can always buy him/her something; a soda, a cookie, probably anything from the store will improve his day and doesn't fit the definition of "tip".

Good point! I imagine some people could take that as offensive/weird however.

That said I donate to an actual charity and am believing that I should start tipping less anyway. It subsidises the company, which should pay its workers, and was meant to be an acknowledgment of great work, not an expected way to earn your average income, like we sometimes see today.

Luckily where I live (Canada), we don't have 3$/hr wages which make you seem like a horrible person for not tipping. So that said, while I could tip both minimum wage workers, I could also just not, as I only earn about $1000 more per month, which is offset still, as I'm still paying off my student debts, which means that while I may seem richer, I am not until my debt is repaid.

I agree with this! Nice post!

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