Is sociopathy a misdirected adaptation? by Bret Weinstein
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 26 авг 2017
- Many people requested a followup to my sympathy and empathy video that would address the question of sociopathy. In this video I advance the hypothesis that sociopathy is one end of a continuum that contains all normal people. If this hypothesis is correct, the blocking of sympathy, as defined here, would be an adaptation which most or all people evidence sometimes (when sympathy would do more harm than good to one's inclusive fitness), and which would characterize a true sociopath at all times. It is pathological when it is misdirected, which might occur very frequently in novel, modern circumstances.
Support me on Patreon: / bretweinstein
Support also welcome via Paypal: paypal.me/bretweinstein
Follow me on Twitter: / bretweinstein 
Наука
The loss to Evergreen is the world's gain. Fascinating video Professor.
One man's trash is another man's treasure
But it's gonna give power to rising sociopathic students to repeat the same elsewhere.
@@IamPotato_007 Keep an eye on The University of Vermont. I think they'll be next. Maybe if it hadn't been for the coronavirus clearing the campuses, it would have happened this semester. But they have the same combination of pissed off activist students and a cowardly/enabling faculty and administration that Evergreen has.
@@MakerInMotion Sounds scary. This is something very dangerous.
I'm surprised a college with a 96% acceptance rate has such an intelligent man working there. Bret is too smart for that school, he deserves a better future.
I think the reason the percentage of sociopaths ('pure sociopaths', on the extreme end of the spectrum) remains at the percentage it does is because it's reached a sort of equilibrium. A certain number of sociopaths in a population can be beneficial either for the population or for the propagation of the sociopathic individuals' genetic information. But too many sociopaths in a population could possibly cause that population to function ineffectively, because empathy is required for societies to function properly (which is why it evolved in the first place).
Also when talking about sociopaths it's handy to separate empathy into two sub-types. Affective empathy and cognitive empathy. Sociopaths usually do not lack cognitive empathy, but severely lack affective empathy.
@An Meme You can have an extremely high cognitive empathy to have a vague understanding patterns/examples to have a low level of affective empathy. Bret kind of explained the ideology behind this when he said they have empathy but not sympathy based off what he considers a simulation which I would call pattern matching given the circumstance.
I love every one of these I've come across. It's like a lullaby for the overactive mind.
Thanks so much for doing these vignettes, Bret. Love your insights and understandings.
Given this distinction between sympathy and empathy I'm forced to wonder if what makes a sociopath is some reduced capacity in sorting "us" versus "them." Either a reduced ability to recognize someone or something as an "us" or a hyper sensitivity in identifying a "them."
Interesting hypothesis for sure.
I like the hypothesis but I think that "us" and "them" are too binary. "us:Family" is different from "us:neighbors" which is different from "us:coworkers" etc. ... What all of the "us" have in common is "Me", which leads to the idea of the "us" being defined as the utility and value ascribed to a population by the person doing the ascribing. ... I'm not sure that makes sense or not but to me it says "I'm the only one that actually matters, the rest of you only matter insofar as you provide me utility." To my mind, that's a perfectly honest and evolutionary useful mindset, and if sociopathy is to ever be "fixed" it must be addressed on the grounds of making as many people as possible as useful as possible to every individual in society. Which if you think about it, is basically the antithesis of freedom. "No, you can't stay home and veg today because you are needed to be useful to other people or they'll stop associating you with themselves and thus your laziness is creating societal problems."
kelvin amoako You're trying to draw an imaginary distinction because surely YOU couldn't be like THOSE EVIL PEOPLE. The truth is that the vast majority of people would be entirely capable of committing atrocities if in the right circumstances. It's just that some dismiss empathy more readily than others even in peaceful times.
It was comical how badly he understood your first point, lol.
Well what does "egregious harm" even mean? People are not really that complicated, and there are no moral absolutes. If somebody can get something they want by doing something without incurring what they perceive as harm, be it real (retribution, ostracism, punishment) or imagined (violating some moral concept, incurring the wrath of gods, etc), they will do it. Perfectly mentally healthy people will happily go along murdering helpless civilians if they have been brought up in an environment that encourages treating them as slaves/subhumans/etc.
I agree that you should look at the circumstances, but I disagree that you should do it from the perspective of absolute values, because such do not exist. Psychopaths are a thing but sociopaths aren't.
How appropriate that this video ends with killing a bug and laughing about it. XD
Go Vegan Ban Animal Farming & Exploitation animals are fucking losers
Robert Syrett He was laughing at the situation, not its death. Maybe he was laughing at the irony too.
The bug got away. You can se it flying up towards the right after he slaps his hands.
Vegans always bring up cruelty even though they don't care if its cruel or not lol
Bambi dies a natural death. So much empathy. ruclips.net/video/1gdTOHWYVLM/видео.html
13:56 - 14:39
This is profound and subtle. I respect you. Peace and farewell.
Thanks for your videos. Wonderful to see people that still think and gives me things to consider.
Very insightful, love your videos!
Also, talking to someone makes the explanations sound more natural, I know some criticisms on your earlier videos were that they sounded too wooden, if that was the purpose I think its working. I personally feel really awkward talking to a camera without someone live on the other end, I can't get it to sound natural.
I rarely feel little more than irritation, anxiety, or satisfaction, of my own accord. I feel happy when people I care about are happy, sad when people I care about are sad. I kinda always assumed that those emotions were solely shared experiences, some people tell me its not.
I haven't looked into it, but it is something I've been mildly curious about, I've wondered if I have some sociopathic tendencies. My grandpa died recently and I didn't feel anything till I saw a picture of my grandma looking distraught.
How did I miss this channel before?
More, more, more!
Thank you Dr. Weinstein!
First sentence sounds like me trying to fill up space on an essay lol
I like this. It resonates with me. Thanks, Bret. I look forward to more content from you
Your depth of analysis appears both reasonable and factual. Downside is many people don't care for such depth and fact. Sad to say but please continue. There are also many who need and care for exactly what you deliver regularly with your talks/sessions.
Thank you. More please. Much more please.
This opened my eyes to many things. Thank you sir!
We all have this ability. Some embrace it more.
Sociopathy is a spectrum.
A crying newborn baby for example?
GodOfInsomniacs yes we all have tendencies towards sociopathy. It's a matter of degree I think.
It's probably at one end of a 'spectrum' or bell curve that might include narcissism and simple greed or contempt for others.
I identify as Socioflexible
Antisocial personality is pretty hard to quantify and identify.
Great to see you address this subject. It’s not hard to see why people encountering cruel, abusive or neglectful others, could develop a style of relating which lacks empathy / compassion fatigue.
I think this idea grossly underestimates the ability of sociopaths to manipulate others, and grossly overestimates the ability of others to control sociopaths.
Re: "Is sociopathy a misdirected adaptation?" Brett, happy to see you posting to RUclips. Have had concern for your struggles. I will leave it at that. Upon seeing the title of this video I understood immediately.
I married a high spectrum sociopath (possibly verging on the psychopathic as regards temper and a sadistic aggression ), and am now divorced. I'd been discussing this with a friend and they suggested the possibility social science should investigate ways to restrict or isolate the negative interactions of the sociopath with others so the 'society' might benefit but I objected saying I believed that this characteristic may, in appropriate situations, actually be of benefit to the 'group'.
My wife was an incredibly able and talented nurse and I was convinced this had much to do with her success in nursing. When I would be uncomfortably ill and sought to find comfort in her sympathetic 'embrace' I was always disappointed for reasons you might imagine. She often said to me while I was complaining of symtoms, "Well, go to a doctor!", and then go shopping at the mall.
It's said that when there's a fire most people run away but there are those that run towards the fire. She was the type that ran towards it out of a naïve curiosity and not the morbid variety.
I've preferred to use the terms "hyper-empathic" and "hypo-empathic" for obvious reasons and we all know people that are too sensitive for their own good or the true good of others (the kindness that kills).
As to empathy vis a vis sympathy. Why are there no 'empathy" cards? An empathy card would be insulting or at least insensitive as if saying you know how the bereaved feels upon the death of their spouse, parent, child while you have no spouse, your parents live and you are not a parent of the child you have not lost. The sibling might empathize the loss of the parent or, having also lost a spouse or child likewise yet without these all that respect to pain, suffering, agony of that friend, relative, associate must be imagined, hypothesized or, at best, sensed. This is why there are no 'letters of empathy'. Though these definitions or connotations may have alternative meaning to yours I think most probably not.
Enjoyed this video very much. Your are an excellent teacher and this is meant in all sincerity. Thank you for this video!
Fascinating, more please!
I never feel more respected as a listener than when he riffs like this.
It's fascinating to hear his description of a sociopath because it exactly fits my father . No sympathy , empathy only used as a tool to understand and control others , no capacity for actual love but only self pity and a real pleasure in seeing others suffer . Also highly successful and competitive .
Charming people .
"Wreck civilization in a single generation" ~Bret Weintein Aug 27, 2017
Excellent video. Thanks for posting. As a curious note, it´s interesting to see how he crushes a bug at the same time that he is talking about empathizing and love. A very small example of how violence to other life forms has been so normalized in our world view to become invisible even to great minds like Bret´s.
Bret keeps giving examples of ways in which it is useful to be able to shut off, to a certain extent & at a certain time, human empathy. It's true that not being emotional basket-cases, laid low by every bad thing we encounter, is not particularly useful. It's also true that being able to regulate those emotions can be very useful. Neither of those things has any bearing on people who are not capable of feeling those emotions in the first place.
The continuum that Bret's examples suggests is one of strength or prominence or of specific emotional responses, or how well they can be managed, controlled, compartmentalized, etc., under different circumstances, in order to get the best result. Not having access to a normal emotion at all is well outside that continuum. A predator in the wild may be able to predict the actions of its prey pretty well, or it would be a lousy predator. This doesn't mean that they've got empathy for their prey, but even if we grant Bret the claim that the continuum is simply of levels of empathy (which doesn't actually fit the complete clinical picture of sociopathy, which goes way beyond empathy levels), it's not unreasonable to view people on the tail ends of a continuum as abnormal. There's a point at which too much or too little of something common can create dysfunction in a human, and labeling it as such is perfectly reasonable & acceptable practice.
Mostly, I find it frustrating to listen to people who are not mental health professionals or researchers speak about disorders as if they were some abstract philosophical notion, instead of a real, often debilitating, destructive & dysfunctional condition that ruins the lives of actual human beings.
Fell in love with a weird girl, she informed me at some point she suspected she was sociopathic to some degree or another. Made her so hard to understand. Her emotions didn't function in the same way they do for most of us.
This insight is nothing short of brilliant - that we all do, or can, turn off empathy as and when we think it may be warranted to address more present concerns. This ability probably becomes more valuable as one has authority over other people, since organizational objectives must often be prioritized over individual people, else no one will have a job to be concerned about.
Good point
Thank you for the hard work!
I’d love to know your current thoughts on group/multilevel selection. In particular, what do you make of Jonathan Haidt’s arguments for a small amount of group selection among humans in his book The Righteous Mind?
i feel like i've been becoming more of a sociopath over time as if my mind is constantly tormenting its self so often that i find it hard to care about others because i'm worried about myself and as time progresses it seems to get worse
Please could you make a video on the difference between empathy and compassion. The book « against empathy » is very short about compassion.
Many SJWs claim to be empaths (sic) but their circle of empathy is very narrow and they blame people who do not empathize with them so it is clearly used as a power and manipulation tool. And it feed their anger. On the other hand, the buddhist of tonglen which I believe to be the practice of compassion is soothing for the practitionner. It seems to me that empathy is something given by evolution but compassion is deliberate and must be cultivated like and with wisdom.
I am curious of the input from a specialist of evolution.
Stéphane Payrard There is no such thing as an SJW. They are just intersectional feminists.
Technically they’re just libfems. It’s a movement by the elite to diminish radfem which is what boosted many aspects of society (even if you disagree with the structure, I’m simply pointing out facts).
These loooooong monologues are great! Do more please.... MAKE US SMARTER!
What do you think about Paul Bloom's promotion of rational compassion as opposed to empathy and do you think that it is possible in current society for an obligate sociopath to be a better philanthropist, because they can focus their resources on doing the most good, rather than being swayed by empathy?
It's a super power because you don't make emotional decisions.
*I didn't fully realize the depth of my compassion* before I decided to toss the tv and be very selective about radio programs. I had become numb.
Now I simply cannot fathom how anchors routinely can behave so disingenuously and be so callus about it. It's hurtful to watch. In my case it all started with a sudden awakening, which felt very special, but probably is becoming more and more commonplace everywhere.
The result was that it became clear to me I had a need - and was within my rights - to be as selective about my engagements as needed in order to make some meaningful impact in whatever ways came to my attention on the issues I deemed most important.
same
Loved the video, very interesting concept with the crime boss and his family. I don't however share the same feelings about the empathy and sympathy part. It seems to me that sympathy lands more on the cognitive side or once removed from an effective state. I can conceptualize their situation and understand why they feel this way but I don't feel what they feel, I "understand" it. I feel the definitions affective and cognitive emapthy would have been better suited than empathy and sympathy on this topic. That's my un-asked for 2 cents.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts :)
Thankyou for posting these videos!! Love what you have to say, would love to see you write a book 😉 also please come to Dallas!!
I have always thought that every successful society needs a group of people that is socialized well enough to function in their society, while having the lack of empathy required to kill societies enemies.
You can be an empathetic person and a killer. You really dont need psychopaths for anything
Excellent talk. Thanks!
First off, please do keep doing these. You've got a platform whether you want it or not, and goodness knows we need more reality-based voices. Oh, and evolutionary biology is way more relevant that most people think... Not the evolutionary psychology stuff (which is mostly crap), but the complex adaptive systems and emergence angle. That applies to culture, politics, economics, and basically everything else humans do collectively.
Empathy vs sympathy... Empathy (to me at least) is based on an innate 'mirror' sense which puts us in the shoes of the person we are observing. Autism (something I'm more personally familiar with) is often associated with a similar functional impairment with that sense.
Maybe sociopathy is sometimes characterized by that 'mirror' sense working fine, but a lack of it connecting with something at a higher level so those perceptions just don't trigger emotions? Seems a bit implausible though.
An alternative is that the sense is impaired but the deficiency is worked around by using other senses and a more analytical/learned (as opposed to innate) mental model to infer what other people are thinking and feeling. That seems to fit better.
BTW: For some autistic people (it varies a lot), serious social disability can be mitigated a lot by explicitly teaching that "workaround". Especially when it is done as a child, the results can be pretty dramatic.
Anyways... The upshot is that I probably wouldn't say a profound sociopath has empathy. They might well have developed a method for 'faking it' which works just as well (or even better) in many cases, but it isn't based on the same innate sense and mental subsystem. Empathy by necessity (again IMO), comes via an innate mirror sense and triggers the emotional centers... Sympathy comes when that trigger isn't suppressed by an antagonistic network.
Thank you Bret Weinstien.
Hey Bret, big fan. I think Thomas Sheridan did the ideal thing by saying 'psychopaths have no compassion' when in general we say no empathy. There is cognitive empathy and effective empathy of course, and psychopaths are likely to have better cognitive empathy to non-psychopaths. I recommend the work of Thomas Sheridan on the subject. Loving yours/your wife's videos.
i would say whats being missed is there are some that are good at acting out and projecting fake empathy very well and very skilled at using it as a manipulated form of control or weapon
I am confused as to why the prevalence disqualifies it from being categorized as a disorder. Anyone here able to clarify or elaborate further on that? Thanks.
Yay! Love your videos make more! Thank u!
Good thought provocation analogy to apply to the study of what it means to be human, and then what it means to be humane
It makes sense to say that feelings of empathy developed in order to better integrate oneself into a social hierarchy. Without feeing secondary guilt or suffering, how would one crave bettering their group and themselves?
What makes you think the benefit is only ancestral? Do you think we have achieved some sort of utopia where compassionless men are no longer needed?
Sorry for replying to this a whole two years later, but no, I think he means that sociopathy have developed (or stayed with us) because it has been a historically useful thing (and still is).
No.
Robert Hare does not regard people with one or two or three sociopathic traits (most of us have at least one) as clearly sociopathic. Out of the 20 traits he lists, one needs to have a fairly high score (based on the number and markedness of applicable traits), in order to be appropriately diagnosed as a sociopath. Weinstein seems prepared to label someone a sociopath based on one or two marked traits, and from the resulting frequency of "sociopathy" thus defined, concludes that it should not be considered a disorder. He also seems to exaggerate the percentage of high functioning, successful sociopaths, and on this basis, too, questions the appropriateness of considering it a disorder. In fact, the majority of sociopaths of ordinary intelligence are neither high functioning nor particularly successful, especially in the long run of a career. A great many sociopaths are derelicts, convicts, and addicts, and many who are not quite so wretched are barely hanging on and keeping it together.
Is there a difference between sociopathy and psychopathy? It seems the terms are used interchangeably, which is why I avoid saying "sociopath" and use the term "psychopath" very carefully lest it come off as hyperbole.
Thanks Bret.
I love your topics
This is a big thing with combat vets. Having to understand loss and remove the feelings of sympathy that come in high stress areas. Mechanical actions only.
It’s why so many have problems when they are back
Cognitive empathy vs emotional empathy is another way I've seen it explained. Psychopaths or sociopaths tend to have high cognitive empathy, but low emotional empathy. They can figure out how someone else feels or thinks, but has a hard time relating to that, themselves. Also, in the literature, psychopaths are defined by those that lack emotional empathy; who develop it without a traumatic event(s). Sociopathy is someone with lacks the same or similar attributes, but develops as a mechanism in response to stress/trauma. Also, in a slightly related topic; I remember something about high oxytocin levels in women (probably men as well) relates to greater in-group or familial empathy and protection, but also increases out-group aggression. Think of overly protective mother bear's attachment to child, but aggression to others. I remember hearing about it somewhere, but idk how robust the correlation is and if there's variation in expression of high oxytocin in different individuals.
I had most of the same thoughts and then I heard about the way psychologists view sociopathy so I'm not sure what's true.
Given everything he's said, why would he then dismiss Hitler as a "monster"? That doesn't get us anywhere at all.
Sociopaths care for their families because they think of their family as extensions of themselves. Sociopaths usually end up destroying their families whenever they family members define themselves for themselves and act accordingly.
High level of cognitive empathy creates a database to recognize patterns and which is used as a translator to determine the best response to any given circumstance. Essentially creates a low superficial level of emotional empathy.
Does anyone know where his definitions come from regards to empathy and sympathy? Those aren’t the definitions in psychology and actually caught me off guard as a researcher of community resilience, in both sociological and psychological constructs.
I've been maligned as a sociopath before and the way I've explained it is the following. I have such extreme empathy beyond the average humans understanding that I comprehend the larger picture. As a result I have noticed the use of empathy by ever expanding groups of people for the goal of manipulating them into group objectives that act against the majority of life on earth. I've noticed that being on team human makes me the "bad guy" as humanity is a parasite on earth that will one day overtake its resources, killing its host. I'm acutely aware of multiple ongoing battles of all the life forms who I view as equals, even those killed by my own immune system to favor my group of cells. I have come to the conclusion that the most moral stance is to not act in favor to, or opposition of these groups and their conflicts. Acting only in my own interest in a way that leaves the fewest casualties and is most beneficial to all parties. So now they just call me selfish or self centered, or try to slander my ego to badger me into picking a side. I'm fine with this, because I feel what you feel as well, I simply do not care.
Superb , as expected.
To those of you who believe themselves to be sociopaths or have tendencies towards it (or generally those who'd like to be more empathetic towards others), if they rise your concerns about being a descent human being going forward through life I have good news, you can turn it into a good thing, at least I think that I managed to do so:
1) I'd argue that there is actually very little difference between simulating the emotion towards someone and having it*, apart from the fact that it's started by your conscious brain rather than the subconscious one, and with time the conscious response also becomes a habit and in that sense almost giving you an option to either be a sociopath or not. I think it might be thanks to mirror neurons
* based on the assumption that you have feelings of your own that you can use as a base
2) Learn about people and how different they can be. It will help you be more empathetic regardless of sociopathy, as a shortcut(or a warm up ;) ) I'd recommend a Briggs Myers 16 personality types test, and go through all the descriptions cos this stuff is gold!
3) don't be afraid of your own emotions, listen to them carefully and learn the times when it's important to share them with people that you care about, make sure to study their emotions as they respond to yours. Helps with fine tuning your models and further habituation, lets call it the mirror neuron workout ;)
4) finally to be a good person you'll have to learn to treat all human as your brothers and sisters. I know it's a bit of a cliche but you're smart, just think of humanity as a team that you're on and all this people around you are you're teammates, or to be brutally honest assets. The better they are at what they do the better your live is going to become so it's good for you when there's good stuff around you, so start believing in karma ;).
By rationalizing the need for inclusion of your fellow humans into your team you can become a sociopath in service of humanity rather than plow at it's margins
PLEASE NOTE THAT I'M NOT A PSYCHOLOGIST AND WHAT I WROTE ABOVE IS NOT BASED ON LITERATURE BUT IT'S MY OPINION
I was also never diagnosed with sociopathy but I believe this might be simply because I was never very keen on getting tested ;) Maybe I'm not a sociopath, or maybe we all are at times when the circumstances force us to be them, and when they pass we slowly learn to let them go or allow ourselves to drift into emotionless void
The reason why I wrote this is two fold:
I was really encouraged by this video, this is my coming out ;) so kudos to professor Weinstein, first time in my live someone presented sociopathy as a feature rather than a bug and it's a revelation to me as it really explains my struggles over the past
Second because now believe that my case isn't special and sociopathy can be a good thing in a society. It allows for rational thought to be taken into account and hard choices being made when there are time to make them. I think that in some cultural setups sociopathy might even be nurtured, particularly in males. But it cannot be an excuse for being selfish. Treat others as you would like to be treated is the only real rule that's worth living by! Peace
More than my fair share of the well-being....... just what does that mean?
I think it's even possible to extend sympathy, and not only empathy, to one's enemies in certain situations.
Wish I had sat through thus dude’s lectures during my undergrad. I’d pick at his brain and talk about ideas, endlessly.
Could some sociopathy be learned? Akin to "installing" a module in one's phyche? And, if so, could the "disorder" be in not being able to handle it? By "handle" I mean to day manage. It has been my experience that most people do not initially understand their emotions, for example, a person in deep anxiety might not identify that as such. They may see it as some other ailment. Could a sociopathic trait simply be an ignorance of its nature and unfamiliarity with dealing with it?
Working on my mental health with various western and eastern techniques gave me a higher capacity for both empathy and regulating empathy when action is required.
Oh, that is brilliant “when action is required” 🙏✨🌿
The Weinstein bros are two of my favourite people. Brilliant, both of you.
Evergreen is ruled by sociopaths, they removed Bret to function normally. This fills the gap of my knowledge of so-called injustice and ways to find legal means that benefits both parties in ways that's not medieval witch-hunt. You're the man Bret. Very thank you
Thats exactly what I assumed. The whole problem is these behaviors get rewarded as you said and therefore it continues generation after generation. In a great deal our world is created by these individuals though they rise to the top more easier than people with a a more normal and socialized behavior and emotions. Explains why the world is not so good it might could be. Interesting. Thank you.
So what about the distinction between sociopath and psychopath?
Ok now I have a question: As someone who has suffered depression and has been suicidal until a year ago, I have to wonder if sociopaths can feel the same emotional pain and grieve that goes along with having depression? Can they be depressed?
All psychopathologies differ from the normal condition by degree, not kind. Sociopathy should be included in this.
Is it possible to be a chronic empath? When I hear bad news, and it's not to do with me and mine, I do (or rather did, I am a bit more desensitised these days) feel the pain for quite some time and when I was younger I was deeply shocked to see that others were able to disregard the bad news and move on!
Great insights! Very important because insights about sociopaths have never seemed accurate to me. I'd like to add that in time of overwhelming truth as I've experienced in the healing of trauma, one can be totally cut off from empathy and sympathy because the own emotions simply take up the capacity to feel anything else. Maybe if one is exposed to behavior like this in the first years of its life by a parent the way of feeling and thinking is constructed in a way that could correlate to sociopathy.
Could sociopathy be ontogenic, either learned sociopathy, or a failure to learn empathy?
What a great speech!
sadistic sociopaths can have lots of empathy, (they need high empathy to know how to inflict maximal hurt, and thus get maximal power). What they are lacking is COMPASSION. Also That 4% number is so outdated.
Now, approx 30% of the population are sociopaths. Most of them are so good at hiding it, it proably much higher.
Understated topic of importance imo
12:47 they might also be EXCELLENT tools at finding flaws in the system we can't see. Like canaries in the coal mine, but a little different. Like mischievous canaries trying to collapse the coal mines... or something.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the difference between sympathy and empathy, as per your description, is actually describing the difference between cognitive and emotional empathy. In that case, cognitive empathy is the ability to recognize and understand, intelligently, the emotions in others whereas emotional empathy is the _capacity_ to feel the same as they feel. Sympathy, more specifically, is then the _reaction_ of perceiving another being in distress, which does not necessarily elicit the same emotion as the observed being feels.
A short example to clarify what I mean. I do fear that my articulations fall short. In my own opinion, I've never been good with words.
Cognitive empathy is when you can tell what someone else is feeling. You recognize and understand that they feel a certain way, but you do not feel the same as they do. A psychopath may be very good at knowing what others are feeling, but he/she may be incapable of feeling the same way. They can put themselves in other people's shoes, but they can't feel what other people are feeling.
Emotional empathy is when you feel what someone else is feeling. You can feel what they feel without understanding or even recognizing what that feeling is. Severely autistic people are highly sensitive to the emotions of others, however, they tend to be unable to recognize other people's emotions. They feel what other people are feeling, but they can't put themselves in other people's shoes.
Sympathy is when you react to someone else's negative feelings, independently from what they are feeling. If someone is in distress, perhaps afraid and in pain, sympathy can manifest as sadness on behalf of the person in distress. We sympathize in funerals unless we knew the respective person closely, in which case, we feel what the person's closest feel. We empathize.
We all drop our empathy sometimes . These disorders are NOT defined by exclusive traits - that's personality 101 . It is the degree and persistence of different traits manifest .
I wish i was a sociopathic -feeling guilt is horrible
good topic, ive been fascinated with sociopaths and psychopaths most of my life, pretty much ever since I found out they existed. I also used to think I was a sociopath, because of how drastically different I react to tragedy (especially that which doesnt affect me, like 9/11) than other people.
One of my rare disagreements with Bret, but I think that even people like Hitler do deserve some sympathy. Thats hard to do without truly understanding a person and their motives. Personally I think one of our biggest trials as a species, maybe even all life, is to be able to understand, sympathize, maybe even care for those who could or will do us harm. Just like I can feel sympathy for a wild animal who would ruthlessly kill me and anyone like my with great fervor and glee. The difference here between Hitler and a animal thats gone mad with blood-lust, is power. How much devastation and curelty they are capable of causing.
12:16-13:57. The systemic goal of governance should be to bring legitimacy to social order through accountability for harm. {Good insight.}
Interesting breakdown, Brett.
The thought that sociopaths may be able to empathize, though they cannot sympathize, is a really worth exploring.
So well said
Quick question for the comments community.
It seems that the examples used to describe sociopaths and even the internal thought that is symbolized by the word sociopath within many of our minds is negative. Is there such thing as a benign sociopath? Is a benign sociopath something else? Would benign sociopaths be identifiable? Or, are the opportunities gained by not having the the same sympathetic response as other people the path of least resistance for the sociopathic mind, eventually always causing harm?
So morality is obvious a complicated thing and in our world today the selective sympathy type traits have a tendency towards producing immoral actions. On a personal level this is going to be a dangerous person. But if we take this in the context of our hunter gather and early farming ancestors then they can be a useful individual at a group level. Consider that in these early societies violence was extremely common place and that tribal conflicts have a tendency towards indecisiveness with a steady back and forth of raiding and encounter violence between groups.So say within your group of about thirty you have a sociopath. The sociopath has a high capacity for violence and deceptiveness. This could quite possible be used in such a manor that creates the kinds of decisiveness that tribal conflicts so often lack. They might wait till the dead of winter when their enemy tribe desperately need their hunters then kidnap someone from the enemy tribe, use that person to lure those in the hunter, fighter type role into an ambush and kill or cripple them. The enemy tribe looses many of their remaining members from starvation and the rest are left weak from hunger and to busy keeping the tribe fed to carry out a counter attack against you. Then at the end of winter you stroll up to the enemy tribe and tell them to leave the area of face extinction. If you take a utilitarian view of morality the sociopath's plan has turned what might have been a century long little war into one that is concluded after a few months.
What is the evolutionary advantage of sympathy as opposed to empathy.
I wish I could show this to a lot of people
@gblueslover2 I am sure that people who don't care to hear this information in regular conversation would be even less likely to enjoy a lengthy, informative video on the subject, but thank you for the suggestion
Hello Bret, thanks for the video. I have a question:
If evolution formed the way humans think and understand, to what extent can we claim to have depicted reality in physics for example? Do we mostly see a reflection of ourself, when we look at he world and try to understand it? Isn't it therefore astonishing that we are able to sit at a desk, work purely on theories (physics), and are able to predict outcomes in the real world?
In a nutshell: evolutionary viewpoint of human logic, understanding and epistemology i find quite interesting. If anyone can suggest books/papers, that would be nice, too.
(Maybe i should add that i am not trying to make an argument for postmodernism. I don't buy their claims)
The idea that "we see the world as a reflection of ourselves" is sometimes useful in a psychological context in that people's perspectives are often clouded by their personal bias.
However, that factor becomes insignificant in empirical fields that specifically require verification in reality. Because reality does not change based on personal bias.
Regardless of how our minds evolved to be able to do physics, the physics themselves are not affected. "Physics" as a field describes real forces. Over time we have refined the field of physics through the application of data and brainpower to better match our theories with reality. Like most scientific fields, this process is designed so that the personality of the individual is irrelevant. Only the validity of the ideas matter. It's like math. Math is the most objective concept imaginable. It's no surprise that the math works. What might be surprising is that we are able to do math in the first place.
As for how we evolved the ability to do abstract thought...it could be that logic is an evolutionary advantage. If you look at stuff like tool making and hunting strategy, these activities are all cognitive. It involves the ability to look at some starting conditions, envision a set of actions, and apply those actions to create a desired result. I mean there is such a thing as IQ/general intelligence, after all.
If you accept that
1. There is external reality outside our minds
2. It is possible to describe this reality
3. It is possible to determine if a particular description is accurate or not
Then this just becomes a question of ability: the ability to think well, basically. And you can easily select for ability. Not just talking about evolution here. Everything from sports, interviews, and politics is a selection process. They just select for different abilities.
I know that. We still see ourself when we look at nature, since our mind and human way of reasoning has been molded by nature/evolution to see in a specific way. That doesn't mean there are no objective findings possible, but the sum of them, the structure of a theory as a whole is not to be equated with the whole picture of reality...IMO.
what a dance life is. im just glad we have more minds engaged in wrestling/producing ideas in the arena of humanity's future society even if its just in this internet dimension. onwards!
An Educated/ Evolved Empath is what you speak of. Knows and understands the switch and is capable of controlling one's self-contained (Feeling to Thinking) ratio. The how to properly experience and excicute said actions per situational outcomes.
Yes to be evolved is the answer.
This is why it is said that the TRULY Educated Empath is the nightmare for the Unevolved Sociopath.
Because we have the same awareness/ thinking abilities they have AND the ability to feel/ understand such depth and oneness.
With the power to control self and choose... ALL choices...
Where the true sociopath lacks the capacity to control self; they are/ become reactionary. So the real form of their reality is reaction based on reaction based on Reactions. Even with their plan of actions in play, their inability to BE TRUE SELF IS THEIR OWN DEMISE. A life of lies based in EGO is not One's True Self. Balance is the truest form of Evolutionary Perfection. TRUTH
I love you and... I will kill you if need be. I love all living things but like those pesky mosquitoes- BAM!
Self Presevervation and in Severitude to all humanity.
The mosquito isn't the empath.
The mosquito is the sociopath; feeding off others.
The evolved empath doesn't need others in order to exist- feel validation. We are the true self controlled. We are from the inside out. Not the outside - in.
The more this world becomes sociopathic the more unbalanced it has become.
Children need to be raised with Emotional Feelings Sectrum
Empathy w/ High Awareness
Self Controlled
Highly Thought Provoking Problem Solving Skills Based On Facts
and... Balance in ALL THINGS.
With all that said I do appreciate and agree that the sociopathic is a spectrum. Same to be said for the empathic as well.
My point above is just a very small example of the vast differences in the two. The Evolved form of Sociopathic is of Destruction.
The Evolved form of Empath is of Creation.
As someone on the sociopathic scale...this hit home like rhonda rousey hitting the mat in her return match.....hard and fast
I survived a relationship with sociopath. She's treated every boyfriend, fiancé, and both husbands like a new iPhone. Upgrades every September. It sounds funny, but I am very grateful to have been discarded early in that process, rather than later in life when I have things to lose. Scary, very scary. Very smart, very manipulative, very successful, driven, educated, scary.
I'm sorry you went through that. Would you mind expanding on your experiences in the name of education so that we may learn from them?
How can I learn to speak so articulately? I seem to have worse verbal recall then I would like
your comment at 2:28 the last minutes of 'fail safe' henry fonda movie...always stuck with me how the first set of images were, images but nyc images heart wrenching. saw it young, made me resistant to the anti-russian bandwagon. oh and mama bear...i usta say, 'i would die for what believe in but not kill.' then i had children, i would have torn someone apart with bare hands teeth and nails if they had threatened my babies....so yeah sociopath-ish.
How do i get better at sympathizing with people i love?
I empathize with peoples pain but I can't seem to empathize with peoples love.