News The Secret Of Empathy: Stress From The Presence Of Strangers Prevents Empathy, In Both Mice...

[MyPTSD]

The ability to express empathy -- the capacity to share and feel another's emotions -- is limited by the stress of being around strangers, according to a new study. Empathy is increasingly being studied by scientists because of its known role in psychological disorders, such as Autism Spectrum Disorder and psychopathy.

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[Deleted member 1860]

Am I the only one sitting here thinking ".....AND?!?" I guess I just don't understand how this is breaking news, ie that we are more empathetic towards non-strangers than strangers. (Or is it just me?) Doesn't intuition tell us this?

 

[Friday]

I'm really tempted to make a joke here, about being excited that grad students could muster up any kind of empathy it could be measured whatsoever... But there are so many flaws in the design & execution, premise & conclusions of this study that I don't think it's fair to just drive my truck through one of the smaller gaping holes. University study, but not finding it's passed through any kind of peer review process? Looks like most of the names on the paper are current students at McGill.

 

[City Slicker]

I am always interested in the link between empathy and altruism but I digress.

Some pretty big leaps in that study for sure and a lot of other conclusions to be drawn that have nothing to do with empathy. Interesting what gets studied in school these days.