Welcome to the Nexus of Ethics, Psychology, Morality, Philosophy and Health Care

Welcome to the nexus of ethics, psychology, morality, technology, health care, and philosophy

Tuesday, August 16, 2016

When It Comes to Empathy, Your Gut May Be Failing You

By Jesse Singal
The Science of Us
Originally posted July 26, 2016

Here is an excerpt:

If you want to understand what someone else is feeling, you don’t sit down and think rationally about it. Rather, you feel what they’re feeling; you infer it from the tone of their voice and the arch of their eyebrows and their body language. That’s the folk wisdom, at least. And this sort of logic, well, feels right. After all, we are constantly attempting to intuit the thoughts and feelings of those around us — around us, and the process usually feels pretty automatic.

(cut)

But what if this common sense is wrong? What if the way to better understand what someone else is feeling — to enhance your empathic accuracy, to use the term researchers use — is to sit down and think about it in a more rational, logical way?

The article is here.