In the Invisibilia podcast titled “The End of Empathy”, hosts Hanna Rosin and Lina Misitzis are discussing how to properly tell the story of Jack Peterson, a former member of the incel community. In the episode, Jack is interviewed about his experiences that led him to identify (and later un-identify) as an incel. Part of his story contains instances of harmful and abusive behavior towards an ex-girlfriend, such as figuring out her passwords and leaking her nude photos. Additionally, once their relationship had soured, he flew to her house uninvited to try and win her back, leading to a heated argument and ultimately, police intervention.
The way Hanna approached telling his story was in typical Invisibilia style: universal empathy. Her goal was to bring the listener into Jack’s head, to see his thoughts and actions from his perspective, with the hope of taking away some insights. As a result, Hanna tells a tale of a reformed incel: from being bullied as a child, to the aforementioned rocky relationship, to discovering, joining, then disavowing the incel community.
On the other hand, Lina largely focuses on how Jack mistreated his ex-girlfriend, highlighting his seeming lack of accountability and awareness for the impact of his actions. Not only that, she challenges Hanna’s premise about empathizing with everyone. To Lina, people like Jack don’t deserve it because empathy comes at a cost to the people they harm. Empathizing with Jack would mean she would feel less conviction to advocate for his ex and other victims like her.
As someone who’s tried to live life showing empathy to everyone, even undesirable people, Lina’s assessment intrigued me. I’d always focused on the positives of empathy, its role in facilitating prosocial behaviour and human connectedness, but could there possibly be a dark side?
Is it a good idea to have empathy for people who’ve done bad things?
First, let’s back up: what exactly is empathy?
There is a bit of contention among scholars about how broad or narrow the definition of empathy should be, and whether it’s more emotional/affective or cognitive (or both). But for simplicity’s sake, one way to describe it is “understanding and feeling what someone else is experiencing”. Basically, you’re putting yourself in someone else’s shoes.
When you empathize with someone, especially someone distressed or in need, it’s natural for their situation to elicit your own feelings of pity, concern, sympathy, and/or compassion for them. These feelings, while commonly associated with empathy, are generally seen as distinct because they’re more to do with your own emotional response to their condition rather than what the other person is experiencing.
There’s also a difference between empathy and relating to someone. As an example, relating to a teenager’s rebelliousness means you can identify with their thoughts and feelings because you can draw from similar experiences in your own life. However, empathizing doesn’t involve your own experiences at all, since it is mainly focused on you understanding and/or feeling what someone else is going through; your own history is irrelevant. You may think empathy comes easier when you have similar personal experiences, but that can be a trap because everyone’s perspective is unique: your rebellion might not look and feel like theirs.
Finally, empathy does not mean approval or endorsement. When I encounter perspectives I disagree with, I often find that empathy is an effective way to see where they’re coming from, and potentially build a path forward for discussion or learning. A great example of this is Dylan Marron’s podcast Conversations with People Who Hate Me, where he has empathetic conversations with people who send him hate messages online, which often lead to moments of self-reflection and insight.
But what about Lina’s concerns, that there may be consequences to empathy, especially if granted to the wrong people? Gino & Galinsky (2011) conducted some studies that looked at a related phenomenon: the effect of perspective taking on moral judgments and behavior.
In their study (Experiment 1), participants read about and were shown a picture of Alex, a participant of a different study. They are then told to write about a day in his life. Half of them (perspective taking group) were given explicit instructions to go through a typical day in Alex’s shoes, looking at the world through Alex’s eyes. The other half (control group) were not given this instruction.
Next, they learn that in Alex’s study, he was given $10 to freely share between himself and a randomly assigned, unseen partner; Alex quickly chose to keep all the money. Participants were then asked to rate how shameful and unethical they thought this behavior was, and also how much money they would keep if they were in his situation.
Results showed the perspective taking group, on average, judged Alex keeping the money as less shameful and less unethical than the control group, and also indicated they would keep more money ($6.59 vs $5.46). The instructions to take Alex’s perspective seemed to lead to a more positive view of someone else’s selfish behavior, and influenced them to keep a larger portion of money for themselves.
The same study was also repeated with one small twist (Experiment 4). This time, Alex selfishly kept the $10 in only half the scenarios; in the other half he generously gave all the money. Results showed that for the control group (non-perspective taking), Alex’s actions didn’t make much of a difference, as participants gave statistically similar amounts whether he acted generously ($4.50) or selfishly ($4.08). On the other hand, there was a significant difference for the perspective taking group, who gave much more when Alex was generous ($5.20) than when he was selfish ($3.25). Interestingly, the effect of vicarious selfishness was noted as being stronger than generosity.
Studies like these demonstrate that perspective taking can lead people to take on the internal states of a wrongdoer, justify this person’s unethical actions, and behave less ethically themselves. Thus, there might be something to Lina’s idea that empathy for the wrong people can be detrimental.
So then, does that mean we shouldn’t show empathy to these people at all? Setting aside the thorny issue of how to determine who would be worthy, I also worry about the ramifications of withholding empathy from people. Empathy is what enables you to step outside your own point of view, broaden your horizons, and diversify your thinking. It forges bonds and deepens relationships, and without it, the human experience would be much lonelier.
So when we encounter perspectives that are wrong or harmful, we should be more aware of how our own judgments and behavior may be affected. However, empathy doesn’t mean we cannot question or challenge others’ views, or even disagree with them. In fact, I find that using empathy as the starting point is the most fruitful way to engage in this sort of conversation.
At the end of the Invisibilia podcast, Lina tries that strategy with Jack: she asks him to think back to the incident with his ex-girlfriend, and to tell the story from her perspective. And he responds with the following:
“So from her perspective, it’s — she doesn’t want anything to do with me anymore. Now this psycho’s near my house or whatever. And he’s — what is he going to do? What — is he going to shoot me? You know, that’s probably what — I’m just being honest with you. That’s probably what she thought.”
Perhaps not a complete atonement, but it’s a start.
