
Your most important skill: Empathy - chadfowler
http://chadfowler.com/blog/2014/01/19/empathy/
======
dalek_cannes
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")

~~~
danielharan
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.

~~~
tokipin
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

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bayesianhorse
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.

~~~
tbastos
+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.

------
mavdi
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.

~~~
Xcelerate
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.

~~~
ximpathy
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.

~~~
evincarofautumn
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.

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felipeerias
Male technologists tend to be pretty poor at empathising:

[http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/articles/note1271-hudson.pdf](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"

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

------
001sky
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.

------
sutterbomb
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/](http://www.databoxdigital.com/2013/07/01/science-of-empathy/)

------
farginay
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.

------
iandanforth
"[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...](http://www.npr.org/2011/05/21/136462824/a-psychopath-walks-into-a-
room-can-you-tell)

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.

~~~
codecondo
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.

------
Cardeck1
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.

------
7cupsoftea
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.

------
bananacurve
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.

~~~
namenotrequired
I'm guessing you meant to comment on this
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7081670](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7081670)

------
jasonmoo
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.

------
pbowyer
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](http://2013.dareconf.com/videos)

No affiliation, just a satisfied attendee.

------
semerda
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.

~~~
merkitt
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.

~~~
semerda
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).

------
TheBiv
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!

------
jamesmiller5
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...](http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20121015034012-22330283-managing-
compassionately)

------
seanhandley
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.

------
tremols
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?.

------
beautybasics
\- No it's not.

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

\- Everything else is a consequence.

------
GarvielLoken
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...](http://mbtitruths.blogspot.se/2013/01/the-functions-
explained.html)

"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."

~~~
ezy
"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.

~~~
GarvielLoken
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.

------
benched
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.

~~~
tokenizer
> 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.

~~~
ivanca
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".

~~~
tokenizer
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.

------
kimonos
I agree with this! Nice post!

