The limits of empathy共情的局限性
Diana Kwon 文/BPS《心理学家》
mints 译
Snapshots of the horrifying aftermath of terrorist attacks, refugees fleeing their war-torn homes, and families mourning a victim of police brutality can be gut-wrenching. Many people consider this ability to understand and feel what others are feeling, or empathy, as a primary source of morality and the glue that holds societies together. President Barack Obama has described empathy as the ‘heart of my moral code’ and has suggested that an empathy deficit is at the heart of many of our society’s problems.
共情——是道德的主要来源和凝聚社会的胶水。奥巴马总统已经将共情描述为“我的道德准则的核心”,并且认为共情亏空是我们社会许多问题的核心。
恐怖袭击的可怕后果,逃离战争的难民,以及哀悼受害者的家属,这些快照都是令人揪心的。许多人认为这种能够理解和感受别人感受的能力——或者说,Empathy is a key component in our relationships, and in many situations, it does motivate people to help others in need. However, this is not always the case. Recent psychological studies suggest that empathy is not quite the societal cure-all we often believe it to be. While it can help promote cooperation and motivate prosocial behavior, in some cases, empathy can actually deepen divisions been groups and inspire aggression against others.
共情是人际关系中至关重要的组成部分。在许多情况下,它确实能够激励人们帮助那些需要帮助的人。然而,并非总是如此。最近的心理学研究表明,共情并不如我们相信的那样——是治疗社会的良方。尽管它有助于促进合作,并激发亲社会行为。但在某些情况下,共情可能会加深分歧,激发对其他团体的侵略。
A force for good? 共情是一种好的力量么?
Most people see empathy as a good thing. Thinking about the absence of empathy conjures up an image of a cold-blooded killer or ruthless con-artist with no regard for other’s emotions or well-being. And indeed, a long line of studies has shown that empathy can evoke prosocial behavior. Some of the earliest experiments were conducted in the 90s by the social psychologist C. Daniel Batson, one of the leaders of empathy research, and his colleagues. In one study, they asked participants to imagine how a person from a stigmatised group – such as a person with AIDS, a homeless man, and even a convicted murderer – was feeling, finding that this experimental manipulation could improve attitudes towards such individuals. Other groups have also shown that feeling empathy can help reduce the will to harm others and improve intergroup relations.
大多数人认为共情是一件好事。一想到缺乏共情心,就可能想到一个不关心别人情感和幸福的冷血杀手或无情骗子的形象。事实上,一系列的研究表明,共情可以唤起亲社会行为。最早的一批实验是社会心理学家C. Daniel Batson(一位共情研究的领导者)和他的同事们在90年代进行。在其中的一项研究中,他们要求参与者想象一个被污名化群体(比如艾滋病患者、无家可归的人,甚至是一个被定罪的凶手)的情绪感受,研究发现,这种实验操作可以改善对这些人的态度。其他小组的研究也表明,共情有助于降低伤害他人的意愿,有助于改善群体间的关系。
‘Considerable evidence supports the idea that empathic concern motivates helping directed toward reducing the empathy-inducing need,’ says Batson. In fact, he points out, many novels were written with the goal of inducing concern for outgroup members by putting the reader in their shoes. ‘Often what [the writers] are trying to do is create this caring for, this valuing of the other’s welfare to induce concern,’ says Batson. ‘The reader knows this is a fictitious character, but those feelings can then generalise [to others].’
Batson指出,事实上,许多小说的写作目的是让读者进入角色以引起对外部群体的关注。Batson说:“作家经常试图创造这种关怀,以引起对他人福利的关注。”读者知道这是一个虚构的人物,但如此的感觉可以推广到其他人身上。
One notable example he points to is Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a widely-read abolitionist novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe published in 1852. ‘[This book] is probably considered to be the work of fiction written in English that has had more impact in changing public policy than any other,’ Batson told me. Stowe’s highly influential book helped raise awareness about the harms of slavery, and some historians have even argued that it acted as a catalyst for the Civil War that came less than a decade later.
一个著名例子是《汤姆叔叔的小屋》,这是哈丽叶特·比切·斯托在1852出版的一部广泛阅读废除努力制的小说。Batson告诉我,(这本书)在改变公共政策方面的影响,可能比其他任何英语小说都来得大。斯托这本具有高度影响力的书籍有助于提高对奴隶制危害的认识,一些历史学家甚至认为它是十年后内战的催化剂。
In the same way, contemporary artists use various forms of media to cultivate awareness and concern for mistreated groups of people. For example, the popular television show Orange is the New Black allows viewers to delve deeply into the lives of trans, homosexual and minority inmates while shedding light on the real issues facing these groups in the American criminal justice system.
同性恋者和少数民族囚犯的生活,同时也揭示了这些群体在美国刑事司法系统中所面临的现实问题。
同样,当代艺术家使用各种形式的媒体来培养对被虐待群体的觉知和关注。例如,广受欢迎的电视节目《女子监狱》(Orange is the New Black)允许观众深入了解变性人、While empathy can be a strong motivator for morally good or altruistic behaviour, its influence can also go in the opposite direction. The notion that empathy is not always a force for good was recently popularised by psychologist Paul Bloom at Yale University, with widely discussed pieces in popular media outlets like the New Yorker and the Boston Review as well as a recent book, Against Empathy. Bloom’s central argument is that empathy, which he defines as ‘feeling what other people feel’, is not the best guide for making moral decisions.
纽约人》和《波士顿评论》以及最近的一本书中广泛讨论了他的新书《反共情》。Bloom的核心论点是,共情(他的定义是“感受别人的感受”)并非是做出道德决定的最佳指南。
虽然共情可能是道德之善,或利他行为的有力推动因素,但是,其的影响也会朝相反的方向发展。最近,耶鲁大学心理学家Paul Bloom关于“共情并不总是一种好的力量”的概念广受欢迎,在大众媒体,如《Bloom is not the first to take this stance on empathy. The philosopher Jesse Prinz made a similar argument in a 2011 essay, where he contends that empathy is not necessary for moral judgements. Even before them, famous thinkers like Immanuel Kant argued more generally that when it comes to making moral decisions, rational considerations trump emotional reactions.
Bloom不是第一个对共情采取如此立场的人。哲学家Jesse Prinz在2011的文章中提出了类似的论点,他主张共情并不是道德判断所必需的。甚至在他们之前,著名的思想家Immanuel Kant认为,一般而言,当涉及到道德决策时,理性考虑胜过情感反应。
Recent evidence supports this notion. In certain conditions, rather than motivating prosocial behaviour, empathy fosters hostility and aggression. In one 2014 study, psychologists at the University of Buffalo led by Anneke Buffone found that when participants felt o inflict pain on that person’s competitor in a math test – a relatively non-threatening environment – even when the competitor posed no direct threat. ‘People are punishing emotionally rather than to restore the victim,’ Mina Cikara, a psychologist investigating intergroup neuroscience at Harvard University, told me.
最近的证据也支持以下的观点。在某些情况下,共情不会激发亲社会行为,反而会促进敌对和攻击。在2014年一项项研究中,由Anneke Buffone领导的布法罗大学的心理学家发现,在(一个相对无威胁环境中进行的)数学测试中,即使被试没有对竞争对手构成直接的威胁,被试仍然感受到了自己对竞争对手造成了痛苦。哈佛大学调查社会团体关系的神经科学和心理学家Mina Cikara告诉我,“与其说人们是让受害者得到恢复,还不如说是在情感上惩罚他们。”
So does empathy make us do good or bad? Some studies suggest neither. One meta-analysis of empathy and aggression studies, led by psychologist David Vachon at the University of Minnesota, revealed that there is virtually no relationship between having low empathy and being malicious across various types of aggression, including verbal, physical and sexual attacks. ‘It turns out that if I want to know how likely you are to help people or give to charity or be a good person, knowing how empathic you are will tell me very little,’ says Bloom.
元分析显示,在各种攻击行为中,低共情和蓄意的言语攻击、身体攻击和性攻击之间几乎没有关系。Bloom说,事实证明,如果我想知道你帮助别人的可能性,或者捐助慈善事业,或者做一个好人有多大,那么,你就会知道,你想要说的共情有多少。
那么,共情会让我们做好事还是坏事呢?有些研究表明:两者都不存在。明尼苏达大学心理学家David Vachon领导的一项关于共情和攻击性研究的Even stories, which are powerful methods to induce empathy for oppressed or mistreated groups, are not always used for good. This is evident in political rhetoric, where politicians like Donald Trump use empathy to manipulate. Trump harnesses the strong emotional responses evoked by drawing attention to victims of terrorist attacks in Western countries to encourage people to support anti-immigration policies and turn away refugees. ‘Donald Trump talks a lot about people who are assaulted by illegal immigrants, raped or murdered,’ Bloom says. ‘I wish to some extent that the population could become more immunised against that sort of emotional appeal.’
用故事来诱导受压迫者、或者被虐待群体的共情,即使是这种强大方法也并非总是奏效。这在政治言论中是显而易见的,就像唐纳德·特朗普这样的政治人物使用共情来操纵(民众)。特朗普利用强烈的情绪反应,引起西方国家对恐怖袭击受害者的注意,鼓励人们支持反移民政策并驱逐难民。“唐纳德特朗普讲述了很多被非法移民强奸或谋杀的人,”Bloom说,“我希望,在某种程度上,人们可以免受这种情绪上的影响。”
Friends and foes 朋友和敌人
Empathy’s limitations become most apparent in the context of conflict and competition. Empathy is biased – we are more likely to empathise with those who are from similar social, racial and political circles. Engendering a strong empathic response for atrocities towards in-groups is a potent tool to mobilise people to a cause. ‘Empathy has been historically used as a major tool to spur people to war,’ says Bloom.
共情的局限性在冲突和竞争的背景下最为明显。共情是有偏见的——我们更可能共情那些来自类似的社会、种族和政治圈子的人。对那些针对内群体的暴行营造出一种强烈的共情反应,是动员人们投身其中的一个有力工具。Bloom说:“在历史上,共情已经成为煽动人民参与战争的主要工具。”
In competitive situations, rather than feeling sadness or distress at the sight of a suffering out-group member, people tend to feel pleasure at another’s pain, or schadenfreude, and will not feel motivated to aid them. There are even separate neural circuits that determine how we react to another group’s suffering. One 2010 study led by psychologist Grit Hein, who was then at the University of Zurich, found that distinct neural responses in brain areas associated with empathy predicted whether football fans were willing to endure pain to help supporters of the same team or fans of a rival team.
在竞争激烈的情况下,人们在看到群体外成员遭受痛苦的时候,往往会对他人的痛苦感到高兴,或者幸灾乐祸,而不会体会到帮助他们的动机。甚至在神经系统中,有决定我们如何应对另一个群体痛苦的独立神经回路。,苏黎世大学的心理学家Grit Hein2010年领导的一项研究发现,与共情有关的大脑区域的不同神经反应,预测了足球球迷是否愿意忍受疼痛来帮助同一支球队的支持者或竞争对手的球迷。
According to Cikara, it is not simply the dangers of low empathy towards outgroups, but the risk of extreme empathy for in-groups that can lead people to take extreme measures, such as sacrificing themselves and hurting others in the process. ‘This is interesting because it suggests something counterintuitive, which is that […] maybe one way of attenuating bias between groups is actually to get people to be a little bit less responsive to in-group suffering,’ Cikara told me.
根据Cikara的说法,这不仅仅是对外部群体低共情的危险,而且是群体内极端共情的风险,这会导致人们采取极端的措施,例如,牺牲自己并在此过程中伤害他人。Cikara告诉我说:“这很有趣,因为它暗示了一些违反直觉的东西,也许,减少群体之间偏见的这种方式,实际上是为了让人们对群体内的痛苦反应不那么敏感。”
Recent investigations by Cikara and her colleagues support the notion that intergroup conflicts could be mitigated by reducing the gap between empathy felt for one’s own group and those they are in conflict with. For example, they found that shifting people’s focus away from their group membership using short descriptions of the individuals in both groups successfully reduced this bias.
近期的研究支持了以下的观念,即,缩小自己群体的和其他人所在的群体之间的共情差距,可以缓解群体间的冲突。例如,他们发现,通过简短描述两组人员的情况,让人们的注意力从小组成员移开,就可以成功减少这种偏见。
Cikara和她的同事们Regulating empathy, cultivating compassion 调节共情,培养慈悲心
Empathy is a powerful tool, so how can we harness its power for good? Most of us think of empathy as an automatic, uncontrollable response to the pain and distress of those around us. Experimental evidence from infant and animal studies suggest that empathy is innate: babies will cry when they hear another baby crying and rats will help free a fellow rat trapped in a cage without training or the promise of a reward.
婴儿和动物研究的实验证据表明,共情是与生俱来的:婴儿在听到别的婴儿啼哭时也会哭泣;老鼠会帮助被困在笼子里没受过训练或奖励的老鼠同伴。
共情是一种强有力的工具,那么我们如何才能利用它的力量呢?我们大多数人认为共情是一种对周围人痛苦和苦恼自动化的、无法控制的反应。