How can one best develop empathy for other people?

Question

Some people seem to lack empathy, the ability to anticipate how another person might feel about something, or to really pick up on what someone is feeling at the moment or trying to express. I presume that empathy is a cultivated ability. Is it a cultivated ability? What is the best way to cultivate it if someone wanted to do so?

Answer 1

like so many things, some are born with it; others have to work at it. one way to work on it is by personalizing the matter. change your perspective. cause another to empathize. don't analyze. it is near impossible to have empathy while being analytical. allow yourself to let go of preconceived notions involving the matter and allow empathy to take its place. hope this helps.

Answer 2

I wouldn't say empathy is ANTICIPATING someone's feelings, I'd say it's about RELATING to their feelings.

empathy |ˈempəθē| - noun
the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. DERIVATIVES
empathetic |ˌempəˈθetik| - adjective
empathetically |ˌempəˈθetik(ə)lē| - adverb
empathic |emˈpaθik| - adjective
empathically |emˈpaθik(ə)lē| - adverb
ORIGIN early 20th cent.: from Greek empatheia (from em- ‘in’ + pathos ‘feeling’ ) translating German Einfühlung.

I believe it is innate for some, but can be learned. I've found that working in an inner city University hospital setting helped me hone my ability to find something in common with every person I met -- from former Nobel Prize nominees, to shell-shocked Gulf War veterans, to developmentally disabled adults and children, to crack babies and their mothers as they deal with withdrawal. As I look in their eyes, I know that with a minor shift in life's experiences, I could have been in their shoes -- for better or worse.

I have tried to teach it to my son, and I know he has some empathy although it's not "cool" for a teenage boy, so he hides it. He's said that he sometimes feels frustrated because he feels he can't talk about real things like feelings with his friends. In the western cultures, we have isolated ourselves from our neighbors and families so much, we seem to only relate to the people on TV, whether real or fictional.

So I feel that the solution is to broaden our exposure to different people and the struggle of their lives. I appreciate what I have so much more now!! I have a friend who teaches in the same city where I used to work. He started that job a few years after I had been in the hospital, and he was so amazed at how tragic so many of these children's lives are. We laughed at our naivete for thinking that we were so worldly wise when we got out of High School. Looking back, we now can see that we grew up on Sesame Street. We were so lucky!! And the really sad thing is that even those kids have it better than the majority of people in the worlds poorer countries. We need to stop bickering over race and religion and start focusing on the human race as a whole.

Answer 3

If empathy isn't a natural part of someone's makeup, I think empathy is learned through personal experience. If someone has had a rough time of it, experienced the death of a loved one, the loss of a job, a severe illness, etc., it is certainly easier to feel empathy for someone going through the same thing. I think some people naturally have a closer connection to others, and it's easy to share their pain and suffering. For the rest, personal experience is the teacher. Then there are those who seem unaffected....

Answer 4

It really should come naturally , Joe.
I suppose it can be cultivated.
The best way is to think of how you would feel in the other person's position.

Answer 5

I think small children learn it from the way they are treated. If Mom and Dad are sensitive to there feelings they seem to be sensitive right back. I think we also acquire it by our experiencing life. When I have been deeply hurt and come through it I seem to be better able to be sensitive to others who are hurting.
I've begun to understand that people who are insensitive may have turned off their feelings and are in denial. When this happens I think they are being insensitive when they really are unable or unwilling to deal with their own pain.

Answer 6

As a church, we exist by applying revelation from God. while God hasn't printed something, we've little recourse yet wait till the day while he will show the secret to us. We assume there could be a Heavenly mom, yet all of us comprehend no longer something approximately her. We easily do no longer pray to her. the classic Israelites additionally believed in a Heavenly mom. Her call substitute into Asherah, and her statue got here across a house in Solomon's Temple for centuries. in the process the super reformation, her statue substitute into taken out of the temple and burned. The brazen serpent of Moses, which substitute into an emblem of the Son of God, substitute into taken out of the Temple and melted down. The Jews rejected their former traditions of three different deities, and mixed them into one guy or woman. on the comparable time, they rejected prophetic authority by applying making a Rabbi equivalent to a prophet. Jesus tried to repair the 1st Temple traditions.

Answer 7

"try walking in their shoes"...this is the only way to do it. Live your own life and when someone shares an awful experience with you that you have already lived through, then you will have experienced true empathy.

Answer 8

sometimes a person's not really able to put themselve in the other person's shoes. so i think to truly be empathic, you have to have gone through similar experiences. i think it takes common sense too cuz i've met some people that say things that hurts and they don't know that it does, but when it comes to their feelings being hurt, they're really sensitive a/b it.

Answer 9

i look at what i have, family, job, bills a home, a vehicle life in general. look at what i have been through and where i could have gone, and what i have a head of me. and then imagine not having anything at all. always remember it could be worse. or if someone is venting w/you take it as a compliment obivious they trust and value your opinion..

Answer 10

Imagine yourself in their shoes or think of a situation you were in that's would be comparable to theirs. Just be nice ans sincere