[HN Gopher] Ask HN: How to build empathy?
___________________________________________________________________
Ask HN: How to build empathy?
As an engineer I run cycles of listening, paraphrasing and then
solutionizing almost every day. This doesn't translate well in
friendships & relationships where the other person just wants
someone to listen. At the same time I rate lowly on empathy scoring
tests on the internet. Other technical folks here who might have
gone through this, 1. How did you develop your listening skill?
2. How to be more empathetic? Update: Some more questions 1. What
common failure modes do you hit in your relationships as a low
empathy person? 2. How do you avoid them?
Author : break_the_bank
Score : 130 points
Date : 2021-03-20 15:32 UTC (7 hours ago)
| bvoq wrote:
| Date an envious depressed person. This will make you empathetic
| very quickly.
|
| Jokes aside, to feel empathy without ever having suffered greatly
| is hard/impossible. Instead you might be able to express
| sympathy, which is better anyways.
| nickjj wrote:
| Do you feel like you're unempathetic in person to person
| conversations or only online?
|
| I think it's a lot easier to come off as unempathetic online,
| especially only written text because lots of online discussions
| are asynchronous, plus there's so many subtle modes of
| communication that get lost. It's also really easy to forget that
| the person you're replying to is an actual human being with their
| own set of internal issues and loops of thought processes.
|
| I think to become a good listener the biggest thing is to really
| be interested in what the other person is talking about instead
| of waiting for your turn to talk or dismiss the conversation all
| together. Realistically most folks tend to want to talk more than
| listen but if you're genuinely interested then this doesn't
| become a thing where you're internally wishing they stop talking
| so you can talk. Instead you look forward to them talking even
| more.
| oji0hub wrote:
| mdma
|
| Edit: Seriously though...
|
| Try to be helpful by chosing to see problems as something you and
| other people are solving together and focus on the solution. For
| example, rather than saying or thinking "this is wrong" or "you
| are wrong", think "we could improve this by...".
|
| This has to be genuine. People sometimes lecture to make
| themselves feel smart. I mean _actually_ be helpful.
| loceng wrote:
| MDMA in the right setting and right guidance will lead to
| baseline stress reducing, accessing and processing/healing past
| unhealed/unprocessed trauma - allowing one's ego mind guard to
| reduce and therefore body sensory to have a greater
| concentration of sensory reaching the brain/mind - allowing
| heart energy and logic influenced by greater sensory to add to
| logical pathways leading to greater empathy capability.
| ashton314 wrote:
| Something that has helped me to be more empathetic, even though
| it's not directly related to listening _per se_ : service. Find a
| service project that you can do. It's fine if it's in line with
| your technical aptitude, but maybe just make it some manual
| labor. Go out and mow a widow's lawn or volunteer some hours at a
| food bank or something. I've found that as I've done service in
| my neighborhood, it's translated into me being a more aware of
| what people's needs and wants are. Plus, you'll come away feeling
| good having done a nice thing. :)
| mjwhansen wrote:
| It says a lot about you that you recognize that this is a skill
| that you need to work on and is worth working on.
|
| It is completely normal that you see yourself being sympathetic
| by creating solutions, when people are asking you for empathy.
|
| I'm writing a book aimed at developers on building empathy and
| applying it to business, called Deploying Empathy [1]. I'm
| writing it in public as a newsletter. I'm detailing specific
| actions you can take in conversations and customer interviews to
| build empathy.
|
| One of the things about listening to people is that the more you
| do it, the more empathetic you become as a person. It takes
| practice, but I promise you will get there.
|
| One of my own favorite books on this is Practical Empathy by Indi
| Young.
|
| Self-empathy is also an important step, and if you find you don't
| have the tools to show empathy in conversations, there's a good
| chance this is a skill you weren't taught growing up. For that,
| therapy is invaluable.
|
| [1] https://www.getrevue.co/profile/mjwhansen
| alfl wrote:
| Reading fiction builds empathy.
| [deleted]
| jtr1 wrote:
| I think cultivating curiosity about others is integral to
| building empathy, but it's a lifelong practice. I still find it
| very easy to project my own experiences onto others - an easy
| shortcut that drains my interest in them and makes listening
| hard. After all, if I feel I already know what's important to
| know about them, why listen?
|
| Where I've found the most personal growth has been in continually
| re-learning the strangeness of other people's inner worlds. I try
| to imagine each person I meet inhabits an alternate universe,
| just as rich and nuanced as I feel my own is. So a healthy spirit
| of exploration and generosity helps, although it requires
| treating yourself the same.
|
| A good shorthand I heard a long time ago from someone else on HN:
| when someone is expressing a problem to you, consider it your job
| to build a picture of their mental state that you can repeat back
| to them and have them recognize as their own. Good luck!
| Slow_Hand wrote:
| I often think that if I had one supernatural wish to make, I'd
| like to inhabit the inner-life and sensations of someone else.
| See, feel, hear, think, intuit, and fear like they do. Not as
| an observer, but as a first-hand experience. Whether that
| person is dumb, hyper-intelligent, manic, depressed, or
| autistic.
|
| As I mature I'm starting to appreciate how very different our
| inner-experiences can be. Even for something as simple as what
| we experience when we count silently in our heads: Some people
| hear a voice counting numbers, some see the numbers without
| auditory cues, and some feel the counting as pulses in their
| bodies.
|
| For this reason, I would very much like to inhabit someone else
| to feel just how divergent those experiences may be.
| meiraleal wrote:
| I think we have something that emulates it: operational
| systems. iPhone vs Android, Windows vs Linux. Although for
| the experience to be as divergent as with humans we would
| need millions of OSs.
| alexashka wrote:
| This may be the wrong take but for every smart person who thinks
| they are low in empathy or whatever other trait, the truth is
| more often than not that they are simply _boring_.
|
| You know why women love sports jocks? They are _fun_. Musicians?
| Fun. Rich people? Fun through frivolous spending.
|
| You know what's not fun? Someone careful with his/her money,
| wanting everything to make sense, reading HackerNews :)
| indigo945 wrote:
| > How did you develop your listening skill?
|
| This is a good question, and something I am personally probably
| still struggling with. I feel like the greatest progress I have
| made on this is focusing more on listening, and less on
| conversing or having answers. People generally appreciate if you
| take their concerns seriously, but are easily offended if you
| offer obvious advice that brushes their concerns aside.
|
| > How to be more empathetic?
|
| According to some research [1], reading literary fiction has a
| greatly positive impact on empathy and the capacity to process
| emotions. I have even heard the argument that the boom in novel
| production in 18th century England created a cultural shift, as
| the increased capacity for empathy made people more morally
| conscious on a variety of issues.
|
| As I believe that giving a somewhat empirically grounded answer
| is very much in line with the spirit of this forum, I shall
| therefore suggest everyone to read more novels.
|
| > What common failure modes do you hit in your relationships as a
| low empathy person?
|
| I don't think that having low empathy has ever been a "failure
| mode" to me -- but regardless, I feel like I have emotionally
| matured in a way that I wouldn't describe myself as "low empathy"
| anymore. It's certainly an issue when trying to pick up girls,
| though. (Wouldn't it be so nice if you just _knew_ people 's
| intentions?)
|
| > How do you avoid them?
|
| The crucial thing is that when you have a conversation, you
| should try to be mindful of what the other person is looking for,
| even on an emotional and possibly unconscious level, and try to
| accomodate that first and foremost. This always involves some
| guesswork, but it is worth it to try and make an effort. As noted
| elsewhere in this thread, often people just want to talk for
| support and are not looking to _solve_ a problem. This can cause
| some friction with math-sy people, who often have a strong urge
| to start running solutionizing when encountering an unbalanced
| equation.
|
| Taking my own advice here, I also want to tell you, OP, that it's
| not really an issue to not be great at those things. This is by
| no means limited to technical people, and I actually believe that
| most people struggle with this sometimes: there's the marketing
| manager who will stop you at the water cooler and talk at you for
| 10 minutes about the amazing new project she's doing, with you
| awkwardly trying to exit the conversation; and there's the menial
| worker who feels awkward around "smart" people, often avoiding
| them altogether, as if he felt they could bite him; and so on. In
| the end, we're all just human, and the important thing is that
| we're here to learn to respect and understand each other. You
| seem to be on that journey, and that is the important part.
|
| [1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/novel-finding-
| rea...
| vericiab wrote:
| Listening requires allowing your conversation partner to fill the
| silence with their thoughts rather than filling it with yours. So
| at the risk of pointing out the obvious, to improve your
| listening skill try talking less.
|
| In the middle of a technical explanation, sometimes people will
| pause and say something like "Is this making sense so far?" The
| question makes it fairly clear that the explanation isn't
| finished and that they have more to say. The same pause to
| confirm that the other person is engaged and understands occurs
| in personal discussions, but it might not be marked with an
| explicit question. So by talking less, you allow the other person
| to finish what they're saying and drive the conversation where
| they want it to go.
|
| For example, consider the following variations of a hypothetical
| conversation -
|
| Version 1
|
| >A: "My coworker keeps interrupting me to ask questions that
| could easily be answered by reading the documentation. They've
| literally been messaging me at least once an hour."
|
| >B: "Wow, that sounds so annoying!"
|
| >A: "Yeah, it is. This morning I finally couldn't take it anymore
| and muted DMs from them so I could get some work done in peace.
| It was such a nice change."
|
| Version 2
|
| >A: "My coworker keeps interrupting me to ask questions that
| could easily be answered by reading the documentation. They've
| literally been messaging me at least once an hour."
|
| >A's mom: "It's great that they trust you as a reliable source of
| information. I hope your boss recognizes what an asset you are!"
|
| >A: "Uh... yeah, thanks mom. Anyway, how's your vegetable garden
| coming along?"
|
| Version 3
|
| >A: "My coworker keeps interrupting me to ask questions that
| could easily be answered by reading the documentation. They've
| literally been messaging me at least once an hour."
|
| >C: "Wow, that sounds so annoying! Have you talked to them about
| how disruptive it is? If that doesn't work, you should talk to
| your boss. You don't want to be blamed if their interruptions end
| up delaying your work."
|
| >A: "Fortunately it hasn't been that bad. I don't want to turn it
| into a bigger issue than it actually is by going to my boss about
| it."
|
| Really the story that A wanted to tell was about muting the DMs,
| the initial pause just served to make sure it was the right
| audience to tell the story to (and that the audience was
| listening and not distracted by something else). In version 1, B
| conveyed that they understood and so A was able to finish telling
| the story. Version 2 demonstrates why A is pausing - A's mom
| wasn't the right audience, so better to just change the subject.
| In version 3, after A pauses C fills the silence with their own
| thoughts about the situation, which takes the conversation in a
| different direction than A had intended. C meant well, but if
| they had instead created silence (by not continuing to talk)
| after expressing understanding, they could have listened to A
| fill that silence with the story that A had hoped to tell.
| devinegan wrote:
| By learning about EQ. I recommend picking up the book "Emotional
| Intelligence 2.0," taking the assessment, read it, and focus on
| areas you can improve. Then revisit and practice the tips over
| the next 3 months (their timeline) and reassess. It is ongoing
| after that but it is a good starting point with actionable tips.
| softwaredoug wrote:
| Work on understanding your own emotions and you'll be better at
| empathy. Two things that help me a lot are journaling my feelings
| and meditating.
| vbsteven wrote:
| I can't give you actionable advice since I'm struggling with this
| (and a recent autism diagnosis) myself. But it might be
| interesting to research the empathising/systemising theory.
| grawprog wrote:
| >How did you develop your listening skill?
|
| I'm not sure...I've always enjoyed listening to people's lives.
| Everybody's life is totally different than mine. Everybody's
| experiences are different than mine. By listening, I'm exposed to
| things in the world I would never be otherwise. Both good and
| bad...but still.
|
| >How to be more empathetic?
|
| It might seem cliche but, put yourself in their shoes. Imagine
| yourself going through the things they're telling you. Imagine
| how you'd feel. Not what you'd do to solve the problem, just how
| it would affect you emotionally as it happened.
|
| >What common failure modes do you hit in your relationships as a
| low empathy person?
|
| >How do you avoid them?
|
| I don't know when to shut the fuck up. People don't always want
| to hear solutions, they don't want to hear about what could have
| been done or anything at all sometimes. Despite best intentions,
| sometimes the best thing you can do, to put it bluntly, is shut
| the fuck up. Resist the temptation to give advice or opinions,
| just listen and acknowledge. That part can be hard though.
| hn_asker wrote:
| State the basics about the person. It can often help to give
| context about who they are in the time they're in.
| johnsmith4739 wrote:
| (disclaimer?) I teach empathy, and maybe this helps:
|
| 1 - most people did not get what is called an "emotional
| education." What are emotions and how they guide our behaviour?
| What are habits and how they differ from intentional activities?
| What motivates human behaviour? What are biases and how they
| actually help us 98% of the time, etc.
|
| 2 - most people are exposed to pseudoscience and outright wrong
| information - jungian personality types, maslow's pyramid of
| needs, win-win negotiations, and so many other models only
| generate confusion and unproductive biases
|
| And to work toward a solution:
|
| 1 - read up on psychology, there are many 101s good enough to get
| you a head start
|
| 2 - read on subjects as "active listening," jobs-to-be-done, non-
| violent communication, and "FBI behavioural change stairway"
|
| And find a practice-buddy. I work pro-bono with a couple of
| fellow startup founders exactly on this skill, because our day-
| to-day work forces us most of the time in a problem-solution
| mentality. It is so much more precious to get and offer
| understanding, the non-judgemental type, and acceptance, without
| any intention of change.
|
| Let me know if I can be of service here
| _dps wrote:
| I'd be interested in reading suggestions for criticism of
| Maslow or "win win".
|
| The few criticisms I've found of Maslow seem to be that it's
| not 100% universal across individuals and cultures. This is
| true, but I think not much of a criticism of a model that's
| meant to be a rough guideline to a very complex topic. If
| Maslow is only 80% valid across all of humanity I think that's
| a pretty decent model, but if there are deeper criticisms I'd
| be interested to learn.
|
| Similarly I'm not aware of any criticism of the concept of "win
| win" which, in my understanding, is just a definition of
| certain kinds of mutually beneficial situations. So I don't
| even have a frame for how it could be wrong :) Any reading
| advice on this subject would also be appreciated.
| johnsmith4739 wrote:
| Happy to do so, here is the data I operate with:
|
| Maslow's hierarchy of needs is supposed to provide a
| prioritisation of needs - physical needs take priority over
| self-actualisation. If the model is wrong you would see many
| inversions. As in people prioritising self-actualisation to
| shelter - live in worse situation but get a better education.
| Therefore the pyramid does not provide a model that can
| reflect reality in an accurate way and we have inversions all
| over the place - from students going to better universities
| to people climbing dangerous summits.
|
| There is a much better model - based in neuroscience, meaning
| that it has physiological proof to back it up. The Grawe
| consistency theory (neuropsychotherapy) has a much simpler
| approach:
|
| 3 needs we share with the whole living entities:
| Orientation/Control; Pleasure Maximisation/Pain Minimisation;
| Attachment; and one specific to humans Self-Enhancement (my
| work is, among others, focused on what causes this specific
| need, btw)
|
| The needs are acted out through "behavioural schemas" -
| either approach or avoidance behaviours.
|
| With this basic model you can empathise much better with
| anyone - when they do this, do they want to get something or
| get away from something? Does that give them more or less
| control, or maybe attachment? Nothing in Maslow's model can
| deliver this kind of understanding.
|
| Win-Win is related to behavioural change, that is rooted in
| empathy. How can you change behaviours if you don't
| understand them? Win-Win (Harvard model) is competing with
| the FBI model of behavioural change (the stairway). While the
| former implicitly expects us to be rather similar (playing
| the role of businessmen) the latter does away with ego and
| focuses all efforts in understanding the overt and
| subconscious motives of the other part, and then presents a
| solution that is connected to that. And it works much better
| in practice, mainly because is meant to work when our motives
| can seem incompatible - try a win-win with a hostage-taker.
|
| Anyway, remember that all models are wrong, but some of them
| are more useful. Part of this journey is to practice models
| and see what helps you get the results you want.
| _dps wrote:
| This is very interesting and helpful, thank you!
| tubularhells wrote:
| I struggled with this my whole life, until a diagnosis of
| autistic personality at the age of 34. Therapy helps you
| understand people because you can ask the therapist for the
| behaviours people expect from others. It's called masking.
| hirundo wrote:
| Apply your existing analysis skills. Build a mental model of a
| person as you would with a device. Your growing understanding of
| a device is a kind of empathy, enabling you to live with it in
| greater harmony. We organic devices are just more of the same.
| Given the low computational threshold for the emergence of
| complex behavior, heuristics are frequently conserved between
| software and wetware. Many people will respond positively to the
| same degree of attention and care you give to your code editor
| configuration.
| calamityjam wrote:
| I also do things this way. I have low empathy in that I do not
| literally feel sad when someone feels sad (or the feeling is
| less by several orders of magnitude). I build a mental model of
| the person based on past experiences and literature. Then I
| apply that and I attempt to predict the emotions they might
| feel in the situation. I believe this understanding is a form
| of empathy, but I think other people expect the other kind of
| empathy. I get feedback about whether my predictions are
| correct by making confirming statements that are either
| validated or denied. "That must've made you feel undervalued."
| "Did you feel disrespected in that situation?"
| yarcob wrote:
| What helped me was to start with the assumption that the other
| person is just as intelligent as myself.
|
| The worst is when you start making suggestions after listening to
| two sentences. If you assume that the other person is as
| intelligent as you are, then something you came up with after two
| minutes of listening is not useful -- they have probably
| considered this already.
|
| It's different from your job, because at work you probably are a
| specialist and it's possible you know the solution after two
| sentences.
|
| But for the problems we face in everyday life it's not so easy --
| there usually are no easy solutions, and most people have a
| similar amount of experience.
| axaxs wrote:
| I like this advice, but the question for me becomes how do you
| assume every person is as intelligent?
|
| No, I don't think I'm exceptional or smarter than
| everyone...but 15 seconds of scrolling through social media,
| watching daytime news, or even driving around makes it hard to
| assume there aren't a ton of idiots out there. So my default
| has kinda degraded to 'everyone is an idiot until proven
| otherwise', which is something I'd like not to feel.
| devilduck wrote:
| The easiest way is to not assume you yourself are very
| intelligent. Once you can do that, it's a lot easier since
| you are suddenly not "surrounded by idiots." Even the
| smartest people can get duped by their own hubris. Otherwise,
| I guess you might as well grab a blanket and settle into a
| comfy superiority complex.
| altgans wrote:
| > The worst is when you start making suggestions after
| listening to two sentences. If you assume that the other person
| is as intelligent as you are, then something you came up with
| after two minutes of listening is not useful -- they have
| probably considered this already.
|
| I disagree. This has nothing to do with intelligence. It is all
| about connecting different domains of knowledge. You know and
| have experienced things they haven't.
|
| Now you listen to their description of the problem, and
| transfer it to your domain of knowledge:
|
| "Hey, this sounds exactly like an issue my friend Josh had a
| few weeks ago."
|
| This is also why stories of the "king asking the farmer" or
| "CEO asking the cleaning lady" are so common --- it is all
| about the point of view.
|
| ---
|
| Where I agree with you is "listen first, speak later". Don't
| interrupt until they have finished telling their story.
| loopz wrote:
| The unintelligent part is assuming you got enough context in
| 2 minutes to start making suggestions. You end up breaking
| discovery process for the other person.
|
| It can help to frame it as questions and curiosity instead.
| sakawa wrote:
| > You know and have experienced things they haven't.
|
| They also know and have experienced things you haven't.
|
| I'd say that listen their description of the problem is the
| first (and maybe easy) part. But then you don't have to
| provide your solution, but rather find it together with that
| person.
|
| Treating the other person as intelligent as you helps sharing
| the problem solving part instead of doing it individually.
| twy30 wrote:
| > How did you develop your listening skill?
|
| By being rational -- the following method works well for me.
| YMMV.
|
| I reframe this problem as: Always assume the other person's
| limbic system has been activated; what will it take to calm their
| limbic system?
|
| I do not have the exact source handy, but IIRC it can take any
| time from 15 minutes to 4 hours. From experience, I concluded
| that the only rational moves during that time are:
|
| * Listening (the feeling of company and support)
|
| * Pleasant sensory stimulations, for example:
|
| - Scent: hot tea, fresh fruit
|
| - Touch (only when appropriate): pat on the shoulder/arm, hand-
| holding, hugs
|
| In contrary, during that time, any move that requires the other
| person's prefrontal cortex functions (planning, decision-making,
| abstract thinking, etc.) is almost always a wasted effort. (So
| don't make this type of irrational moves.)
| peterthehacker wrote:
| Depending on your personal situation you might want to seek
| professional help. But here are some ideas to get you started:
|
| Practice making eye contact especially when someone is opening up
| about their feelings. Then say things that show you know how they
| feel. Human brains can mirror feelings, like pain, from another
| humans [0]. So, to empathize with someone you need to get on
| their level emotionally and really feel how they are feeling.
|
| [0]
| https://www.ted.com/talks/vilayanur_ramachandran_the_neurons...
| temp0826 wrote:
| >> Then say things that show you know how they feel.
|
| Take care not to "me too, <personal anecdote>" as it can
| detract from the person seeking empathy.
| mponw wrote:
| First, make sure this is really what you want and need.
|
| It helps to be a Jungian personality type that has a strong focus
| on the feeling cognitive function, i.e. Fi/Fe. If that's not you,
| then empathy/sympathy will probably not come natural to you.
|
| Also, I have personally found that a very refined culture of
| giving and receiving empathy is found in the Non-Violent
| Communication (NVC) "universe" created by Marshall Rosenberg.
| laurent92 wrote:
| A lot of people implement NVC wrong and it becomes a codeword
| to divert the results of the discussion to /dev/null. "I'd like
| that we solve X" => "So I hear X makes you feel really bad,
| right?" => "Yes exactly, what can we do about it" => "Can you
| tell me more about X?" and so on. In fact, I have not seen
| people who talk about NVC and are able to listen to my request
| (well listen they do, but "act upon" they don't). It becomes a
| passive strategy to soothe the other while avoiding what he
| needs, and yet, still rephrase it perfectly.
|
| To counter that, I use another strategy: Threat. I say "If you
| keep rephrasing like this, I will pour acid on the roots of a
| tree until it dies." And they know I am capable of it.
|
| At least it has the effect of snapping the person into stopping
| his NVC and actually telling me he/she has no intent on solving
| the issue which, as an Asperger, is much easier to deal with,
| because I can quit, deal with it another way - at least the
| cards are on the table. I can't stand social games, and NVC
| became so misused by polite-agressive people that it became a
| social game.
|
| I feel sorry for the people who invented NVC, it's certainly
| not what they built it for.
| mponw wrote:
| Well, thank you for you honesty and openness. (How does that
| sound to ears that are averse to classical NVC?)
|
| Kelly Bryson ("Don't be nice, be real") mentioned how he
| experienced Marshall Rosenberg being quite torn about
| teaching people to be overly empathic as a habit. Kelly
| recommends radical honesty as an antidote to that.
| laurent92 wrote:
| It's cool, we're online anyway. Yes, radical honesty is
| much easier to manage, because it doesn't require trying to
| guess what the other is playing, and it doesn't create
| unmerited expectations. I didn't know Kelly Bryson, I'll
| look into it.
| nashalo_nighly wrote:
| A major epiphany for me was realizing that when someone is
| talking about their problems they don't necessarily want / need
| to hear solutions.
|
| When a solution pops don't say it until the person stops talking
| or asks << what would you do >>. It worked for me well to improve
| my listening skills.
| Riseed wrote:
| > I run cycles of listening, paraphrasing and then solutionizing
| almost every day. This doesn't translate well in friendships &
| relationships where the other person just wants someone to
| listen.
|
| One thing that greatly helped me was realizing that listening
| itself oftentimes is the solution, rather than thinking of
| problem-solving and listening as completely separate.
| (Paraphrasing can help the other person feel heard. If you're
| already paraphrasing, then maybe add a pause here to gauge how
| the other person has reacted to just being heard.)
|
| Another was learning to ask whether the other person wanted
| advice, perspective, and/or feedback instead of automatically
| offering it.
| gregd wrote:
| I've gotten in the habit of asking if they want someone to just
| listen or if they want help finding solutions.
|
| More often than not, people just want to know they've been heard.
|
| As for building empathy, this is a tough question and I'm not
| really sure how to answer it. What makes you think you aren't
| empathetic already, outside of some rando internet test for
| empathy? I'm not sure I'd put a lot of stock in that kind of
| testing. Are you getting this type of feedback from loved ones?
| gregd wrote:
| Another thing that may help you in the long run and I can't
| recommend this enough, is a book called, The Four Agreements by
| Don Miguel Ruiz.
| unixhero wrote:
| I just bought it:)
|
| I am going to also drop this here, which is how I came into
| contact with the book.
|
| https://youtu.be/LZT7tv1qDqU
| highempathi wrote:
| As someone who sits at the opposite end (way to empathetic) I can
| share this:
|
| I read once that bending your neck down (like when you look at
| your phone) lowers empathy. So to raise empathy practice looking
| up. This sounds like bs at first to me but when you think about
| it there's probably something to it as you look down at people
| beneath you and up at people above you. I find those towards the
| bottom of totem poles tend to be more empathetic (on average).
| arsalanb wrote:
| How has being way too empathetic affected your life?
| highempathi wrote:
| It increases the attack surface for people to ask me to do
| things that aren't beneficial (or are even detrimental) to my
| life because they want help and I feel bad and sad sometimes
| if I don't help them. It's something I'm working to get
| better at.
|
| edit: this is different from being intimidated into helping
| people. If someone threatens me I'm not going to help them.
| for example frequently people will come to me and ask for
| something I can do that they can't and I will want to help
| them and will then end up in a worse situation because of it.
| jasonv wrote:
| Don't ignore the older wisdom traditions on this question, too.
| There won't be a jolting answer in this thread, you may have to
| work over time for breakthroughs.
| flybrand wrote:
| Go to Reddit, create an account. Join r/relationships.
|
| Give advice to people with the goal of getting to 10,000 karma.
|
| Then you will know what to write, which will make it easier to
| say the correct thing when it happens in person.
| skmurphy wrote:
| re: "I rate lowly on empathy scoring tests on the Internet"
|
| I think the key is to ask questions from a caring perspective.
| Don't disguise advice as a question, but focus on helping the
| other person get clarity on their situation. It's symptom
| elicitation and constraint identification. Don't diagnose and
| don't prescribe, just help them get clarity.
|
| See https://www.skmurphy.com/blog/2015/09/25/asking-questions-
| fr... and https://www.skmurphy.com/blog/2015/07/05/a-serious-
| conversat...
| jugjug wrote:
| I use two complementing strategies:
|
| - Developing empathy towards myself first, that is, being able to
| observe feelings that arise within me and then being able to
| accept these feelings as they are. I have found this to be very
| relieving. A technique that helped me was meditation; training
| the mind like a muscle to be able to observe & recognize
| feelings.
|
| - Turning this outwards to others, the works of Marshall
| Rosenberg on the NonViolent Communiction (NVC) [1] had a profound
| impact on my perception of feelings of others. I'm trying to
| follow the essence of the book, rather than copying the phrases
| outlined there. I'm seeing more and more that NVC can be applied
| to business as well as personal relationships [2]
|
| Applying these to your example, it might be interesting to
| explore what do you _feel_ when the other person just wants you
| to listen. What is it that you _need_ out of the relationship and
| what is it that the _other_ side needs [3]?
|
| [1]:
| https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/71730.Nonviolent_Communi...
|
| [2]: https://marcel.is/contractor-didnt-deliver/
|
| [3]: https://marcel.is/conflict-resolution/
| cushychicken wrote:
| Big fan of nonviolent communication. It's a great framework for
| telling folks that you feel wronged by their behavior.
| nullserver wrote:
| Be mindful of how far you go with this. If they have empathy
| they will feel bad. Some people absolutely will take
| advantage of this to control them.
| feydaykyn wrote:
| Non violent communication seems so weird at first, and people
| think I never criticize... In the beginning. After a while,
| most of the people I work with openly recognize that they don't
| want to go back to the level of aggressiveness which is the
| norm in communication.
| zo7 wrote:
| Adding to this, there is a specific kind of meditation you
| could try called metta (aka loving-kindness) where you focus on
| cultivating benevolence towards yourself and all things. During
| a session you follow a similar sequence: first focus on
| cultivating loving-kindness towards yourself (since this is the
| base from where empathy grows) then you gradually extend it to
| people you love out to people who you have difficulty with. If
| mindfulness is an exercise to train your mind to observe
| itself, metta trains your mind to observe other minds.
|
| Also second Rosenberg's book. It can come across as
| condescending if applied too heavily but it's a great analysis
| on language during conflict.
| stonecraftwolf wrote:
| I would add that this can be extremely challenging (and
| possibly triggering) for people who had traumatic childhoods.
| In those cases it is best to start with loving compassion
| towards a beloved pet, for example -- something simpler, that
| is not so emotionally charged.
|
| Either way the metta instruction I've encountered has often
| failed because it failed to emphasize the sensation of
| emotion. It's not lying there thinking about how much you
| love something. It's thinking of the thing or person you love
| and trying to locate the specific sensation in your body, and
| then grow it.
|
| Many people mistake ritual dissociation for meditation, which
| can be really really harmful.
| nullserver wrote:
| Can confirm. Was very empathetic towards others.
|
| Repeated tragedies, pain and abuse can make you lose most
| or even all empathy. Even as an adult.
|
| I have some back now, but nothing like I used to be.
|
| Someone at work was very sad the other day, and I actually
| felt a little bad for them. First time in several years I
| felt anything at all. Hopefully get more back.
| captn3m0 wrote:
| Reading fiction.
|
| https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/novel-finding-rea...
| dorkwood wrote:
| I'm not a naturally empathetic person, but people often rate me
| highly these days. All of my tricks come from Carl Rogers' book
| "Active Listening", where he teaches you the importance of making
| the other person feel understood.
|
| The technique basically boils down to repeating back your
| understanding of the situation to the person, and attempting to
| identify what they must be feeling.
|
| If you're like me, this won't come naturally. It will feel fake,
| and you'll be worried that the other person will see right
| through you and accuse you of trying to therapize them. In my
| experience, this doesn't happen. If you keep the tone
| conversational and curious, the other person will be none the
| wiser, and will be happy that someone is finally trying to
| understand them.
|
| An example might be if someone says to you "ugh, they keep giving
| me all the work to do while everyone else sits around". A non-
| empathetic response might be something like "maybe you could try
| delegating some of your work to the others", which isn't really
| an effort to understand the situation better, and more than
| likely will make the other person defensive.
|
| To practice active listening, the conversation could instead go
| something like:
|
| B: "Damn, that sounds frustrating. You must be pretty annoyed at
| the others for getting a free ride"
|
| A: "No, I mean, it's not even their fault. I think I did this to
| myself by trying so hard to get my work done quickly when I
| started here".
|
| B: "Oh, right. So they've identified you as the competent one,
| and now they feel like they can give you the most work to do
| since you can handle it?"
|
| A: "That's right."
|
| B: "Yeah, that sounds like a tough spot to be in. It's hard to go
| back to a lesser workload once people think you can handle a
| lot."
|
| A: "Exactly."
|
| What you're looking for is the person to say some version of
| "exactly" to confirm that you've got it right. If you can get to
| "exactly", you'll have successfully empathized with the other
| person.
|
| Test it out one day. Make a deal with yourself to have an entire
| conversation where you don't suggest solutions, and only try to
| get a solid understanding of the other person's situation and
| their emotional state. You can always satisfy the solutionizing
| part of your brain by going on HN and sending some comments into
| the void.
| defnmacro wrote:
| The advice here is fairly practical but I think doesn't do much
| to encompass the premise of the question: which is how to you
| become more empathetic?
|
| Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of
| another. This is a complex skill because it requires 1)
| understanding and 2) the ability to share and engage with someone
| else's feelings.
|
| To be more empathetic you need to understand why the person feels
| the way they do and this is often done through either shared
| experiences or insight into those feelings.
|
| Reading can be a great way to become more empathetic as it
| exposes you to the thought patterns of another individual in the
| experience they choose to write about. So reading various books
| about people's experiences can give you a broader perspective
| about peoples reactions, feelings, and thoughts to events that
| have occurred in their lives. There's really no shortcut when it
| comes to reading, the best advice is to read alot about various
| different things from the first hand perspective of others.
|
| Reading is just one way to understand people's shared experiences
| actually talking to a diverse set of people about their lives is
| another way to build this skill. As engineers we're generally not
| good at this but an example would be going to a bar asking about
| someone's life and just letting them speak as you listen. I'll
| also add its an amazing way to make friends and people are
| infinitely complex and seemingly "average" lives are filled with
| wonderful insights, experiences, and things to learn from.
|
| The second part is being able to share and engage, this requires
| an understanding of your own thoughts, feelings, and experiences.
| If you lack the ability to understand how your feeling trying to
| understand someone else's feelings is generally moot.
|
| If you have trouble engaging with your thought patterns or
| feelings CBT can be helpful as well as mindfulness.
|
| When your able to understand your own emotions you'll more easily
| be able to understand other people's experiences as you'll more
| easily shift perspective of what your reaction would be to an
| experience someone else is having or had.
|
| Empathy is a hard skill but extremely important for intrapersonal
| relationships and ultimately success and it is a skill which can
| wax and wane based on active practice. An example why empathy is
| important is a founder who is more empathetic will be able to
| understand customer pain points more accurately, creating a
| better product which more purposefully solves a problem.
| Applejinx wrote:
| Even though this reads a bit funny (install empathy.exe, please!)
| I think it's interesting you're even asking the question. That
| alone is significant, so you are already becoming more empathetic
| just by asking. You could easily have not asked at all.
|
| I'm reminded of the 'wag more bark less' bumper stickers. That's
| a good tip. In being empathetic you're not doing anything
| specific, still less solving anything. You are projecting 'I'm
| listening I'm listening I'm here wag wag wag' like the bumper
| sticker. It stops being about what you're going to do, or what
| you're expected to do, and it's about telegraphing your
| willingness to perceive. You're wagging up a storm: you are
| indicating attention, responsiveness. In a sense it's like active
| waiting?
|
| Even to ask the question signifies more responsiveness than 'I
| will make a solution as quickly as possible and then turn my back
| on you as soon as I can'.
|
| It's also helpful to be honest with yourself about where you're
| at. I'm fundamentally a rather isolated, selfish person. I direct
| that towards generous open source software and helping to guide
| others (when it's convenient) and so I come off, in some
| contexts, as terribly empathetic.
|
| But part of that is avoiding a selfish-failure-mode: I will make
| an effort to get as little as possible out of things and to look
| for what I'm putting into the situation, focus on that. It's
| focusing on the hacking side rather than the payment, and if I
| can be strategically generous enough it makes no sense to get mad
| at me for not giving MORE, and so I can interact on a level that
| 'reads' as extremely empathetic and kindly.
|
| In fact, I have just managed my situation to where I am not
| giving more than I can comfortably provide... and since I'm not
| stressing out about it or gauging whether I'm being given back
| 'enough', it feels to others like I'm just hanging out being
| attentive and helpful. I'm just pursuing my own interests, but if
| you share them it's easy to think that I'm doing mighty nice
| things 'for you'.
|
| Lack of pressure to get an interactional outcome plays a role, I
| think.
| csydas wrote:
| If it's just friendships and relationships, then put aside
| strategies and models.
|
| Just ask.
|
| "I'm here for you and I want to help; do you want listening, or
| fixing right now?"
|
| The above is not meant as a script, but the idea you need to get
| across. If you're not feeling you can delicately explain such
| things, always start with your own desire to be clear, and
| usually you will have leeway with someone after you show that you
| want to help, you maybe just aren't sure how to best do it.
|
| Empathy is a trained skill and also a factor of familiarity, and
| until you know a person or really learn to understand the context
| of different cues someone provides, you're at a loss. No one is a
| mind reader, and even the best therapists/counselors ask very
| direct questions.
|
| For listening, as much of a tautology as this may seem, you have
| to actually want to listen to get better at listening. If you
| don't have the motivation or want, then empathy isn't going to
| improve. Find whatever reason you need to justify your want to
| listen and then just remember what the person is looking for, and
| expressing your desires.
|
| Review how you listen; some people are good at just absorbing
| information and agreeing, others try to show they're invested by
| telling their own stories that relate, there are many ways of
| doing this. Understand your usual/default way and review how it
| makes you feel when you do this: there is a personal gain you get
| from such communications, so what is it? Then, see how others
| have responded or understand it. Do they see it as you trying to
| "steal" the conversation? As something unrelated? As a point of
| comfort?
|
| Watch how a person you care about listens to you; likely there's
| a correlation to how they like to be listened to.
|
| Remember that your feelings will generally guide how you respond
| to such situations, and you need to keep yourself level on a few
| subjects:
|
| - You cannot fix some problems, so look to comfort not to fix
| (e.g., nothing you can do will make a loved one dying any better
| for someone)
|
| - You might not be able to provide what someone needs at a
| specific time. This is not a fault or flaw of you, it's just
| their need differs than your offer. This is a neutral thing
|
| - Low Empathy and even some features classifiable under the DSM
| may be explanations for why you struggle to listen that people
| accept, but it won't make them feel better necessarily unless you
| make an effort to still work past it. There may be a limit you
| have to such interactions, but if you "give up" with your
| limitations, it's usually interpreted as giving up on the person
| also. This doesn't mean you need to bend-over-backwards
| struggling, but the efforts you do make to overcome these limits
| will never be forgotten.
|
| Most communication failures with those who struggle with
| empathy/listening are just communication issues (broooooad
| generalization of course). Both external communication and your
| own internal. Take the time to understand yourself first and what
| you are missing/not getting, and try to find a way to articulate
| to yourself what your needs are at a given time. If you can't
| know, then there's no way someone else can except by guessing.
| And if you cannot understand your needs in a situation like this,
| it's hard to even begin to understand what others might need.
| ZEFuVQU3WpZz wrote:
| It's easy to extrapolate people's motivations and beliefs, aka
| jump to conclusions, because you think you understand what you're
| hearing. Instead, take in and verify what they're saying without
| agreeing or disagreeing. When you say non-judgmentally "I'm
| hearing that you think/feel/experienced ...", you'll be amazed
| how often they tell you that you misunderstood. That's totally
| fine, because they'll correct you, and after a few rounds of that
| you'll really get where they're coming from and they'll know it,
| which is what empathy's all about. You don't need or want to take
| on their feelings and beliefs though, because integrity is an
| important part of empathy. So a respectful "that's really
| important to you"-like comment again makes them feel understood
| without in the least compromising your own principles. Once you
| and they both are certain you get where they're coming form, then
| the conversation can move on from there as appropriate.
| jlos wrote:
| Take some classes towards some kind of counseling certificate,
| specifically ones where you can observe experienced counselors.
| You'll see people with expert listening skills use them to help
| people.
|
| That's what I did and it changed my perspective permanently.
| Before becoming an engineer I studied theology, which is actually
| a pretty technical discipline that requires insane amounts of
| reading (i.e. not people oriented). Afterwards, I took a
| counseling degree. Digging into people's lives, their struggles,
| and watching my professors help people really opened my eyes. It
| helped me see where I was being rigid and taught me some amazing
| listening skills.
| hnarn wrote:
| I'll give it a shot, because I consider myself a relatively
| empathetic person:
|
| > 1. How did you develop your listening skill?
|
| In my mind, there are at least two different types of listening
| that I can think of. Let's call them "surveying" and
| "socialising":
|
| a) When you're "surveying", you're taking in information to
| create some kind of output in the end. This could be listening to
| a co-worker describe a problem, or it could be listening to a
| friend asking for relationship advice. What's normally the most
| important here is to indicate that you are in fact listening, and
| resist the urge (if you have it) to break in during the
| explanation, unless you need clarification. At the end, try to
| summarize what you've understood, not just to indicate that you
| actually listened but also to clear up any misunderstandings.
|
| b) When you're socializing, what can lead to conflict is if you
| approach it like you're doing "a": this took me years to realize
| in romantic relationships, that a lot of complaining is _not_
| someone asking for a solution. When meeting people in general
| that 's pretty obvious, people like whining about things just to
| agree on things that suck so you can bond over it, but for some
| reason I always assumed that in more intimate environments you'd
| probably bring it up to get some advice. Well, that's not true.
| So if the person is just airing grievances, saying "that sucks"
| and doing some whining on your own that's tangentially related
| might seem like a really bad solution, and it is, but noone is
| asking for a solution, so don't offer one.
|
| > 2. How to be more empathetic?
|
| Having empathy is quite simply the capacity to relate to another
| persons feelings. That doesn't just mean "how would I feel", it
| also means "how does this other person differ from me, and how
| would I feel in their situation", which is something completely
| different. Other people will frequently feel insecure, just like
| I'm sure you do, and it's not always we consider that.
|
| It's also important to point out that it's impossible to care
| about everybody's problems, but the important part is not
| genuinely caring, but dealing with the situation in a way that is
| socially acceptable. You know, like walking away while someone is
| talking about something that's really weighing on them might make
| sense from the perspective that you don't honestly care, it
| doesn't make sense from the perspective that you don't want this
| person to feel rejected and meaningless.
|
| Like all skills, empathy takes practice if you're not used to it.
| Maybe you're from a home where talking about feelings wasn't
| encouraged, regardless of why you feel you need to be "more"
| empathetic, don't be too hard on yourself. Honesty goes a long
| way, and if you feel like you don't know how to act in a
| situation, it's a million times better to be honest and open
| about how you feel than to fake it.
|
| Most of the time, showing empathy is just acknowledging that
| you're seeing another person and what they're going through. 15
| minutes of heartwrenching details about a breakup doesn't need a
| 15 minute response, it's well enough to just acknowledge that the
| whole situation really sucks and you're there if they want to
| talk about it some more. A lot of problems don't have solutions,
| and empathy is meeting someone in that uncertainty.
|
| > 1. What common failure modes do you hit in your relationships
| as a low empathy person?
|
| I used to be a pretty low empathy person, but I think honest and
| open communication goes a long way to rectify that in the long
| term. As long as you're open about your weaknesses, people at
| least know what to expect and what to tell you. If you tell
| someone that you need them to be extra clear on what they mean or
| expect, and that your "low empathy" behavior isn't meant to cause
| offense, at least people close to you will probably feel more
| comfortable in correcting it. If you don't, most likely nobody
| will say anything, because adults normally aren't in the habit of
| raising eachother.
|
| > 2. How do you avoid them?
|
| If you want to avoid a behavior that you consider unwanted,
| that's going to be hard if you yourself can't identify them when
| they happen. So I would say that a good first step is probably
| acknowledging the problem, and trying to identify it when it
| happens. When it does, despite what you have in your mind, try
| acting in another way and see if it gets you a better result. If
| you can't come up with anything and you need help, _ask for
| help_. There is no shame in being open about what you don 't know
| and what you're not good at, that's the first step to self
| improvement.
|
| One quote on empathy that has stuck with me is that we "always
| judge others by their actions, but ourselves by our intentions".
| We tend to be less forgiving to others, and one way out of that
| may be to try to find the underlying _intention_ rather than what
| that person did. Empathy is, after all, the ability to envision
| yourself in another persons position. In the long run, I think
| this leads to a lot less conflict as well.
| loopz wrote:
| Avoid immature unempathic communications and behaviours: "Lots of
| trash answers. All of them in fact!"
|
| Instead:
|
| 1) The Golden Rule: Treat others as you'd yourself want to be
| treated. This is an ever-evolving loop of growth and learning
| throughout your life. You are never finished!
|
| 2) In job, service, family, nearly everywhere, people respond
| better to you when your behaviour and communications reflect the
| same shared goal. What might those goals be. As with #1 this is
| also a life-long quest.
|
| 3) As you gain better responses with people or get to know people
| better, you might consider asking for information, how to do
| stuff, help or start leading new initiatives.
|
| At the same time, it is important to realize how the
| responsibility areas work within your organization, and avoid
| taking on work that you shouldn't take on!
| pje wrote:
| You may not know what's best for other people!
|
| Instead of the Golden Rule, think of it this way:
|
| "Ask others how they want to be treated, and then treat them
| that way."
| loopz wrote:
| It doesn't help when people have no broader vision, plan or
| clue.
|
| I engage people for shared understanding and work instead,
| but is counter to expectations.
| koolba wrote:
| > The Golden Rule: Treat others as you'd yourself want to be
| treated. This is an ever-evolving loop of growth and learning
| throughout your life. You are never finished!
|
| I prefer the silver rule: _Do not treat others in ways you do
| not want to be treated_
|
| Though neither really involves empathy as they're based on your
| own feelings of a situation.
| gms7777 wrote:
| And note that the golden rule and its counterpart the silver
| rule are only a fall back for when you don't have enough
| information to apply the platinum rule: "Do unto others as
| they would want done to them"
| halfmatthalfcat wrote:
| You have to learn how to put yourself into other people's shoes.
| It sounds simple but it is incredibly difficult. You really have
| to step outside of your ego and try to view things through
| another person's eyes.
|
| A key part is understanding who the person is. What experiences
| they've had. Truly what their life is. Some of this you can
| extrapolate from where they were born, how they were raised,
| their heritage, race, sex, gender, sexual orientation, etc. None
| of these defines an individual though, so you really have to
| navigate each person and truly want to learn what makes them
| tick.
|
| Once you learn a person's wants and needs, then you can start to
| reflect that off of your own experiences and start to live in
| someone else's shoes.
| ReDeiPirati wrote:
| 1. Stop thinking about yourself, and putting yourself at the
| first place of every thought and need.
|
| 2. Practice introspection. Observe what trigger your low empathy
| behaviour. (Meditation will help you with this.)
|
| 3. Consider every person you will talk with as a master that can
| teach you something new. Curiosity and open-mindness will do the
| rest.
| mam2 wrote:
| Counterintuitive idea: learn to not be "curious about the person
| situation, while not really caring about the person".
|
| Basically focus on listening and asking details while not really
| giving deep solutions but rather general advices.
|
| This has 2 advantages:
|
| - by not caring you will focus less on actual solutions and more
| on listening. You will learn a lot of funny stories if you do
| that with funny people
|
| - people will still feel you care about them, while if you speak
| they will think you make it about you.
|
| - your solutions would be useless anyway because What people
| REALLY want is ranting / blowing steam off / talking out loud to
| clarify their thinking, basically turning you into a "duck" (the
| bathing plastic duck you explain your problem which in turns
| makes it more clear to you and makes you fins the solution). Its
| actually a good thing for them. The bottom line is that they dont
| NEED your solutions.
|
| If you do that, most people will say you are a "great person to
| talk" to. And they actually solve their problems faster that if
| you gave any solution ^^
| kuroguro wrote:
| Doubt if any of this is useful, but personally
|
| > How did you develop your listening skill?
|
| I've somehow developed the skill to detect that the other person
| isn't asking for a solution and most of the time I just blank out
| and think about other stuff (lol) and give vague agreeable
| comments ... while not empathetic, people keep coming back to
| talk about their problems for some reason, so I guess it works
| out?
|
| > How to be more empathetic?
|
| No idea.
|
| > What common failure modes do you hit in your relationships as a
| low empathy person?
|
| Keep forgetting things that should be "obviously" important -
| anniversaries / courtesies etc
|
| > How do you avoid them?
|
| I don't! If needed I apologize, explain the situation from my
| viewpoint to show that it's not deliberate and usually others
| grow used to it :)
| pushswap wrote:
| Try adopting an animal from a local shelter.
|
| Anecdotally, for myself and others I've observed, it's a very
| effective way to consistently build empathy in one's self.
|
| Prison systems in Nordic countries often combine labor with farm
| animal care to increase productivity and develop empathy at the
| same time.
| [deleted]
| carapace wrote:
| There's a simple technique that often helps: Let's say you're
| talking to someone and it's not going well, empathy-wise. (If you
| like, you can remember a situation from your past now to try this
| out with.) Allow your locus of perception to move from your
| physical point-of-view to the outside, so that you can see both
| yourself and the other person. Then (and this is the important
| bit) move around so that you are hovering above the other
| person's shoulder looking back at yourself. Now review (literally
| re-watch) the situation from the other person's (literal) POV.
| This will often present you with new and useful insight into your
| communications and relationship with others.
| lightyrs wrote:
| Cognitive behavioral therapy can help.
|
| The intellectual pursuit of empathy often results in individuals
| who know what empathy should look like and are good at faking it.
|
| Real empathy requires you to recognize and process your emotions
| differently. This can be learned over time but usually not by
| directly attacking the problem.
|
| This is just based on my own experiences.
|
| But I can imagine this is frustrating for you and it seems like
| you're already doing the hard work of recognizing there's an
| issue. Good luck to you.
| _zamorano_ wrote:
| And how about too empathic people?
|
| They're never talked about, and seem like they don't exist... but
| they do, and usually lead miserable lifes due to their insistence
| in an excessive identification with others people problems.
|
| They look bland, and most don't take them seriously, and
| sometimes are the laughing stock... and to be honest, I don't
| think society is to blame, as they don't fall near the middle of
| the normalcy curve... but they do have a problem.
|
| Anyway, they're out of luck. Not in the fashionable side of the
| victim mentality of nowadays society.
| loopz wrote:
| Caring too much is a thing. Can be detrimental to self,
| systematically abused or even be an ego issue. Not sure the
| problematic aspect is empathy, rather sensitivity.
| bsrhng wrote:
| I think a very important step is acknowledging that the person
| standing in front of you has the capacity to feel whatever
| negative or positive emotion that you can feel.
|
| (That is regardless of whether you can quote research to the
| contrary. That is, statements that some people in some cases
| given some environment in a given moment or period could not pass
| some bar that some researcher has set.)
|
| Your goal is to discover the person standing in front of you by
| allowing yourself to see them as a fully capable and imaginative
| human.
|
| The other thing is to acknowledge that everyone is at some stage
| in their life. They have realized some things and others not. You
| want to know how they see the world and how they interpret what
| happens to them. Usually here you'll discover that they make some
| rigid assumptions about the world whenever they are mentioning
| some issue. And usually that issue has something to do with their
| relationship with other people or with the way that they view
| themselves.
|
| Within all this is of course you as the listener. If something is
| making you uncomfortable in this process you should be very
| honest with yourself what that is. There are of course cases
| where people are very deeply entangled in their own world and I
| don't think in those cases it is beneficial for either of you to
| participate in the conversation.
|
| To add to the previous point, I think realizing that there is a
| lot to be learned by allowing people to share the way they think
| with you. I think you would be surprised by what people are
| willing to tell you if you allow them and the kind of deep
| relationships you can form that way. It's also very surprising to
| realize that most issues that people have beneath a very shallow
| surface of circumstances are really almost the same. And they
| mostly have to do with the way that they talk to themselves about
| what happens to them.
| Baeocystin wrote:
| There's lots of specific advice posted already, much of which is
| good. I want to emphasize the seed crystal that ties it all
| together: try to put yourself in the shoes of the person you're
| talking to.
|
| That's it. When talking to someone, constantly try to envision
| what it feels like to be them, to have the point of view(s) that
| they have, and what is driving them. Not just once or twice, but
| continuously, throughout the conversation.
|
| Now- this is a lifelong skill. It takes constant practice, and
| you get better slowly over time. But we as humans are built for
| this sort of thing. From mirror neurons to brain structures
| dedicated to facial decoding, we have the innate hardware
| required to be successfully empathetic. It just takes practice.
| The hardest/most useful part is learning to understand other
| people's decision-making systems, which are going to be very
| different than your own. Withhold snap judgement, and try to find
| why their system works for them. You will almost inevitably learn
| something of value from the process.
| Arete314159 wrote:
| Well....one way to level up quickly is to go through something
| terrible, especially something you didn't used to think much
| about before.
|
| I cannot recommend this method, as it usually sucks, but it will
| often open your heart as well as a side effect.
| rantwasp wrote:
| ./configure; make; make install on the unpacked empathy tarball
| you just downloaded
| xbar wrote:
| Hold babies. Hold puppies. Hold kittens. Hold baby chicks. Hold
| lambs. Hold calves.
|
| 30 minutes per day. Every day. Your empathy will skyrocket.
| sjg007 wrote:
| Active listening and don't offer advice or try to solve the
| problem.
| dfilppi wrote:
| Study people you believe have empathy, and imitate them. Then
| others will think you have it too.
| staysaasy wrote:
| Management advice that I learned the hard way -
|
| Force yourself to talk less. If you're talking too much, just
| stop wherever you are or even say something like "hey actually
| let's hear what you have to say first."
|
| Separate solutioning from listening + understanding. Try to
| listen and understand first, and then consciously separate that
| from any solutioning topic. It's like writing and reviewing code
| - you write first, then check things over, and then get a review
| which is done separately (and in that case, by a completely
| different person).
|
| (another potential tactic - don't try to solution in friendships
| and relationships at all unless someone asks you to)
| goldeneye13_ wrote:
| I really enjoyed reading Time to Think: Listening to Ignite the
| Human Mind. It is more for the professional setting but I think a
| lot of it is applicable to personal life as well.
| teh_infallible wrote:
| I think you need to be attuned to your own emotional state before
| you can perceive and respond to the emotions of others.
| snarfy wrote:
| Get some pets.
| andrei_says_ wrote:
| Use the nonviolent communication model:
|
| - recognize that anything we do is a strategy to meet one or more
| universal basic human needs which we do not control (e.g. safety,
| to matter, contribution, respect, play, sexual expression etc.)
|
| - recognize that how we do things depends on our experience and
| conditioning. Many of the strategies we have are suboptimal, or
| harmful, or meet some needs at the expense of others
|
| - acknowledge that we don't control our condition, and neither do
| others. Genetic makeup, rest level, conditioning, life
| experience, trauma, attention level, mind chatter, current
| thoughts, blood sugar etc. all influence our reactions and our
| reactions come out of all of these. Free will is a myth - we
| don't control our preferences.
|
| - feelings are useful indicators of basic needs being met or not.
|
| - learn to look for needs and the feelings present in the people
| around you. Start observing them in yourself.
|
| - learn to weave in the needs and feelings when you communicate.
| NVC language is clunky, the way I teach it is to weave in the
| essence but stay closer to less formal language.
| ironmagma wrote:
| Not everything humans do is based on a need. We are somewhat
| random as well and have wants that aren't backed by anything
| more than the want itself. The essentialism above reminds me of
| Robert California's "all life is sex" motto.
| cmrx64 wrote:
| wants are wants because we imagine having the want fulfilled
| will ___________. what's your take on the blank?
| ironmagma wrote:
| Release dopamine. That's not a need any more than buying a
| nice car is a need. It's a want, and there is a difference.
| Needs are things required to survive; not buying a nice car
| will not kill you or anything like it.
| alexashka wrote:
| You're using _your_ definition of 'need' to point out that
| it doesn't fit into what the parent has said.
|
| You're right, _your_ definition doesn 't fit, his definition
| fits perfectly. Words have multiple meanings.
| ironmagma wrote:
| Well if you instead define a need as a want, then of course
| it makes sense, but that is because it's tautological.
| "People do things because they want to do them." That's
| hardly an insight.
| alexashka wrote:
| Indeed, in non-violent communication, a need and a want
| are more or less interchangeable.
|
| The parent did an arguably poor job of expressing why
| non-violent communication is interesting.
|
| It's value prop is in learning to _think_ in terms of
| people expressing their needs /wants and recognizing 'you
| don't listen to me' as a complaint about a need/want not
| being met, not an attack or statement regarding your
| character.
|
| The author of this thread has internalized being 'low in
| empathy', while non-violent communication would reject
| such labels as unhelpful and inaccurate, instead focusing
| on seeing if the wants/needs of a relationship can be
| improved and met through effective communication
| regarding what is actually desired, instead of blaming
| and attacking one another.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| The "need" thing is weird because it's a rather vague term.
|
| It would be better to say every conversation has some kind of
| purpose. The purpose could be as simple as wanting to have a
| conversation. The purpose determines how you approach the
| conversation.
|
| Before anyone throws up their hands about overthinking
| things, that's the point. It's taking what's an implicit,
| emotional process and making it an explicit, logical one.
| Over time, this way of thinking becomes automatic, turning it
| into an implicit, emotional process.
|
| Think of nonviolent communication as retraining your social
| skills. The same as any martial art, you have to unlearn what
| you think you know and start with the basics.
|
| For myself, I learned all of my social skills this way. I
| lack the emotional machinery required to learn social skills
| the implicit way. I'm constantly updating my rules to adjust
| for people I can't predict.
| ironmagma wrote:
| > I'm constantly updating my rules to adjust for people I
| can't predict.
|
| But that is the implicit way. Everyone builds their psyche
| in response to the stimuli they encounter. There is value
| in building a system for yourself, but there is also danger
| in believing that the system is itself an answer. Build the
| system for yourself in the wrong way and you can end up
| with a severe psychosis. I think it's better if we
| acknowledge that everyone is responsible for each other
| instead of peddling these self help ideas like "nonviolent
| communication" which are ultimately about selling books.
| Pamar wrote:
| Are you familiar with the works of Paul Watzlawick? Especially
| https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/89200.Pragmatics_of_Huma...
| ?
|
| I am asking because your first statement does not seem to
| adequately explain all the factors which are in play when we
| communicate.
| herodotus wrote:
| Here is one tip: when someone tells you something, even it is a
| problem they are having, they don't want you propose a solution.
| What they want is to heard. If they really want you to suggest a
| solution to their problem, they will ask you directly: "Can you
| suggest what I should do about this?"
|
| Example: "My manager really demands too much of me!" Good: "I am
| sorry to hear that." Bad: "Why don't you arrange a 1 on 1 and
| tell him that his demands are decreasing your productivity, which
| is obviously against his interests".
|
| Only offer the second comment if you are asked directly!
| break_the_bank wrote:
| That is good advice though saying "I am sorry to hear that",
| seems a little shallow.
|
| I think I solutionize cause I care or maybe I just like problem
| solving. Though coming up with an answer instantly belittles
| their problem.
| mjwhansen wrote:
| What you're hitting on is the difference between sympathy and
| empathy. Both have a role in helping people.
|
| "I'm sorry to hear that" = sympathy
|
| "It sounds like you're exhausted by that." = empathy
|
| Notice the noun in those sentences: first one is you, second
| one is them.
|
| What matters is what we say after those, too. There's a big
| difference between, "It sounds like you're exhausted that.
| [Solution proposal]" and "It sounds like you're exhausted by
| that. [Pause, wait for them to expound]"
|
| Proposing solutions can have a role, and is a form of caring.
| But only if we get permission for it first, and do so in a
| rubber-duck way (ex "what have you already tried to fix
| that?")
| User23 wrote:
| The main difference[1] between sympathy and empathy is that
| sympathy means actually sharing the emotional experience,
| whereas empathy merely means understanding someone is
| having an emotional experience. A sociopath devoid of
| sympathy could be highly empathetic and they often are,
| because it aids emotional manipulation.
|
| For example something like "you clearly feel unappreciated,
| but I don't care so stop telling me about it" is
| empathetic. This leaves me wondering why exactly there is
| such an obviously submarined push for empathy in the
| software industry. Is the idea to get unsympathetic persons
| to learn enough empathy to convincingly feign sympathy? If
| so, what outcome is that dishonesty meant to achieve?
|
| [1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/sympathy-
| empat...
| readflaggedcomm wrote:
| Also, proposing solutions is distinct from suggesting ways
| to search for solutions. Confusing those explains most of
| the sentiment that solutions belittle someone.
| psychiatrist24 wrote:
| What if I don't think the person is "exhausted by that",
| but displays some other psychological issue, like blaming
| other people for their problems? Wouldn't that also be
| emphatic?
|
| I give that example because it is common for people to bond
| via complaining about stuff (like their bosses), which I
| think is a bad habit that leads to negative outcomes.
|
| And why are the people who just want to hear "I'm sorry" in
| the right, and not the people who want to find solutions?
| Why do the people who don't want solutions get to make the
| rules?
| leetcrew wrote:
| > And why are the people who just want to hear "I'm
| sorry" in the right, and not the people who want to find
| solutions? Why do the people who don't want solutions get
| to make the rules?
|
| it's a set of tools, not a set of moral imperatives.
| worrying about which conversation style is "correct" is
| not a practical way to approach social interactions.
|
| unless the person is a close friend or their behavior is
| harming you somehow, just keep the negative feedback to
| yourself. just tell them your best guess at what they
| want to hear and move on.
| temp0826 wrote:
| >> What matters is what we say after those, too. There's a
| big difference between, "It sounds like you're exhausted
| that. [Solution proposal]" and "It sounds like you're
| exhausted by that. [Pause, wait for them to expound]"
|
| Really glad you brought up this point too. It comes off as
| extremely condescending if you don't fully give someone
| space to express themselves. Simple follow up questions can
| be useful to help them develop their thoughts further, but
| firing back a solution instantly against something they may
| have put a great deal of thought into isn't the right thing
| to do.
| nickjj wrote:
| I like that you went with "It sounds like you're exhausted
| by that" instead of "Wow, that would make me exhausted
| too".
|
| Because the 2nd one sets a totally different tone which
| might be seen as you wanting to stop talking about them and
| now it's your turn to guide the conversation and make it
| about you. It's also making a pretty big assumption about
| them being exhausted in which case you might drop the "too"
| to get rid of that assumption but you're still trying to
| sound like you're shifting things to be about you instead
| of them.
| timthorn wrote:
| Careful though - "It sounds like you're exhausted by that"
| can also come off as sounding quite patronising.
| fsociety wrote:
| Perhaps "that sounds exhausting", so that you are
| communicating that you too would be exhausted by that.
| mjwhansen wrote:
| Absolutely - tone of voice matters a lot.
| casi wrote:
| Similar I read a line a year or so ago (can't remember where)
| that really stuck with me:
|
| All anyone ever really says is "I love you" or "help me".
|
| I try remember this whenever I am frustrated with what someone
| is saying to me. You can't always help them, and sometimes it's
| hard to love them, but you can reframe where they are coming at
| as being from them not about you, and with that resist arguing
| and feeling insulted or threatened.
| jack_pp wrote:
| Would " That sucks, have you tried doing something about it?"
| be good? As in, use the socratic method to help them come up
| with a solution.
| mjwhansen wrote:
| "That sucks" may be intended as empathetic, but usually comes
| off as callous.
|
| You might try the combination of [name the feeling] + [broad
| question], like:
|
| "That sounds frustrating. What have you tried to solve that?"
|
| or ismply stating the feeling and letting them move towards
| solution ideas after their feeling has been established,
| like:
|
| "It sounds like this is taking a lot of energy from you."
|
| (wait, let them reply)
|
| "Can you tell me what you're working through to try to fix
| this?"
| thestepafter wrote:
| I am learning empathy myself and I think this would imply
| that they are being lazy and could come across as
| condescending. "That's too bad, if I had that problem I would
| do something about it."
| Ariez wrote:
| I was just thinking about this I think you're right. Such
| small differences in phrasing can have a big difference.
|
| I think a great response would be "That sucks, do you THINK
| if you spoke to them something would change?" Rather than
| "have you tried to speak to them?"
|
| The first is a question, that will prompt them to think and
| then maybe act. The second is a question that is a little
| accusatory (you should have already spoken to them about
| it)
|
| Conversation is hard!
| [deleted]
| kibwen wrote:
| The Socratic method is very good at problem solving, but when
| it comes to interpersonal communication it often comes across
| as aggressive and condescending. If you're going to use it,
| make sure it's in a purely problem-solving context, and that
| the other person is aware of what you're doing and has some
| degree of familiarity with you so that they don't assume the
| worst.
| psychiatrist24 wrote:
| Is that even true? I seriously can't relate. What is the point
| of "being heard"? And I don't think people would usually ask
| directly "can you suggest what I should do about this", they
| would consider it too demanding and perhaps they don't even
| know who could help them.
| herodotus wrote:
| Well I cannot say whether or not it is true, but it certainly
| is for me. There is a lot of point to "being heard". Here is
| a short essay on giving advice that you may find interesting:
|
| https://tinybuddha.com/blog/10-tips-advise-wisely-how-to-
| giv...
|
| Here is a section from that page: ----
|
| 2. Give them a rant window.
|
| Oftentimes when people ask for advice, what they really want
| is to rehash something they can't get off their mind--
| something they've probably talked about repeatedly to lots of
| different people (maybe even anyone who'd listen).
|
| The best way to be a friend is to enable both what they want
| to do and what they need to do. Want: tell the story
| repeatedly, as if they can change how they feel if they just
| talk about it enough. Need: work through it and let it go.
| Tell them you're there to listen to everything they need to
| say. Once they've gotten all out, you'd love to help them
| move on.
| psychiatrist24 wrote:
| I remember from Chris Voss Masterclass about Negotiation
| (which I unfortunately did not really finish), that he
| simply repeated what the other person said, with a
| questioning tone. Like if they say "I feel tired", he would
| say "you feel tired?" and so on. And I think he would
| sometimes interpret what the other person said to frame
| their personality for them (I think he called that
| "labelling"). Like say some terrorists takes hostages to
| pressure to USA to stop using oil, he could say "it sounds
| like you are really concerned about climate change and the
| well being of people" - completely made up and he would do
| it better, but that way, he could make that person think of
| themselves as a caring person who is worried about people
| rather than as a terrorist who is prepared to shoot
| hostages to get their way.
|
| I can relate to that, sort of, I just don't think one
| should be supposed to fake feeling sorry or other emotions.
| __s wrote:
| I've dealt with this, my family was very providing so if you
| hinted at some problem they'd try to solve it. But I might
| just be shooting the shit, if I complain about the weather
| I'm just observing the hassles of everyday life. I've had to
| work on not repeating this mistake
|
| Reminds me of this line from Stallman's rider:
| https://github.com/ddol/rre-
| rms/blob/fb39b3d0bc29805519a57ca...
|
| When you start proposing solutions you're essentially
| assuming lots of information. Then you enter into an argument
| to clarify those assumptions. Continue listening & maybe
| relate, it depends, there's no real script, but when you
| propose a problem there's an implicit implication that it's
| simple, when it probably isn't, the person has probably
| thought about it more than you have in the last ten seconds,
| so if it were so simple they'd've dealt with it already. Not
| to say never offer advice, but try get a read on whether
| advice is being asked for. Seek to increase information
| rather than make assertions
|
| _edit: full disclosure, I struggle with being empathetic, so
| ymmv etc_
| scott_s wrote:
| For many people, being head validates their experiences. It's
| reassuring to be accepted by another person.
| indigo945 wrote:
| This is definitely an important thing that more people,
| especially tech people, should keep in mind. However, this
| doesn't really apply in all situations, and I actually disagree
| about the example which you give.
|
| When someone shares a problem with you, you may want to ask
| yourself two questions to evaluate whether you should give
| advice: 1. _Can_ you suggest any action that the other person
| wouldn 't already have taken if it were feasible? This isn't
| necessarily limited to you being a subject matter expert, it
| also includes situations where personal or interpersonal
| factors are at play: for example, when the person you're
| talking to is very shy or reluctant to formulate clear demands,
| empowering them to talk to their manager can be very
| beneficial. On the other hand, if they already are a person who
| feels very comfortable with meetings and social situations,
| they will likely already have considered the option and decided
| that it won't help, so you're adding nothing useful. 2. Is the
| problem at hand highly emotional, or is there something else
| suggesting that solving it _right now_ is crass? For example,
| if your coworker told you that the family dog died, she 's
| probably not looking for advice on funeral arrangements.
|
| So, what it comes down to in the end is considering the
| context. Some people might be very happy to receive advice, and
| might be very thankful in the long run if you encourage them to
| talk to their manager about a career step they have been
| meaning to take. Even then, of course, compassion is never
| misplaced, and people will always be thankful if you show
| understanding for how the problem troubles them emotionally as
| well. If you want to encourage a shy person to have a
| conversation, you shouldn't pressure them. And so on.
| herodotus wrote:
| I agree with your points, but the OP was specifically asking
| for tip on building empathy and becoming a better listener.
| Software types like me are problem solvers, and to us,
| problems exist to be solved. It took me many years (and my
| late Wife's great help) to understand that not every
| complaint was a request for a solution.
|
| So I stick by my initial suggestion, until at least the
| person trying to learn listening skills feels that they are
| making progress.
| readflaggedcomm wrote:
| That may fit professional relationships, but close informal
| relationships demand more-intimate problem solving. That
| doesn't always mean suggesting obvious things, but thinking a
| problem through aloud can help.
|
| Plus, friends don't always know exactly how they can help.
| Airing laments can collect solutions without having to catalog
| each others' resources and limitations or trespassing on power
| structures, like in a workplace.
| odomojuli wrote:
| This may sound obvious and pedantic but by practicing it.
|
| Getting yourself in someone's head is something you should return
| to casually, formally in various contexts and subtexts.
|
| I like to use this one: "What part of their day is this?", which
| feels more relevant since I work across timezones now.
| [deleted]
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