By Scott Sullivan
Editor
Emotional Intelligence
Empathy can be bad for you, say experts. Whoever they are. Tuning into and sharing other people’s emotions from their perspective can bring us together in a healing process, says Robin Stern, associate director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence.
But this seemingly-positive emotion can have a downside, says Stern, if someone gets so consumed feeling another’s pain they neglect their own needs and feelings. This makes them more susceptible to depression and anxiety.
This begs several questions, among them “Emotional Intelligence?” No, that isn’t an oxymoron. You can think and feel at the same time. At least they think or feel that at Yale.
Is there a healthier way to empathize? There are three kinds of empathy, says Stanford psychology professor Jamil Zaki. You can think it, feel it or be moved by it.
With cognitive empathy, says Zaki, you understand mentally what another is thinking and feeling, as when you relate to a character in a novel or take someone’s perspective during a business negotiation.
With emotional empathy, you actually put yourself in the other person’s shoes and feel their emotion. This type of response, left unchecked, can lead to caretaker burnout.
With compassionate empathy, Zaki continues, you feel concern about somebody else’s suffering, but from more of a distance and with a desire to help the person.
Focusing on the other person’s wellbeing and happiness, instead of their distress, shifts our brain’s pathways from experiencing painful empathy to the more-rewarding areas of compassion, says University of Wisconsin psychiatry professor Richard Davidson.
I don’t buy this soft stuff. What about Tough Love, based on Bill Milliken’s 1968 book with the same name?
“Can you spare a dime?” a quadriplegic panhandler might ask me. “I lost my job, home and family, have cancer, leprosy and the heartbreak of psoriasis.”
“Suck it up, whiner!” I’d say, kicking him to the curb.
“Thanks, I needed that,” he would say.
Tough Love was popular among coaches like Bobby Knight, Woody Hayes and others who shouted at me but stopped shy of punching me, much as I deserved it. But it fell from fashion amid reports of abuse and sadism practiced by overzealous acolytes. A Generation of Weenies has been the outcome.
“When I was your age …” I tell my daughter.
“Blah-blah-blah.”
“You already know?” I say.
Hoping I, too, could become an expert, I took an online Emotional Intelligence, or EQ, test and scored 60 out of 200. On the same site and scale, my IQ was its inverse. Based on this, I thought pursuing an EI career would be stupid, but felt it might be worthwhile nonetheless. Look how Oprah has made it work for her.
Can the clueless boost our emotional IQ? Scientists who 25 years ago popularized the term — which means “the ability to identify and manage emotions both of yourself and others” — disagree.
University of New Hampshire psychology professor Jack Mayer thinks EI is primarily shaped by genes and early experiences. Yale psychology dean Peter Salovey believes that, like musical talent, it is partially innate but people still can learn it.
They do agree the question needs further research. Scientists always agree on that.
Why these either/or debates? Either you think or feel; if it’s one it, can’t be the other? I thought psychology’s goal was to make our minds whole through integration.
Also “Most Popular” on the Psychology Today website, where I read the Mayer-Salovey story, were “Narcissist or Psychopath — How Can You Tell?” Why can’t I be both?
“Dad, you have no feelings,” my daughter said.
“Of course I do,” I protested. “Didn’t I cry when we put down Ash?”
“The worst cat ever …”
“That’s why I loved him. He raised hell with everyone, then snuggled with you and purred.”
“That’s what psychopaths do: manipulate.”
“He was a narcissist too.”
“That’s true.”
“If I want to get rich using EI to manipulate others,” I asked, “do you think I should start with cats?”
“I would feel compassion for them,” she said.
