Can empathy be taught?

I wonder if the Danish population will ever wake up and realize that their emotions have been manipulated.

When we teach our children to hug another child, who is crying, or to share their toys, is that manipulating their emotions @elbanditoros?

But yes. Empathy can be taught. It’s what we teach when we tell our kids not to hit, not to take, to share.

I think it’s cool that the school system focuses on that in Denmark.

Empathy is hard wired into our brains and is part of being human. How it manifests itself depends partly on cultural factors and I found the rough and tumble of the school playground gave a more solid education in empathy than classroom tuition.

BTW, you can also teach a kid to be angry in situations, instead of teaching them that there are other emotions they can feel or express.
Child raising is a nothing more than form of brain washing, you know. For better or worse.

Yes, empathy can be taught/modeled, unless…you are dealing with a little sociopath that, literally, has an abnormal brain that does not register empathy though they are great at mimicking emotions to fit in socially.

^^^ in nature people like that just got killed early on, before they could reproduce.

@Dutchess_III Yep, the Inuit people could spot the sociopaths easily. They were the ones that wouldn’t participate in the community hunts, were shiftless, not connected to the tribe as a whole and when the hunters came back to the village after being gone hunting all their wives were pregnant with the sociopaths babies. haha
True story I read once about how these types were handled before the pop psychology terminology existed.
Yep, they just cast them out to the Polar Bears. lol

Yes, it can. The reason that is exists is because babies learn it from their parents as they grow. Children who grow up in neglectful households often don’t learn it and start to exhibit sociopathic tendencies – which is what happened to my adopted niece. However, with tons of time and attention and patience, she has made an unbelievable change. Previously, her psychologists and psychiatrists were very worried that she was well on her way to becoming a sociopath. Luckily, we got to her just in time to reverse all of her worst behavior. Her transformation is mind boggling when you know the details.

Grr. I can only give one GA.

I appreciate all the answers, but keep in mind that empathy is not a matter of behaving properly. It is the ability to see things from another person’s point of view. We are born with empathy, but I wonder if training can strengthen it. @DrasticDreamer , did your niece really learn to change her perspective on the world, or was it just an adaptive behavioral change?

Yes.

What man can contemplate, man can achieve.

In and of itself, no. Empathy, I believe, is an innate ability which can be activated and increased by qualities which CAN be modeled and taught including kindness, respect, charity, spiritual appreciation, and social activism.

@Pachy agreed 1000%. I have come across siblings who grew up in the same household with extremely sensitive, loving and empathic parents yet turned out totally different in that field – complete opposites!

Everything can be taught – you might not be very good at it in the end but you will have improved.

I think some people have more natural empathy than others. For example, my two children are very different and I have had to teach one to think about others, look at things from someone else’s point of view, etc. The other one just did these things without any input from me. So I think empathy can be taught.

You know, if it is an innate ability (which I think it is too,) it can flat be beaten out of a kid. So if it can be beaten out, why can’t it be reaffirmed and become more highly developed as well (aka “Teaching.”)

It also has to do with personality/temperament.
Feeling types will be more empathetic than thinking types. This doesn’t mean that feelers don’t think and thinkers don’t feel, just that everyone is prone to a particular set of cognitive functions and feelers will always be more driven by their emotions while thinkers will be more driven by logic. Often thinking types get pegged as “cold” and non-empathetic when, in reality they just aren’t emotionally driven type.

@LostInParadise It absolutely changed. As one example of the many severe behavioral traits that she started to exhibit- and one of the many reasons her psychologists and psychiatrists were worried she was becoming a sociopath – was that she started abusing animals. She put dish soap in their water bowls, drug cats around by their hind legs, swung one in circles once she got it into a bag, poked them with pins (etc.), and now she bawls her eyes out of she sees a hurt or dying animal. Sociopaths are good at faking the emotions they think are appropriate, but this is definitely not that. Thankfully, she’s still a horrible liar and we see through her any time she tries (normal kid lying… finally). She also frequently gets very visibly upset about her past behavior – especially regarding the animal abuse.

That is good to hear.

Maybe people can be trained to be more empathetic. I would like to believe that. I am just of a generally skeptical mind and need convincing.

Well, as always, the old, “you can lead a horse to water” comes to mind. You can guide someone towards being more empathetic but since empathy is a feeling, not a concept. if someone lacks a genuine ability to feel for another empathy is nothing more than a concept to them.

@LostInParadise I don’t blame you at all. I’m the same way, for the most part. Sometimes I’m so skeptical and cynical that people get pissed off at me. But Coloma is right, too. I think there are some people in the world who, for whatever reason (sociopaths, psychopaths, etc.), don’t have it. I’ve met at least one person who I think is a genuine sociopath and the way he treats people is very disturbing.

Maybe we can get a go-fund-me account for Donald Trump to take empathy classes? I might chip in $20.