Students Show a Dramatic Drop In Empathy

MotorMachineMercenar writes "Several news sources report that today's college students show a precipitous drop in empathy (here's MSNBC's take). The study of 14,000 students shows that students since the year 2000 had 40% less empathy than those 20 and 30 years before them. The article lays out a laundry list of culprits, from child-rearing practices and the self-help movement, to video games and social media, to a free-market economy and income inequality. There's also a link so you can test your very own level of narcissism. Let's hope the Slashdot crowd doesn't break the empathy counter on the downside."

Comments

Oh god..

[Anrego]

.. the linked test reminds me of those "what job are you best suited for" tests we got in school. The ones which after answering at least 100 very transparent and subjective questions would recommend you become a garbage man, an astronaut, or maybe a carpenter.

And all the questions are the same.. they could have essentially made the whole thing two questions:

1) are you empathetic
2) are you _NOT_ empathetic

Personally I think people are just as self centered now as always and we've just gotten better (supposedly) at measuring it.

It's like how mental illness would appear to be on the rise. It could be legitimate change, or it could be that we've come up with fancy names for kids who back in the day would've just been called "a little slow" and/or ended up in a job where no one would notice.

Re:Oh god..

[MrHanky]

We're getting better at measuring it? With that kind of test? It's basically asking "are you a good/bad person?" in a number of different ways. Maybe people are more (or less) honest about how they answer that kind of questionaires now, maybe they have a less idealised views of themselves, maybe they just don't give a fuck about what an anonymous questionaire says about them. Then there are questions like "Before criticizing somebody, I try to imagine how I would feel if I were in their place" -- which, if you can't help but doing that anyway, makes you come across as a callous motherfucker if you correctly answer "Does not describe me well". It's a shit test, and measures nothing.

Re:Oh god..

[negRo_slim]

Why do we laugh when Wile. E. Coyote has an anvil dropped on his head or when Dick Van Dyke trips over the ottoman? Simple: more resources are available to us when others are taken outta the game.

We laugh as our brains try and reconcile seemingly incompatible aspects of a situation, this mechanism and good feelings associated with laughter enable us to understand the world around us.

Re:Oh god..

[Protoslo]

I gave up in disgust after looking at the first question. "Legitimate" psychological tests don't ask you to self diagnose; they ask a large number of concrete questions that can be used to infer psychology.

The person who wrote the article obviously has a massive agenda, and it is not clear that it is grounded in empiricism. I stopped reading TFA (much like the test...) when I got to this:

Another factor is the "self esteem movement" and its pernicious notion that "you can't love anyone else until you love yourself."

I don't know if the "self esteem movement" is effective or not (I would guess "not"), but what the fuck is she really advocating here? Self-hatred is okay? If you don't like yourself, you don't believe that other people should like you either, which is a formidable obstacle to love. Whether we go about creating it the right way or not, calling self-esteem "pernicious" seems...pernicious.

The author also absurdly idealizes the past, seriously advocating "playing outside" as a panacea. She should take pushing her books to the next level and give Dr. Laura Schlesinger a run for her money on the radio. Malevolent conservatism vs. malevolent liberalism. They could have their own malevolent channel, where anything goes (except facts).

She spends the last half of the article railing against Social Darwinism, which (after it was invented by Ronald Reagan!) apparently created the empathy epidemic. It is interesting that reliable polling data invariably indicates that the (40% more sociopathic) millennial generation is overwhelming more liberal (the only true measure of empathy, according to the author) than the Tea-Partying baby boomers, who enjoyed such empathetic childhoods, romping under the open sky. Either there is no empathy epidemic, empathy is not closely correlated with political leaning, or both (my bet). In any event, the author obviously doesn't really care.

Re:Oh god..

[RevWaldo]

Why do we find pleasure in others' pain? Why do we laugh when Wile. E. Coyote has an anvil dropped on his head or when Dick Van Dyke trips over the ottoman? Simple: more resources are available to us when others are taken outta the game.

You've got it wrong. We find it funny because we emphasize with their predicament. Nearly every time Wile fails he looks at the camera with pleading eyes before he gets clobbered. Even as little kids we're thinking "Oh, I know what thats like LOL." Conversely you can't root for a character that wins all the time; who didn't want Wile to finally catch that fucking road runner? (Same goes for Dick Van Dyke. You'll note in later seasons he practically dances around the ottoman instead of tripping on it, and we're quietly happy for him.)

.

Re:Oh god..

[fractoid]

Children are still developing emotionally and morally, and perfectly healthy children often exhibit sociopathic behaviour. If you laughed *now* when seeing a friend seriously hurt themselves, then I'd be worried.

Re:Oh god..

[P0ltergeist333]

Wrong. Two people working together can do the work of 4 people separately. In a survival situation, working together is even more important. The current culture (especially corporate culture) encourages unnecessary competition. People are our greatest asset. We set them at each others throats at our own peril.

what did you expect

[Anonymous Coward]

you (the west) hold up crack dealers and gangsters as heroes (50cent et al), corporate psychopaths are held up as examples of "successful business leaders" and have TV shows (the apprentice) where people are expected to emulate these leaders in "ruthless business decisions", where kids see a class of people rip off their savings and retirements (bankers) and have 0 consequences, where a celebrity class are held up as models of behaviour where you dont work but shop on your working husbands/wifes credit cards or your rich dads inheritance

and you are surprised there is less empathy ?
i'm surprised there are no fucking lynch mobs

Re:what did you expect

[Ethanol-fueled]

i'm surprised there are no fucking lynch mobs

I agree wholeheartedly with your first paragraph, but apathy and lack of empathy go hand-in-hand in the United States. As you correctly pointed out, it's mostly about getting as much money doing as little work as possible. To participate in a lynch mob would mean having to crowbar oneself out of their La-Z-Boy chair.

Besides, we prefer to keep our government-sanctioned lynch mobs in others' countries. That way we can cheer 'em on from our sofas, as if our military were our favorite sports team at an away game.

Re:what did you expect

[JustinOpinion]

you (the west) hold up crack dealers and gangsters as heroes (50cent et al),

Not really. Or rather, it's nothing new. They are not being held up as "heroes" but rather are a way of marketing to the youth. The youth always want to differentiate themselves and thus need "shocking" idols/icons to rally around. In previous generations swinging hips were plenty shocking (Elvis, etc.), then suggestion of sexuality (Madonna, etc.), and nowadays kids latch onto things like "gangsters" in order to paint a "shocking" line in the sand and differentiate themselves from their parents.

However, in all cases those kids seem to grow up to be reasonably intelligent and responsible adults. You could argue that the fact that the icons have to get progressively more "intense" is a testament to our eroding values. Or, it could just be that society is becoming more liberal and interconnected, so that the "shocking bar" keeps being raised. Regardless, the vast majority of kids don't actually want to become gangsters (nor did the vast majority want to be sluts or whatever in previous generations...).

corporate psychopaths are held up as examples of "successful business leaders"

Again, nothing new. Ruthless leaders have existed for millennia. Successful ruthless leaders have always been admired for what they accomplish, though they've almost always been simultaneously despised for their tactics. In fact this is just a manifestation of the human animal's internally conflicting drives: we have an intense drive to win/compete alongside an intense drive to collaborate/socialize.

where kids see a class of people rip off their savings and retirements (bankers) and have 0 consequences

A bad example to our children, to be sure. But again nothing new. That the rich and powerful collude to protect themselves (and do so successfully) is not a modern trend.

where a celebrity class are held up as models of behaviour where you dont work but shop on your working husbands/wifes credit cards or your rich dads inheritance

There have been aristocracies of sorts (whether royal families, or the "old money" super-rich, or celebrities) across history. They are idolized largely because people dream of their power/riches, and also because the gossip they enable taps into our innate socializing behaviors.

and you are surprised there is less empathy ?

You've identified many idiosyncratic ills in our society. However I question whether there is anything novel about them. It seems to me that these arguably counter-productive human behaviors are as old as history itself.

I question the research from TFA, and I question your attempt to explain the purported trend. Every generation seems to decry the previous generation, believing that people used to be hard-working and moral, whereas the up-and-coming generation is lazy and corrupt and will ruin society. Yet every time, the new generation becomes rather similar to the old (which is both good and bad: they are just as hard-working, but they also lose their youthful idealism and never realize the reform they used to profess).

The problem is that every generation has only two points of reference: their childhood (which their faulty memories paint as being pleasant, etc.) and the current state (where kids get on their nerves). They can't accurately compare to past generations so they assume that the perceived local 'decay' is real rather than illusory. If every generation were right about how kids are worse (lazier, dumber, less moral, etc.), then how does society keep on ticking?

If true, is this a good or a bad thing?

[King_TJ]

I'd argue that one of the "poisons" of modern society is all the garbage where "nobody loses". We have contests in school these days where everyone wins a prize.... Instead of coming in "last" and "losing", you get a 4th. or 5th. place ribbon. Instead of letting people score poorly on tests, you've got people trying to change the scores around. And instead of "hurting someone's feelings" - there's this whole thing of labeling them as having some sort of "disorder", implying they can't help their actions and they need special consideration/treatment.

If this generation is lacking some of THAT empathy, that's a step in the right direction!

Re:Ghost of the time?

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a great deal of irony in your post in that you are opining about lack of empathy in young people, yet you show a lack empathy for a great portion of (US) society for which it IS completely normal to own a firearm.

Re:Who cares?

[phantomfive]

I know, I read the first question, which was,

1. I often have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me.

and humbly thought, "How can I possibly feel that way about everyone?" The study is biased.

Re:Ghost of the time?

[couchslug]

Nice job sliding the anti-firearm propaganda in there, but don't forget that firearm ownership happens to be very common in "wholesome" parts of the country where crime is rare and weapons are treated with respect. The military participation thing is not only historically "normal", but considered to be self-sacrifice (the marketing of particular wars IS a separate issue!).

Kids today are understanding that it makes sense to cover your own ass. Being an empathetic emo doesn't do that, and never did. Some of us are ancient enough to remember times before universal emophilia (hey, I coined a word!) and aren't nostalgic FOR emophilia. In tough times, get tough.

Re:Ghost of the time?

[orthicviper]

people who would burglarize are the kind of no-empathy-having oxygen-thieves whose self-centered motivations cause all the misery in the world. examples of people like you that think we shouldn't pump some rounds of lead into their useless noggins are reason why youngsters these days have no empathy.

Worthless test

[SplatMan_DK]

It is sad to see such an important topic treated like this. The test is practically worthless. It has absolutely no control questions and the structure makes no distinction between what people think of themselves and how they act in real life.

I suspect the majority of people scoring over 50 points are in fact egocentric narcissists who think they are very empathic.

Please. We might be ./ers but we are still IT geeks. We can easily spot a mediocre or poorly constructed "test" and there is really no reason to waste our time with something on this level of quality (or lack thereof).

Yes. Really.


- Jesper

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Ghost of the time?

[nmb3000]

What?

The lies about WMD

What in the world does alleged lying have to do with empathy? Poor performance of the intelligence community hardly seems relevant, but at least you're making your bias clear from the get go I suppose.

the lies about drugs

Which lies? That they often unhealthy (both legal and illegal ones), that they're unnecessary and even counter-productive to live a happy and productive life? Or some other lies?

people telling you that is perfectly normal to own a gun

What is abnormal about owning a gun? Of course, if you're hopped up on drugs you probably shouldn't own a weapon.

that it is normal to shoot at someone just for trespassing/burglary

I see, maybe we should punish them with love instead? Breaking into someone's home is akin to invading another country. All bets are off when it comes to protecting family and property. If you come into my home with violent intent, just how much violence is too much? Baseball bat? Knife? Gun? Should I just ask you to leave nicely and hand over my wallet if you won't?

That is cool to join the army and fuck up another sorry son of a bitch that you had absolutely no conflict with

That's kind of the definition of war. How many Nazis did WWII soldiers have personal conflicts with?

The people who are selfish are the people that drive the ferrari's around at wallstreet

Being wealthy and choosing how you want to spend your wealth is selfish?

They are being held up as icons by a complete generation

People on Wall Street are about as far from an "icon" for young people as is possible.

No I am not surprised. Just very worried.

No reason to be, I doubt humans are less empathetic in general now than ever before, only that people are more honest about it now. I imagine this might be from a certain amount of the GIFT extending from online communities into real-world interactions. We've gone from interacting only with a small local community to dealing with thousands/millions of people online plus our local community. It's harder to feel empathy with so many anonymous people communicating only with text so it isn't too surprising that some apathetic feelings creep in.

When you're actually dealing with somebody sitting in front of you, face-to-face, I think most people would exhibit a higher level of empathy.

Re:Bigger problems?

[couchslug]

When you haven't ruthlessly focused your education on acquiring a variety of JOB skills that, along with hobbies that help make you employable, expect not to be employed. Your elders made the mistake of telling you is "do your own thing" without warning you that choices have consequences. Your school, like many, may have been more focused on SELLING a degree than fitting clients for work.

What did you study?

I took my lessons from MY elders, the Depression babies who had to scrabble. Life is a shit sandwich, and the more bread you have the less shit you taste. Education is for making MONEY, because without MONEY, you have fewer choices. Hobbies and recreational education are for fun, but don't typically pay the rent. If you can't get a job that fits your education, do any damn thing you have to. Consider skilled trades (I've never met a mechanic who couldn't make a living) instead of pushing paper. (Come to think of it, that's one area where some of your elders screwed you by discouraging manual labor. Mechanics and weldors, for example, can make serious money and are highly mobile.)

Unique and special snowflakes may disregard the above advice, but they are either employed or don't need to be.

Re:Ghost of the time?

[jazzkat]

Small sidebar.

Santax: "(The lies about WMD, the lies about drugs), (people telling you that is perfectly normal to own a gun, that it is normal to shoot at someone just for trespassing/burglary)"

The two categroies of events have nothing to do with one another. I'm not sure what environment you live in. Perhaps you're in an urban area where, if something is going wrong, you are pefectly able to dial 911 with 99% certainty and a police officer is just two minutes away. But not all of us live in those areas.

Here's the thought process behind many of those law-abiding citizens who legally carry firearms.

Any time you have to use any implement in a life-threatening emergency, whether it be a fire extinguisher to put out a fire or an implement to make a human threat to your life stop being a threat, it is a life-changing event for you and should be avoided at all costs.

But here’s the reality. Out where we live, at any one time there may be between 1 and 4 Sheriff deputies covering the entire 527 square miles of the county. In the neighboring county, if you call 911 at 3AM on a Tuesday morning, you will get the CELL PHONE of the on-call Deputy. Maybe he’s awake, maybe not.

There have been a high number of burglaries in this area – two involving a homeowner being shot, one of those a deadly shooting.

If you hear a knock at your door and see a guy with a 12-gauge and ski mask on your porch, the cops may be 20 minutes away. You need a way to make this person stop being a threat immediately. If he sees that you have a certain implement of minor destruction (IMD) and runs away, great! Your goal of making the person stop being a threat has succeeded. It is a gravely unfortunate circumstance, however, that in some cases merely displaying IMD’s does not work – the person is too intent on getting your possessions and won’t hesitate to use whatever force is needed. In these cases the only way to stop the threat is to use equal force and hope for the best... knowing full well that there are heavy legal and psychological burdens to deal with after the fact. You’ll (hopefully) still be alive afterward, but as I said, these situations should be avoided at all costs.

It's a very heavy decision to make, possibly having to take the life of another to preserve my own life... but at least with a weapon I am able to make that decision.

Santax, around here there aren't many residents who *do not* own a gun; thus the "normal" mode of living is to own a gun. And if someone is intent on breaking in to your house, you do not have the luxury of a full psychological profile to determine if that person is going to kill you or not - you have to neutralize the threat or accept a very high risk of being killed. Whether "neutralize" means the guy is scared away when you pull your gun, or "neutralize" means you have to shoot until the threat stops, that's up to the burglar.

This has nothing to do with empathy, nor the lies that were told about WMD or are told about drugs. I'll put it this way... I don't eat meat because I'm empathetic towards the plight of factory-farmed animals. However, since I don't burglarize, my empathy towards those who may be intent upon breaking into my house and killing me is non-existent. I have two friends who feel the same way.

Re:Broken test

[Anonymous Coward]

But then they could not measure your annoyance over trivial crap.

Re:Ghost of the time?

[MBCook]

The military participation thing is not only historically "normal", but considered to be self-sacrifice (the marketing of particular wars IS a separate issue!).

I've often heard the lack of forced military or civil service (a draft or something similar) as having been a detriment on society and empathy. After going through a war trying to save other people, or having to defend the guy next to you even if you think he's a jerk. How many people do you think would go around pointing guns at people and playing thug if they had spent some time shooting and defending people, understanding just how powerful a tool the thing is.

But you can easily grow up in a suburban house, without any real violence. And you can go through school without really interacting with poorer people or having to be humanitarian. You know what your comfy life is, and your friends comfy life. And you can go straight to college, and learn about how America has dominated many people and the military can be evil. Your parents can give you a car at 16, and keep you from having to face a touch teacher by yelling at them and making sure you're treated "fairly".

It's really easy for people to be isolated from sorrier conditions and situations where they would have go out of themselves and show empathy.

Instead, you can sit in your room with your own personal 32" TV and My Super Sexy Sweet 16 on MTV, and become a better person.

Personally, I have a hard time showing many of those people empathy. When a girl I went to high school with recked her 3rd car and her parents wouldn't buy her a new one, why would I empathize with that. She didn't deserve the first. She certainly didn't deserve the 2nd. Why should she get a 4th?

And when I'm being told I should empathize with someone who lost their license for drunk driving the 4th time and can't go to their job, or can't pay their bills because they can't afford that 8th kid they had because they wanted it with no thought to what that meant for the kid, I'm not terribly inclined to empathize with them.

I wonder. How much of this is people who can't empathize, and how much of this is people scoring lower because people aren't empathizing with people who probably don't deserver it?

Re:Ghost of the time?

[XanC]

Most likely there isn't time for a reaction to be in proportion.

If an intruder is in my home, my life is in jeopardy. The opportunity to ask the intruder whether or not he's armed, and then frisk him, just may not present itself.

I suppose if you could somehow guarantee (which you can't) that all home invaders are unarmed, then you could get away with playing your game of tag with them.

I'll guarantee that with my method, you'll have a lot fewer home invaders in the first place. And that's better for everyone.

Re:Dumb question

[kervin]

It's not a dumb question

The question asks how do you feel. It does not ask about your actions.

To use your example. Two people can see someone is in distress, both look by casually and continue walking.

But the first did it due to lack of strong feelings to the situation or apathy. The second did it because they did feel the person's pain, but came to the conclusion that the best way to help would be to let that person deal with the issue themselves ( aka tough love ).

Although their actions are the same, they should answer the original question differently.

Re:Ghost of the time?

[jazzkat]

Anonymous: "And barring all that, you missed his point about the "shooting someone just for trespassing.""

Wow. Just... wow. This illustrates the OP's view about empathy perfectly... it is a logical fallacy to assume that all, or even most, or even any small percentage of folks who own guns automatically want to "shoot you if you step foot on my property again". You are absolutely correct - anyone who shoots someone merely for stepping foot on property SHOULD be arrested, and they often ARE.

Re:Ghost of the time?

[jazzkat]

Santax... "Shooting an unarmed burglar is precisely the same."

No, it's not. If someone gives you a little push, you assume they are being an idiot and walk away.

If someone is brazen enough to break in to your house while it is occupied, you must assume they have the intent to injure or kill you, and act accordingly to neutralize the threat. Hopefully, neutralization occurs when the burglar realizes you are armed and then flees - in this case, you would not shoot a fleeing burglar.

Re:What does gun ownership have to do with anythin

[Klinky]

What about Civil Rights, Women's Suffrage movement or Gay rights right now? Women's place in marriage in the past was usually repressive & before Women's Suffrage they didn't even have many basic rights. Religion can create community & it can destroy it. Do something "wrong" in the eyes of the religious and the entire community will hold a grudge. Social clubs usually had a racist & sexist bent to them: no women, no blacks. Families still exist, it's just Betty Crocker was a lie. Your fear of homosexuals has nothing to do with families as many of them are trying to get the rights to marriage to maintain family lifestyle like heterosexuals.

It sounds like you long for "the good ol' days", where white straight males were dominant & "life was good". My Grandma grew-up during the Great Depression, my mom grew up through the late 50s & 60s. Both lives were hard. Life was not squeaky clean back then. It was only squeaky clean for the privileged: white males who made a decent wage - forget being poor, colored, a strong female or gay.

The current situation isn't perfect, but don't act like "the good ol' days" were either.

Re:Rather a Poor Metric

[Antisyzygy]

"What is happening to our young people? They disrespect their elders, they disobey their parents. They ignore the law. They riot in the streets inflamed with wild notions. Their morals are decaying. What is to become of them?" -Plato

Re:In what units do you measure empathy?

[MBCook]

OMG. Don't you have any empathy for the poor beans?

Suggesting people eat them.... just.... wow.