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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."
It's much more sinister than that. Gotta look at it from 2 perspectives: ideal and pragmatic. Everybody daydreams about a Star-trek utopia, where all races without a need for money hold hands and dance around the replicator without a care in the world.
But - humans, like everything else that walks or swims or flagellates in nature, are just animals. The primitive, tribalist pack mentality is seen at all levels of human interaction, from sports teams to H.O.A.'s to the ethnocentricism of entire corporations, countries, and races. Modern technology enables the development and prosperity of more and more lone wolves. People are becoming greedier and greedier with unprecedented thirst for power and control. Think about the countless empires of the past, and recently Nazi Germany and now the United States. Only the naive believe that their bleeding-heart protests and righteous indignation will force the arm of nature itself. We are wicked creatures. The meek will not inherit the Earth.
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.
We. Are. Fucked. The best thing you can do is just get yours -- live your life under the radar, grab a bag of popcorn, and chuckle bitterly at the evening news.
OK, while I can imagine a lot of reasons why the current generation of college kids might be less empathetic than 20 years ago*, this is not a good way to measure that. For all the researchers know, students are just more self-aware and self-critical today than they were 20 years ago. In some ways, getting a high score might be more likely to say that you're less empathetic and just oblivious to your callousness.
* This isn't my experience, though. I feel, as a college professor, like my students behave just as empathetically towards each other as we did 15 years ago.
I found a decent summary article at http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-10-23-gen-next-cover_x.htm which had some intersting counter points
Maybe I'm overstating the point but I just don't see how volunteering as a local fireman whilst studying Physics, or working with disabled kids whilst studying History, or spending hours in retirement communities while trying to do something fancy with election data from the last 20 years, can be defined as anything but empathetic. That's the kind of thing my peers were fulling their time with.
Finally, regarding the debt question - in my experience I've found that those with the biggest debts are the ones with most empathy. Those with debts of over 200k are damn near living saints. Same goes for those on financial aid really. It's a damn small sample I know but it sure as hell felt like the ones doing the most good on my campus were also the ones recieving the most aid. There's always space for a cynical interpretation but it's of unknown value in this situation.
That pretty much describes the entire process.
Don't spend time helping those on objects that are out of your scope. Actively dissuade others from wasting your time regardless of the benefits you can bring to their team. Assisting teammates and other competitive entities will reduce your overall time spent on your projects.
When possible, shout as loudly as you can regarding the faults of those who are in direct competition or could at least could be blamed for your problems. In the game who shouts the loudest it is he with the deepest lungs who wins!
While I recognize all of these things are true I did not practice them. I likely could have been promoted faster had I not taken a more altruistic tact with regards to those around me. However, I felt it made my life and others around me a bit better if I focused on things other then completing my major projects and career growth.
However, life would probably have been a good deal easier if I was a complete bastard. Possibly, it could have resulted in even further monetary gain. The mistakes of youth!
I am mostly out of the rat race now and I actually make a good deal more. I suspect hell is much like corporate america, but with better benefits and more free time.
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
Well I can actually see that sort of thing as causing a lack of real empathy. You get fed up with people being coddled, and when someone finally feels the consequences for their actions, there's a part of you that thinks, "it's about damn time!"
On the other side there's the Ayn Rand neocon capitalism-as-morality stuff which is opposed to that sort of coddling and believes that people always get what they deserve. This doesn't encourage empathy either, because those people are prone to assume that people who suffer have brought it on themselves.
Plus a lot of younger people have been raised to think that you can't help people, they can only help themselves. You can't make someone happy, only they can make themselves happy. Part of that whole new age pop psychology is that it implies that sadness is a sign of perrsonal weakness, and that "good people" can just make themselves happy all the time.
Trait group selection has two rules.
From an evolutionary perspective, this translates to a group with 7 altruists and 3 cheaters increasing in size to 10 altruists and 5 cheaters. The portion of altruists in the group decreases, the total number of altruists increases, the large group fragments into smaller groups with varying portions of altruists, and the process is repeated.
Applying that to humans, in a small company altruism ensures the company's growth and everyone's paycheck (theoretically) increases. In a large company there are far too many selfish individuals for an altruist to really get ahead. OTOH, humans are skilled at detecting and excluding selfish individuals, and the selfish individuals are skilled at evading detection. So it's definitely more complicated than simple natural selection, though with reduced interpersonal interaction this confounding effect would be minimized.