Before I compiled concrete reasons why our Empathy levels drop, my instinct said, “Yeah, of course it’ll drop, empathy takes effort, and we don’t like effort”. And then my brain said, “Ok, maybe we are so habituated to suffering and seeing news about it that our brains simply stop responding emotionally; because suffering is nothing new and everyone has it, so why show empathy?”.
And before I could validate those ideas with published research, I found 6 other reasonably odd reasons why our empathy server crashes, which have almost nothing to do with politics or culture or the environment we are accustomed to.
1. Low oxytocin
An oxytocin deficiency can reduce empathy. Research shows that people deficient in oxytocin[1] exhibit higher empathy after getting a dose of oxytocin. Now, for those who aren’t familiar with this chemical, it’s a hormone that is most commonly associated with a mother and child bond, and it is the hormone that responds to social and intimate touch. Feelings of safety, coziness, physical touch, intimacy, and other similar feelings have this one at the center. Those deficient in oxytocin tend to have low empathy and even show signs of psychopathy (which is often defined as a person with unempathetic, remorseless behavior). However, low oxytocin could also be a dietary problem.
2. In-group vs. out-group focus
Sometimes, we commit positive behavior more to our in-group and compete with our out-group. Like being nice to your neighbours and family but rude to strangers, show concern to people who share your interests but ignore the plight of those who don’t. We also tend to show more co-operation and helpful behavior toward those we consider similar to us and extend less of it to others who come from a different group. These groups can be as simple as neighbors vs. guests, race 1 vs. race 2, managers vs. interns, family vs. friends, etc. Any common feature between people can create differences in how we behave with in-group vs. out-group members. Because of the grouping-based identity (think race, city, culture, class, etc.), we may show less empathy for those who are not exclusively in our group.
When applied to a whole nation and culture, there is a group of people whose self-esteem is based solely on some past glory, and they use that to create their sense of self-worth. This special case, called collective narcissism, is also another related reason why nationalistic pride leads to unempathetic behavior.
3. Inward focus
Another common reason is that empathy reduces when we focus on our own relatable experiences while listening to someone else. That draws attention away from others and makes it self-focused. Multiple studies (more here) show that focusing on your personal experiences instead of processing others’ experiences during a conversation might activate your own memories and take attention away from others’ experiences.
4. Painkillers
Research suggests[2] that pain perception and emotion perception have a common denominator – a shared neural circuit. Inhibiting one inhibits the other. Painkillers (acetaminophen/paracetamol) appear to reduce empathy for others’ pain, because pain itself gets subdued within a person’s brain. Consider Dr. House.
The exact mechanisms are unclear, but they likely involve an inability to process pain that gets simulated via the empathy circuit called the “as-if-body-loop[3]” that converts observable data about someone else into simulations in one’s own mind about what the mental state of that other person is. (These have also been called mirror neurons.). This network of neurons creates an “internal representation” of others’ feelings by mimicking their bodily state, body language, outward signs of emotion like crying, pacing heartbeat, and inferring thought patterns, and it aligns that representation with your own mental and physical state, which we interpret as “understanding their feelings” and “feeling the same”. If painkillers can mute the pain component of that internal representation, pain is not processed, and therefore empathy is reduced.
5. Emotional distance
The intensity of emotions usually reduces when a person is far away or if we think of them as distant, unrelatable, unattached, or inaccessible. Complex ideas in the mind are based on rudimentary “cognitive primitives[4]” (conceptualization of physical properties) such as heat, distance, quantity, etc. The idea of psychological distance is processed as physical distance, so a high distance reduces the impact/influence of what someone says. Physical distance is the cognitive primitive for emotional distance. That is why a stranger might not feel too sad about your situation, but your best friend might do everything in their power to improve your situation because they feel sad about it too. When we think of others as distant people, or ourselves as distant from them, our empathy might reduce when they are far away – emotionally and physically. Simply increasing sensory contact might reduce this distance.
6. Social power differences
A part of empathy is about helping others and “giving.” There is some evidence from simulated game-based studies[5] to support the idea that social power differences affect the value of offering something. Being in a position of power may lead to offering less value to those with lesser power. But when it is about giving to the completely powerless, the powerful ones will again give more. According to the study’s authors, witnessing someone powerless evokes a sense of greater social responsibility. This is like a rich person making a smaller donation to a moderately poor person vs. a larger donation to help someone richer, but also making a dramatically large donation to someone who is completely at the end of their resources. In a way, the one in the middle receives the least. This tendency is not truly empathy-based, but it mimics the behavior expected after one shows empathy.
Now, the obvious
Coming back to the opening statement, yes, there is evidence that habitual exposure to others’ suffering[6] reduces empathy. And also, empathy fatigue[7], a real feeling of exhaustion caused by showing empathy, makes empathy an unaffordable behavior.
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This means those exposed to constant suffering (counselors, doctors, front-line workers, or doomscrolling Instagrammers, etc.) are often just done with their empathy quota. One may even argue that demanding empathy is, for all reasons listed above, an unempathetic behavior.
P.S. This article makes no claim that overall average empathy across all people is on a downward trend. I only cite reasons why empathy at an individual level drops or just vanishes.
Sources
[2]: https://academic.oup.com/scan/article/11/9/1345/2224135
[3]: https://people.ict.usc.edu/~gratch/CSCI534/Readings/The%20Somatic%20Marker%20Hypothesis%20and%20the%20Possible%20Functions%20of%20the%20Prefrontal%20Cortex%20[andDiscussion].pdf
[4]: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1756-8765.2012.01222.x
[5]: https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2008-14857-009
[6]: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0137056
[7]: https://academic.oup.com/cercor/article/34/1/bhad441/7439492
Hey! Thank you for reading; hope you enjoyed the article. I run Cognition Today to capture some of the most fascinating mechanisms that guide our lives. My content here is referenced and featured in NY Times, Forbes, CNET, and Entrepreneur, and many other books & research papers.
I’m am a psychology SME consultant in EdTech with a focus on AI cognition and Behavioral Engineering. I’m affiliated to myelin, an EdTech company in India as well.
I’ve studied at NIMHANS Bangalore (positive psychology), Savitribai Phule Pune University (clinical psychology), Fergusson College (BA psych), and affiliated with IIM Ahmedabad (marketing psychology). I’m currently studying Korean at Seoul National University.
I’m based in Pune, India but living in Seoul, S. Korea. Love Sci-fi, horror media; Love rock, metal, synthwave, and K-pop music; can’t whistle; can play 2 guitars at a time.
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