We mourn for Oregon shooting, but gloss over bombing a hospital: The brain science behind empathy

[marmar]

from Salon:


We mourn for Oregon shooting, but gloss over bombing a hospital: The brain science behind empathy
A psychologist explains why Americans grieve more intensely over the Oregon college shooting than foreign crises

SCOTT TIMBERG


The last week or so has seen a number of painful events: The shooting at a community college in Oregon, which has drawn an enormous amount of grief and empathy. We’ve also seen global tragedies, including the bombing of a hospital in Afghanistan and the latest chapter of the Middle Eastern refugee crisis, neither of which has received the same amount of attention in the United States.

Is there a way of making sense of the disparate ways we — especially if “we” are American, or other members of the First World — connect with these things? Why do we, whoever we are, respond more intensely to some tragedies than others?

Salon spoke to Art Markman, a cognitive psychologist and professor at the University of Texas at Austin. Markman is the author of “Smart Thinking” and host of the KUT radio show “Two Guys on Your Head.”

We caught up with Markman outside of Austin. The interview has been edited slightly for clarity.

Let’s start with the week’s news. Why do we respond so differently to various tragedies? What summons our empathy? What makes Americans connect with some events and not with others?

The thing to remember is the way we understand people around us is by trying to simulate what it would be like to be in that situation ourselves. A lot of times that’s our best way of trying to predict the reaction someone’s going to have when we’re interacting with them. And so, the power of these stories, which in some ways is like the power of movies and other [narrative] is that we are projecting ourselves into that situation… The position of a mother or a father or a person who is there – and feeling those emotions. Feeling the fear or someone trapped by a gunman, feeling the sorrow of someone who has lost a child. That mechanism, which helps us to navigate our social relationships, plays a huge role in our ability to understand these situations. And that’s where empathy comes in.

That’s why Stalin is reported to have said that one death is a tragedy and a million is a statistic. And the reason that works is that you can’t empathize with a million people. But if you can look into the eyes of someone, and project yourself into their situation, you can feel what they are feeling. ....................(more)

http://www.salon.com/2015/10/08/empathy_where_does_it_come_from_and_where_does_it_take_us/