Study: Today's college students lack empathy

[TheMightyFavog]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20100528/sc_livescience/todayscollegestudentslackempathy

College students today are less likely to "get" the emotions of others than their counterparts 20 and 30 years ago, a new review study suggests.

Specifically, today's students scored 40 percent lower on a measure of empathy than their elders did.

The findings are based on a review of 72 studies of 14,000 American college students overall conducted between 1979 and 2009.

"We found the biggest drop in empathy after the year 2000," said Sara Konrath, a researcher at the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research.

[BrklynLiberal]

1. Sadly. This does not surprise me...

Kind and gentle kids are few and far between these days.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

2. I am simplistically going to blame violent video games, songs, movies

they are inundated with. Previous generations faced nothing like what these kids get their heads filled with plus probably having 2 absentee parents working their asses off to maintain a roof over everyone heads with the crappy wages we have nowadays. Leaving the kids to raise each other and we have a Lord of the Flies generation.

Very very scary. 40% is a HUGE number

[Chulanowa]

14. Really?

Video games? Music?

The fucking us government says it's okay to torture people and you think it's Eminem and Marilyn Manson causing the problem? Your kids can open the paper to find stories of police murdering children with tazers and getting off with no charges and you think it's Grand Theft Auto?

Let's be honest here, Phoebe. Reality is what desensitizes people, not fantasy. Even children are capable of going "that's not real" when playing some video game. They can't do the same when they see real-world authority figures cheering and advocating delivering pain, death, and torture to people who are "different." When empathy itself is treated liek a four-letter word by an entire political party and all the major news stations... What do you expect?

[Mojorabbit]

16. I see it too

but wonder if it is a learned thing or has there been some kind of chemical change in children's brains from all the processed foods. chemicals etc. I just cannot think that such a huge drop can be just caused by environment? It does not bode well for the future, that is for sure.

[Chulanowa]

21. Always trying to blame the things you already want to blame

"is it the music I don't like? The words I don't like? The food I don't like?"

No. Probably it's because you're a lousy parent who is teaching your child that money is the most important thing in the world. Because you, as an adult, have elected to create and participate in a brutal and violent society because doing so means you gain more money and live a little more comfortably. Because you, as a voter, keep letting politicians scare you with mexicans and Muslims and gays, and consistently vote in favor of people who will kick those "others" around. because you, being pretty unempathic yourself, never really realize that your kids are picking up as much on what you're not actively teaching them, as what you are. Often moreso; Every parent - and i do mean every single parent - adopts a "do as I say, not as I do" standard.

Take for example, the war in Iraq. Do you have any idea how many parents gloss over it and pretend it's not happening, out of a vain attempt to "protect" thir kids? of course the kids know about it anyway, but they get two messages; One, they can't talk to their parents about it, and two... those people dying don't matter, else mom would say something, right?

And when the results of all this is thrown at you, you do your best to go "it wasn't me! it was those Black Eyed Peas singing about lady lumps!" ('Cause you know, Mick Jagger singing about getting no satisfaction was good clean fun.)

(And just to note, I'm using "you" in the general sense, not you personally, Mojo :) )

[Mojorabbit]

22. I don't know

I have always been way too empathetic which can be a problem but I have spent my life in service and am a nurturer by nature. I look at my siblings and one is a lot like me but the other three are not, so it was not the upbringing. My parents were very generous kind people and we always had friends living with us at one time or another. My parents parented other's children and gave them a safe place to stay. I was born in the fifties and I really think the Reagan era started a shift in thinking but that was also the time when processed foods, diet sodas, etc went into really full swing. Maybe it is a mix of things that is causing it but these kids will live only half a life. Without empathy the world will be a very scary and bleak place.

[seabeyond]

19. i think it is all of it.

i think the shows, films, music and games all desensitize. i think they all lack empathy of any kind. i think the opposite is promoted. and i think a continual feeding of that absolutely effects people

i also think the internet and chat, and boards encourage it too. there is a bravdo that way people are able to talk to each other so disrespectfully, and not have to suffer repercussions like they would face to face. i think that has absolutely effected all of us

i also think it is the 8 yrs of bushco. during that time it was awfully harsh and mean and macho and right to kill

tsa, nsa has the right to treat us less than human and we endure or applaud. cops see us as all criminals and reduce us to tasered.

i think it is also the inability for adults to make a livable income and the total lack of respect for employees today.

i think it is the single parent family, parents so fuckin busy trying to get everything done, they just dont have the time, or patience, or ability to teach the kids and there is not an outside enforcement like times past.

i think there are a lot of factors and they all feed into themselves. all the excessive porn teaches our girls to devalue themselves and teaches boys to certainly not think about the females feelings. when it becomes mainstream for a males to say they would "hit" "tag" a female like it is regular conversation, the same as saying i would fuck her. colbert said it the other night, totally dehumanizing the female. or MILF a common comment.

i have spent a lot fo time with my children and their friends, continual conversation on putting ourselves in anothers shoes. i find that it isnt so hard, once the expectation is there, and the child sees it as a fun exploration of thought, but so many kids have never played the little game.

[Tumbulu]

23. I agree with your assessment

and I see it in the children in my daughter's world of 9 yr olds.

Many of the children will not even say hello back when spoken to.

There is a great deal of pressure on children from so many directions and very little internal support.

And dehumansizing over sexification of the young people does not help.

[DCBob]

3. The whole world lacks empathy..

imo.

[depakid]

18. It's a lot more pronounced in some places than in others

[T Wolf]

4. These people grew up in the age of greed (Raygun) and obscene commercialism where

the "heroes" held up for them to emulate were rich assholes who could buy all the goodies they thought they needed.

It is no wonder that younger people today reflect that warped value and sense of right and wrong.

Sad, but not surprising.

[hughee99]

13. Most college students now were born after Raygun left office

and probably don't have many memories of Poppy's administration either. Even the students in ten years ago (when the decline started) were small children when Raygun left office.

[Ozymanithrax]

5. Individualism has become the most important feature of American culture

When the individual is the most important being on the planet there is just no room for empathy.

[Missy Vixen]

6. Every child now is a special snowflake

I'm all for self-esteem. At the same time, it seems to be all about "me me me me MEEEEE," and everyone else is unimportant.

It's good to be reminded once in awhile that one is not the be-all, end-all, but today's kids don't get that.

IMHO, YMMV.

[ixion]

7. When you live in a cut-throat society where greed reigns

It is little wonder you turn out generation-after-generation of sociopaths.

[no_hypocrisy]

8. My theory: They don't interact with each other. Don't want to get hurt,

so they don't commit. I read somewhere the Y Generation doesn't socialize in terms of having real friends.

Without becoming personally involved in a variety of people, I can understand the lack of empathy.

[HuckleB]

9. That's probably the area that needs to be explored.

When they say that "talked" with someone, it often just means having a quick text or online exchange. I've wondered, via my work, how much technology gets in the way of development of interpersonal communication skills. It's all anecdotal, however, so the underlying reason could be anything.

[seabeyond]

10. desensitizing. i see it often in youth. i am always approaching empathy talking to my boys

they get it. but we work on it. i can see how society today desensitizes the kids .....

[Still Sensible]

11. Probably proportionally equal to the rise in cynicism. nt

[Lilyeye]

12. I am a college student and I totally agree with this study.

However, plenty of adults are lacking empathy as well these days.


Edit: Had to add

[Lilyeye]

15. Wow the comment section there just proves the point.

Somehow black people and liberals are being blamed for lack of empathy lol.

[ohheckyeah]

17. Yeah,

there's a shocker.

[Vattel]

20. More junk science

Surveys like this tell us virtually nothing. The questions are so vague that persons who are equally empathetic can end up with very different scores. Maybe college kids today feel less pressure to be empathetic and their scores merely reflect that. Who knows.