Comments on: All About Empathy

By: Innate empathy | Jefftracy

Innate empathy | Jefftracy — Sat, 15 Sep 2012 17:40:21 +0000

[...] All About Empathy | the nerve blogJul 24, 2010 … But how is empathy innate? Two NewScientist writers, Philip Cohen and Ewen Callaway, wrote articles discussing the areas in our brains … [...]

By: Devyn B.

Devyn B. — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 18:12:40 +0000

Although these things have much to be criticized, television and the internet, (well globalized communication in general) may help to soften harsh demarcations people make about themselves and other races in their own mind though familiarity.

By: Kayla Ritchie

Kayla Ritchie — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 20:17:38 +0000

A study presented in a paper by Sangrigoli, et al. revealed that people of Korean descent who were adopted by Caucasian parents as children showed a reverse “other-race” effect, by demonstrating through performance in facial recognition tests that they more easily identified the Caucasian rather than the Asiatic faces, suggesting that the other-race effect is indeed purely due to nurture, rather than nature.
It’s a good argument against segregation: it seems the more segregated a community is at first, the more segregated it will become.

By: Margaret McGuinness

Margaret McGuinness — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 18:01:20 +0000

I agree — the study as discussed on NewScientist doesn’t quite consider proximity or familiarity regarding empathy. I think, based on what I’ve read, particularly by de Waal, we are inclined to empathize more strongly with those we associate ourselves. So, whether you’re surrounded by those of Asian descent, those of the same gender, or those of any other in-group during your high school years or any other time, you’d likely understand those people better than those you didn’t surround yourself with, even if they’re from the same ethnicity or race, say Polish — assuming you have weaker ties with the Polish people or culture.

By: Devyn B.

Devyn B. — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 15:57:28 +0000

I wonder about the racial study…were those selected people from homogenous populations or those that were more or less isolated from diversity? Many of my friends are Asian. Over half my high school was too, so I find myself, even though I am white, almost being more comfortable around people of Chinese and Indian descent, for example, than white people. I would be inclined to believe that who we believe is similar to us might be based on proximity or familiarity, rather than physical comparison or innate sense of race.