Let's talk about Einfühlung

Some thoughts about empathy

Dr. Sasha Göbbels

https://shrtr.name/ltae/

To all the technocrats

No one cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.

Theodore Roosevelt

Overview

Short (!) about me
What is empathy?
Empathy and culture
Can empathy be learned?
And what about software development?

About me

Senior Engineering Manager
PhD in Theoretical Chemistry
ADHD, hyperfocus topics include:
- Diversity & Inclusion
- Fashion Theory& Fashion
- Neuroscience & Empathy
Extroverted introvert
Trans femme

What is Empathy?

Historical facts

The term 'empathy' came into existence in the early 20th century
Based on the German term 'Einfühlung', which was coined in the mid to late 19th century

Classification

Cognitive empathy
Affective/emotional empathy
Somatic empathy

Similar concepts

Compassion
Sympathy
Pity
Emotional contagion

Cognitive empathy

Definition

The conscious or willful management of perceptions that go into your own feelings

What we need for this:

Theory of mind
Perspective taking
Fantasy
Tactical empathy

Developmental timeline

Age 1-2: First ideas of perspective taking
Age 4-5: Theory of mind
Age 8: Real perspective taking
Age 10-12: Possibility to forecast degree of empathy in grown person
In general: genes account for 10-35% of where we land on the empathy spectrum

Differences in individuals

Not everyone responds uniformly in the same circumstances
Empathic Concern Scale vs. Personal Distress Scale
Women show stronger empathy-related neural response
Stronger link between emotional and cognitive empathy in women

Affective/emotional empathy

Definition

Ability to respond to another person's mental state with an appropriate emotion

What is it?

Two scales:
- Empathetic concern
- Personal distress
Based on emotional contagion

Somatic empathy

Definition

Responding to pain and sorrow in others by physically experiencing the same pain through proximity to them

What is it?

Physical reaction in the somatic nervous system
Probably based on mirror neurons
Starts before understanding other ones condition
Can occur in less than 200 ms within the autonomic nervous system (↝ Kahneman system 1)
Cognitive & affective empathy require 300-500 ms for the brain to process (↝ Kahneman system 2)

Mirror neurons

First found in Macaque primates in 1992

Mirror neurons

Neurons that fire, when a subjct acts as well as when it sees someone else act
Best investigated in a primate species, but also found in birds
Hints to mirror neurons found in the premotor cortex human brain

A bit of neuroscience

Empathy and culture

In general

A survey of 104,365 adults across 63 countries showed countries high in empathy scored highly in:

Collectivism
Agreeableness
Conscientiousness
Self-esteem

Emotionality
Subjective well-being
Prosocial behaviour

Affective Empathy - East vs. West

Individuals in western countries have a higher value in empathetic concern than in personal distress
In far eastern individuals it's the other way around
Bicultural people fall somewhere in between

Can empathy be learned?

This is a controversary discussion.

Empathy can be facilitated
Promoting attitudes (nonjudgemental attitude, listening ...) can be learned
Empathy is experienced, not self-caused

And what about software development?

Communication

Software is developed in teams
Teams can be inter-cultural
Communication doesn't work well without empathy

Soft skills vs. hard skills

Writing good readable code is empathy with your team and your future self

Coraline Ada Ehmke

Empathy is required in all phases of development

Requirements engineering
Development process
Leadership
Support

Let's get practical

Listen a lot. I mean a hell of a lot
Actually also talk to people
Try to actively take the position of someone else
Be honest about your own position
Amplify other people's voice