When Stress Rises, Empathy Suffers
Posted On: January 14, 2016Stanford professor Robert Sapolsky, PhD, is an expert on the brain. The following article on stress and its negative effect on empathy supports the importance of being low or off your emotions elevator in order to make good choices. The article discusses research that explains why individuals who are considerate of others and show empathy — Wise Way #10 and a higher level thinking skill — must be in control of their stress, as well as the many emotions related to stress.
 |
Humans—and mice—are much more likely to feel empathy toward friends than strangers. New research finds that stress hormones are to blame, writes Robert M. Sapolsky Photo: Getty Images |
Feeling someone else’s pain can alter how we feel about our own.
By Robert M. Sapolsky
The Wall Street Journal Jan. 16, 2015
Among the many contradictions of humans, some of the more striking ones concern empathy. Our hearts break at a disaster on another continent, and we send money to people whose faces we will never see. We look after the well-being of our pets with deep, empathic concern. We feel the pain of characters in a novel. But at the same time, we can walk past a homeless person sleeping on the sidewalk without noticing him. It’s no news that we’re one very complicated species. For full article, click here
