“The effect was strong,” writes the Yale University psychologist Paul Bloom, describing the experiment in his new book Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion. Her painful illness was explained in detail, and after they heard about it the subjects were asked whether they would move Sheri up the wait list, past the other terminally ill kids who were viewed as higher priority, who would have to wait longer to enjoy the Quality Life Foundation’s offerings as a result. Then, everyone heard the same interview, which was from a (not real) “very brave, bright 10-year-old” named Sheri Summers.
The Myth of the Ever-More-Fragile College Student Try to feel the full impact of what this child has been through and how he or she feels as a result.” Related Stories In the high-empathy condition, subjects were told, “Try to imagine how the child who is interviewed feels about what has happened and how it has affected this child’s life. Try not to get caught up in how the child who is interviewed feels just remain objective and detached.” That was the so-called low-empathy condition. Half were told, “While you are listening to this interview, try to take an objective perspective toward what is described. The subjects were prepared for the interview in one of two ways. Daniel Batson told a group of study participants about a charity called the Quality Life Foundation, which worked to improve the quality of life of terminally ill kids, and explained that they, the subjects, were going to hear an interview with an applicant. A team led by the University of Kansas psychologist C. He says the solution is to apply principles of justice and fairness but not to “go through the exercise of trying to get in the heads of people and feeling their pain.In 1995, the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology published a revealing study, which centered on a story about a dying child. In this podcast, Bloom talks about why empathy is linked to prejudice and why the “biases and messiness of empathy” get in the way of genuine problem-solving. “We find ourselves in weird situations where we care a lot more about one specified person, one identifiable victim, than we care about a thousand people who are in the same situation.” “What empathy does, is it zooms you in on an individual,” he says.
He argues that this kind of empathy can cause us to make short-sighted and even biased decisions. At first glance, the title may seem callous but Bloom makes clear that he is against a very particular kind of empathy: feeling the pain and suffering of others. Bloom tackles the complexities of doing good in his new book, Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion.
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