Empathy Connects Us to the Hearts of Others

Where's Our Skill to Empathize Gone?

Empathy is the ability to emotionally place oneself into the shoes of someone else's - view experienced by someone else, emotions, and the capability to share and comprehend the feelings, both positive and negative. Empathy is the identification and relationship that joins us as human beings.

We show empathy through statements like, "I can see you're extremely uneasy about this," and "I can comprehend why you'd be troubled." We show empathy by means of a hug, a reassuring touch, and even through a "high five" when our empathy relates to someone else's success.

Empathy isn't the same emotion as empathy. Where empathy enables us to vicariously experience and identify with other's feelings, sympathy is a sense of grief or pity for the feelings of others. With empathy we feel with sympathy we feel for another person, with another person.

There are lots of theories regarding the nature versus nurture facet of growth that is empathic. Are some people born some individuals created bad and virtuous?

Dr. Paul Zak has examined the biological basis of good versus bad behaviour over a number of years and has made a really interesting discovery. He found that when individuals feel for others, the pressure activates the mind to release a chemical. Similarly, a study at Berkely reasoned that a specific version of the oxytocin receptor gene is related to the characteristic of human empathy. In the analysis, those who'd this gene variation were found to possess a more empathic nature. Dr. Zak says that this study shows that some individuals, about five percent of our residents, may have a gene variation that makes them less empathic. To put it differently, he says, some individuals are more or less immune to oxytocin.

So there's scientific evidence the good characteristic is encoded in our genes. But nature isn't the only determining factor. We might be born with the capability to possess empathy, but our capability to use it, understand and to care, is a learned behaviour.