Sadism - How far does our lack of empathy go?

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empathy

"Empathy is the capacity to recognize and share feelings that are being experienced by another sentient or semi-sentient being. Someone may need to have a certain amount of empathy before they are able to feel compassion. The English word was coined in 1909 by E.B. Titchener as an attempt to translate the German word "Einfühlungsvermögen", a new phenomenon explored at the end of 19th century mainly by Theodor Lipps. It was later re-translated into the German language (Germanized) as "Empathie", and is still in use there."

"Empathy is an ability with many different definitions. They cover a broad spectrum, ranging from caring for other people and having a desire to help them, to experiencing emotions that match another person's emotions, to knowing what the other person is thinking or feeling, to blurring the line between self and other. Below are definitions of empathy:

Daniel Batson: "A motivation oriented towards the other."

D. M. Berger: "The capacity to know emotionally what another is experiencing from within the frame of reference of that other person, the capacity to sample the feelings of another or to put one's self in another's shoes."

Jean Decety: "A sense of similarity in feelings experienced by the self and the other, without confusion between the two individuals."

Frans de Waal: "The capacity to (a) be affected by and share the emotional state of another, (b) assess the reasons for the other’s state, and (c) identify with the other, adopting his or her perspective. This definition extends beyond what exists in many animals, but the term “empathy” … applies even if only criterion (a) is met."

Nancy Eisenberg: "An affective response that stems from the apprehension or comprehension of another's emotional state or condition, and that is similar to what the other person is feeling or would be expected to feel."

R. R. Greenson: To empathize means to share, to experience the feelings of another person.[citation needed]

Alvin Goldman: "The ability to put oneself into the mental shoes of another person to understand her emotions and feelings."

Martin Hoffman: any process where the attended perception of the object’s state generates a state in the subject that is more applicable to the object’s state or situation than to the subject’s own prior state or situation.

William Ickes: A complex form of psychological inference in which observation, memory, knowledge, and reasoning are combined to yield insights into the thoughts and feelings of others.

Heinz Kohut: Empathy is the capacity to think and feel oneself into the inner life of another person

Harry Prosen: "an emotional understanding which allows one as a therapist to resonate with one's patients in depth emotionally, so that it influences the therapeutic approach and alliance with the patient"

Carl Rogers: To perceive the internal frame of reference of another with accuracy and with the emotional components and meanings which pertain thereto as if one were the person, but without ever losing the "as if" condition. Thus, it means to sense the hurt or the pleasure of another as he senses it and to perceive the causes thereof as he perceives them, but without ever losing the recognition that it is as if I were hurt or pleased and so forth.

Marshall Rosenberg: "Empathic connection is an understanding of the heart in which we see the beauty in the other person, the divine energy in the other person, the life that's alive in them."

Roy Schafer: Empathy involves the inner experience of sharing in and comprehending the momentary psychological state of another person.

Wynn Schwartz: We recognize others as empathic when we feel that they have accurately acted on or somehow acknowledged in stated or unstated fashion our values or motivations, our knowledge, and our skills or competence, but especially as they appear to recognize the significance of our actions in a manner that we can tolerate their being recognized.

Edith Stein: Empathy is the experience of foreign consciousness in general.

Simon Baron-Cohen (2003): Empathy is about spontaneously and naturally tuning into the other person's thoughts and feelings, whatever these might be [...]There are two major elements to empathy. The first is the cognitive component: Understanding the others feelings and the ability to take their perspective [...] the second element to empathy is the affective component. This is an observer's appropriate emotional response to another person's emotional state.

Khen Lampert (2005): "[Empathy] is what happens to us when we leave our own bodies...and find ourselves either momentarily or for a longer period of time in the mind of the other. We observe reality through her eyes, feel her emotions, share in her pain."

Neculai Ioan Fantanaru offered a simpler definition that is worth quoting: Empathy means to be preoccupied by the thoughts and feelings of other people, putting yourself in their place, trying to think like them.

Since empathy involves understanding the emotional states of other people, the way it is characterized is derivative of the way emotions themselves are characterized. If, for example, emotions are taken to be centrally characterized by bodily feelings, then grasping the bodily feelings of another will be central to empathy. On the other hand, if emotions are more centrally characterized by a combination of beliefs and desires, then grasping these beliefs and desires will be more essential to empathy. The ability to imagine oneself as another person is a sophisticated imaginative process. However, the basic capacity to recognize emotions is probably innate and may be achieved unconsciously. Yet it can be trained[citation needed] and achieved with various degrees of intensity or accuracy.

The human capacity to recognize the bodily feelings of another is related to one's imitative capacities and seems to be grounded in the innate capacity to associate the bodily movements and facial expressions one sees in another with the proprioceptive feelings of producing those corresponding movements or expressions oneself. Humans seem to make the same immediate connection between the tone of voice and other vocal expressions and inner feeling."

I think some people actually feel the same emotion as the other person and this means they understand how they are feeling a lot better and for others they just imagine what the emotion feels like and act accordingly.

Having empathy doesn't always mean you're a nice person though as it all depends on how you decide to act on the knowledge about anothers emotions ie you might udnerstand that they feel very sad and lacking in confidence and decide to take advantage of them by offering friendship but with the ulterior motive of getting them to sleep with you. So in that example the empathy has been used for selfish reasons.

I think people just vary a lot in terms of how much they actually feel the other person's emotions themselves and the extent to which they are prepared to acknowledge and act accordingly to their emotions. You can know someone is feeling a certain way but not bother to do anything about it or you could say 'Well when I feel like that person does I like it when someone does this for me, so I will do the same to try and help the other person'. I suppose in that case you will have successfully empathised if what you do does make the other person feel better.

interesting thread.

For those who are interested, I went and saw my doctor today.

Basically, all of these sadistic thoughts and feels are a combination of things. He thinks I'm severely depressed and I've most likely detached myself from almost all of my emotions and conscience. That also explains why I hold people up to the same level as I do insects. He really wanted to hospitalize me, but I refused for two reasons. The first is that I've had a bad experience being hospitalized and I feel it's a good way to make me snap. The second reason is that I'd be under the care of some new doctor and he would probably load me up with antipsychotics, which would be bad. Not sure how many of you are aware of the new study that shows that high doses of antipsychotics causes brain shrinkage. My doctor feels that I'm too intelligent for him to do that. He also feels that once I get my sleep regulated and I start working again, I'll feel better. The guy must really like me because, with all the evidence he has of me having sadistic thoughts, if I were to go out and hurt or kill someone, he could lose his license for not hospitalizing me.

Do I have antisocial personality traits? Hell yes. Am I a sociopath? Not quite.

It's interesting that the Dr wanted to hospitalize you - was that to protect others from what you might potentially end up doing or because he thought you yourself were at risk with having depression?

I have come to the conclusion that I have a very mild version of what you do

ie I would never want to actively go out and harm others myself but other people do anger me a lot and I do de-humanise them in my head as a result. So if I read about a person killing lot of others I either feel neutral about it or part of me actively thinks 'Well done!' ie this person has got back at a society I find mainly evil and I'm partly admiring them but at the same time I wouldn't want to do it myself - far too much hassle! So it's a bit like sociopathy by proxy - let them do all the hard work and I'll just think 'Thats a few less of the evil f-kers most people are' on the planet - well done!

I realise this would be viewed as disturbed thinking by many but if I'm not actively harming others or breaking the law how bad am I actually being?

It does also vary with the category of person being harmed ie of it's a person with learning disability or autism I'll tend to be sorry about it but if it's an average NT type of person I'll think 'Good!' The Holocaust was off the scale evil and unacceptable so it's the perpetrators I'd want killed in that instance.

But the killings prepetrated by Anders Brevik - I don't feel much about that/partly admire him
I know what he did is wrong but I also identify with the idea that why should we have to live in a society controlled by idiotic ideologies that make society worse not better! Sooner or later someone is bound to act and if they are disturbed, the sky's the limit as to what they'll end up doing!

It's all dependent on the value I specifically give to the people being killed, not society's mainstream view

You know, I find your frank honesty to be very refreshing and VERY rare. Most humans are a fog of deceit.

An instinct for violence/murder is natural.......millions of yrs of evolution but we still kill each other , basically we're apes in fancy suits amd ties.

Bruce Lee used to shoot squirrels with bb gun as a matter of fact.

I am not sadistic. I know this. Sure, if I'm angry or envious at/of someone I wish them dead, but I don't want them to suffer. I just want them gone. Out of existence.
((-FAIL.DON'T.READ.THIS- It's...because of this ridiculous sort of...belief (?) I have that I'm not going to describe. Because it is too ridiculous and makes zero sense.
But due to it, I only like certain people (imaginary, I admit) to suffer and don't like how others beside them suffer. It is completely ridiculous because most go through pain in their lives, some go through some extreme things even, and I'd like to restrict it to just a few in a way that doesn't even remotely make sense?))

Nevermind that.
Bottomline - I'm not sadistic. Amoral and selfish - yes, but not sadistic. I can only be purposefully mean to someone if I'm angry and then I'm not in control and nothing I say makes any sense anyhow.

OP:

What you describe isn't sadism, rather just normal thoughts people have.

Sadism is finding pleasure in the pain of others (whether you inflict said pain or not).

What's wrong with enjoying the suffering of bad people?

It brings you down to their level. That's what's wrong with it!

I don't think there's anything wrong with it...I don't believe in 'right' and 'wrong'. Other people's sadism can be annoying sometimes, though (like bullies or the more malicious trolls).

Last edited by Luci on 04 May 2012, 1:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.

What exactly does that mean? Can you elaborate?

They believe that enjoying someone's suffering is innately evil/bad/immoral (and so it would make you a 'bad person' in their books as well). Depends your system of beliefs and morals whether or not you agree. You don't.

I disagree intensely with just this topic line

people with ASD's can be VERY empathic, especially with animals and children
from personal experience... everyone i've ever met with an ASD can be highly empathic to the point where, i can literally feel the feelings of the other person, but it is highly internalized
this is what i believe causes meltdowns/shutdowns, anger, psychosis etc AKA imbalances
is the limited ability to EXPRESS empathy

but on the other hand to FEEL empathy exhists
we just EXPRESS empathy differently

Enjoying the suffering of "bad" people is also sadism, just FYI and all.

I don't want "bad" people to suffer, nor would I find pleasure from them suffering; if they harm others, I'd make sure they can't harm people again. This is where corrections and whatnot comes into play in modern society.