Today's college students lack empathy?

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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37399539/ns ... -behavior/



Jeanna Bryner
College students today are less likely to "get" the emotions of others than their counterparts 20 and 30 years ago, a new review study suggests.

Specifically, today's students scored 40 percent lower on a measure of empathy than their elders did.

The findings are based on a review of 72 studies of 14,000 American college students overall conducted between 1979 and 2009.


"We found the biggest drop in empathy after the year 2000," said Sara Konrath, a researcher at the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research.

The study was presented this week at the annual meeting of the Association for Psychological Science in Boston.

Is "generation me" all about me?
Compared with college students of the late 1970s, current students are less likely to agree with statements such as "I sometimes try to understand my friends better by imagining how things look from their perspective," and "I often have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me."

"Many people see the current group of college students — sometimes called '' — as one of the most self-centered, narcissistic, competitive, confident and individualistic in recent history," said Konrath, who is also affiliated with the University of Rochester Department of Psychiatry.
Are today's young people really more self-centered?
Konrath's colleague graduate student Edward O'Brien added, "It's not surprising that this growing emphasis on the self is accompanied by a corresponding devaluation of others.”

Other recent studies have shown mixed results on the character of today's youth . For instance, one study of more than 450,000 high-school seniors born at different time periods showed today’s youth are no more self-centered than their parents were at their age. 

The role of media
Even so, Konrath and O'Brien suggest several reasons for the lower empathy they found, including the ever-increasing exposure to media in the current generation.

"Compared to 30 years ago, the average American now is exposed to three times as much nonwork-related information," Konrath said. "In terms of media content, this generation of college students grew up with video games , and a growing body of research, including work done by my colleagues at Michigan, is establishing that exposure to violent media numbs people to the pain of others."

The rise in social media could also play a role.

"The ease of having 'friends' online might make people more likely to just tune out when they don't feel like responding to others' problems, a behavior that could carry over offline," O'Brien said.

In fact, past research has suggested college students are addicted to social media .

Other possible causes include a society today that’s hypercompetitive and focused on success, as well as the fast-paced nature of today, in which people are less likely than in time periods past to slow down to really listen to others, O'Brien added.

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"College students today may be so busy worrying about themselves and their own issues that they don't have time to spend empathizing with others, or at least perceive such time to be limited," O'Brien said.

You can find out your empathy score and how it compares with today’s college students by taking the empathy quiz .         

Hm. Interesting.

Students today are taught facts, not relationships; answers instead of manners of thought. Of course there will be a lack of understanding when students can only parrot what they've been taught instead of thinking for themselves. More troubling to me is the dearth of ethics and professionalism found in many current students and recent graduates... a lot of people with expensive degrees who I wouldn't hire to watch paint dry.


M.

Be careful to read those stats very literally. They never mean as much as I want them to.

For example, people who hate themselves may believe that they are bad people while selfish people with huge egos may see themselves as philanthropists. There's too much potential for bias for such a test to accurately determine how empathetic people are.

I scored 45 btw.

That comes of no surprise to me. I see a lot of those type around my area.

I got 58, I am sure that my EQ score has risen over the years. I am sure that I feel more pitty and sympathy for other people than I did when I was younger.

I am not sure if the way that students are educated at universty will be responsible for altering their empathy scores.

Maybe people are just more honest about how little they care these days.

I scored 53 BTW.

I scored 51, average, but I think the reason for that is because they kept using words like "pity" and "feeling sorry for" people, I know how unpleasant it is to be pitied and so I wouldn't do it to anyone else. Does that make me less empathetic?

Scored a 24 on the empathy test.

I just dont really care nor do I feel that I have an OBLIGATION to care. I pick and choose who I empathize with, which is usually just family and friends, and even then it takes a large amount of effort that gets me nowhere. Its more of a situational thing in my eyes. You don't need to do it with every single human you encounter. Yeah, I am a complete 'monster' according to the old generations oh whoopedydoo.

There is too much of a schism between the baby boomer generation and the current. There is a fundamental shift occurring in the human psyche. Both sides are gonna have to learn to give and take if stability is gonna happen.

As for why lack of empathy is becoming more common, there are multiple factors involved. Society is moving towards individualism amongst the younger generations, with more focus on the self then upon the rest of the world. Socialization at will over the net tends to satisfy the younger generations for a while as well. People gen just shut eachother out whenever they feel like it. To some it may be a bad thing, to others its isnt, while to others, they simply dont care.

As for who people care about and are more likely to empathize with, I think the focus is towards close family and friends. The eal question is Why the hell do you "NEED" to empathize with everyone if you are only even gonna see these people only once, especially if they are in a position that will have no influence at all upon you. I can probably argue it from many different viewpoints. I already know what the extreme left and right would say though. My own opinion is more or less that things would have to eventually balance themselves out, you have to learn the right moments for empathizing and to not empathize. For me my focus is definitely upon family and friends while I will completely ignore the existence of those who will have no affect upon my existence. If someone is an acquaintance though, I tend to be n the middle of the road. It all really depends on the situation.

As for something somewhat critical of the uber-empathizers who think everyone should be completely empathic like that to EVERYONE, Realize some people want the empathy because they are complete attention ******. In fact you can categorize everyone in existence as an attention ***** to a slight extent, some people more so than others.


So really, arguing the pros and cons of both sides is kinda like a flame war, no one really wins. In fact that can go for A LOT of things society likes to b***h about. Opinions are subjective, just like what people call morals/ethics. they all differ between individuals. Everyone judges each other by their own SUBJECTIVE INTERNALIZED SCALE OF BALANCES AND MEASURES. Life is nothing but an extremely chaotic, mess that the complete majority will only ever view subjectively.

I wouldn't hire anyone to watch paint dry. Waste of money.

I scored a 35.

I don't see the problem though, but maybe that's because I'm so self-centered that I just can't.

Hiring certain people would be a waste of money in general, regardless of the job or their education - we've had this discussion.


M.

I don't think so. I just went through some events in life and I've had a lot of people say stuff like "I'm sorry", "oh you poor thing", etc...and it just gets on my nerves. I know they mean well, but rather than feel sympathy for others, I try to help them with their problems (though I find they usually don't want help). I think what you and I are describing is sympathy, though a lot of people confuse it with empathy.

Empathy is hard for me to understand, and I start thinking even harder about it when I take these tests. I do try to feel how someone else would feel in their situation, but I can't. When I do that I just realize that what they're doing makes even less sense to me. They used the descriptors "self centered, narcissistic, competitive, confident and individualistic". I fit some of those (not all), but I don't think those are things you have to be to lack empathy. I guess they didn't say that, though.

Interesting article. Can someone help me: where is the link to the empathy test? I curious how I would score.

Never mind, I found it. I scored 51. This truly is an interesting article.

I scored 29. Some of those questions I wasn't quite sure on though. Do I pity people? I don't know, what does pity feel like?