Vipers Dressed in Empaths’ Clothing

As a psychologist. I know the power of empathy. Putting ourselves in another’s shoes, we gain insight into their thoughts and can mirror their feelings. When we communicate our understanding, empathy has the power to heal, to create connection, to motivate action. Empathy is a superpower of therapists and other caring people. For decades, I’ve been teaching how to demonstrate empathy in helping relationships, and more recently in dialogue across political differences.

Given my interest in empathy, I took notice of this study in the American Political Science Review. The authors presented participants with a scenario about a controversial speaker who is known for making inflammatory remarks about the opposing political party. This speaker is giving an invited talk on a college campus. The space is crowded with people attending the talk, as well as people protesting. The protesters are loud and pretty worked up and manage to shut down the talk, but not before one of the protesters accidentally whacks an audience member in the head with a sign.

What’s your reaction to this situation? Was it good that hate speech was silenced, or should the speaker’s voice be welcomed in the name of free speech? Are you concerned about the audience member’s head injury, or do you dismiss them as a follower of this provocative speaker?

Not surprisingly, your answer probably depends on whether the speaker is aligned with your politics or criticizing your party. But there’s an additional variable that makes a difference – how empathic you are.

Those who identified strongly with a political party were eager to shut down a speaker from the other party and had less concern for the injured bystander. But only if they scored high on empathic concern, showing that they had a tendency to feel sympathetic toward someone in distress.

It seems that, in a polarized situation, empathic people tend to open their heart only to people on their own side. The more empathic we are, the more attuned we are to the harm being done to our people by aggressors in the opposition. This is why we see tenderhearted folks on both sides of a political issue caring deeply about the distress of their compatriots and fairly unconcerned about the suffering of those in the other camp.

Source: ChaoticMind/Adobe Stock

Consequently, empaths disregard the bystander with the head injury and are enthusiastic to censor a speaker who is aligned with the opposing party. Caring people become what Taylor Swift aptly describes as “vipers dressed in empaths’ clothing.” In a divisive context, empathy fuels polarization.

This empathic double-standard may be inflamed by a cognitive bias called Motive Attribution Asymmetry. Through this distorted lens, we view our own actions as motivated by care and the other side’s behavior to be driven by hostility. Thus, injury to those we are trying to protect is appalling while harm done to those selfish haters is well deserved. The greater this bias, the less willing we are to compromise or to believe a win-win is possible.

Instead of priding ourselves on how much we care, perhaps we need to take a closer look at the limits of our concern and to foster compassion for the suffering of our adversaries. As we reclaim empathy, not only for our own side, but for humanity as a whole, we loosen the stranglehold of our biases. And in repairing our ruptured views and relationships, maybe we can find the power to heal our fractured nation.