by How do people successfully interact with those who are completely different from them? And can these differences create social barriers? Social scientists struggle with these questions because the mental processes underlying social interactions are not well understood.
One recent concept that is becoming more popular is the “double empathy problem”. This draws on research that looks at people known to have social difficulties, such as autistic people.
The theory suggests that people with very different identities and communication styles – which is often the case for autistic and non-autistic people – find it more difficult to empathize with each other. It is this two-way difficulty that they mean by the double sympathy problem.
This idea is getting a lot of attention. Research on the problem of double empathy has grown rapidly over the past decade. This is because it may explain why different people in society may struggle to empathize with each other, which can lead to personal and societal problems; from poor mental health to intergroup tension and systemic racism.
But is this idea accurate? Our recent paper suggests that things may be much more complicated than that.
Our analysis suggests that the double empathy theory has many shortcomings. It shows that there is widespread confusion about the very vague concept of double sympathy. Research has also narrowly focused on social difficulties in autism without considering other social identity factors that affect empathy between different groups, such as gender.
The theory also fails to incorporate the neuropsychology of empathy. Instead, it confuses the concept of empathy – that is, psychological feelings felt by others – with similar but different phenomena, such as “understanding mind” (understanding what people are thinking from another perspective).
Because the double empathy theory is not well developed, most of the experiments that test it are confusing. Many researchers claim to be studying double empathy when they do not actually measure empathy. Meanwhile, other studies are being used as evidence of double empathy despite not having attempted to test this theory.
Double empathy research has also relied heavily on subjective reports of people’s experiences (rather than expert evaluation), which does not tell the whole story.
Read more: The science of ‘mind reading’: our new test shows how well we understand others
Overall, the analysis of existing research shows that the central claim of dual empathy theory is not well supported. That is, being similar to others’ identities does not necessarily mean that you have more empathy for them.
This is an important issue that needs urgent attention. There are already signs that the double empathy theory is being applied, despite a lack of evidence. Some researchers and doctors have begun to claim that, because there is a double empathy problem, health care professionals are generally unable to understand their patients with social difficulties. But there is no reliable evidence of this.
Looking ahead, more neurological research on social interaction is needed. We hope that brain imaging technologies, such as “hyperscanning” – which scans multiple branches of the person at the same time – will help to shed light on how different people’s brains interact with each other. For example, this technique can be used to test how similarities between people interacting may affect their brain activity.
To make advances in this area, this technique could be used in conjunction with artificial intelligence. Exploring whether machines can empathize with humans and see if they accurately interpret our brainwaves will be of great interest.
Read more: Increasingly sophisticated AI systems can empathize, but their use in mental health care raises ethical questions
The benefits of diversity
It is thought that people who live in more socially diverse places, such as big cities, tend to be more tolerant of those who are different from them than people who live in socially homogeneous places. They ultimately see themselves and others as belonging to the same local community despite ethnic and cultural differences and seem to be better at observing others’ perspectives.
This suggests that perhaps spending time with people who are different from us can boost our empathy – something that the dual empathy theory does not predict. Ultimately, empathy is not about our ability to understand someone by their likeness. When we spend time with people from other social and cultural backgrounds – and find common ground in other areas – differences may be less emphasized.
The human experience is vast and complex. Just because two people come from different cultures or have different communication styles doesn’t mean they can’t be very similar in other ways. Maybe their values align or they have similar interests. This insight may have the potential to remove some barriers that may make it difficult to understand and empathize with others.
And, sometimes, people from similar backgrounds find it difficult to understand each other, but they can empathize with people who are completely different from them (for example, refugees fleeing countries at war). . Why? The double empathy theory may not be the best way forward, but it could serve as a springboard for future research to answer this and other questions.
We could use the social science of empathy to understand these extremely complex social issues. This could ultimately reduce societal conflict and improve social cohesion – but we need research on the right track to realize this potential.
This article from The Conversation is republished under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Luca Hargitai receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council.
Lucy Anne Livingston receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council.
Punit Shah receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council.
