Having Empathy for Others Can Bring Us Closer To Social Justice
Studies show that there is a relationship between levels of empathy for others and one’s openness and willingness to see injustice. If a person is sensitive to the emotions of other people, they will probably be more likely to empathize with the experiences marginalized individuals face. To accurately perceive injustice means to be able to look past your own perceptions and see things from the point of view of the affected individual, and to see the injustice that certain identities live with, we have to be empathetic to the issues within their communities.
Empathy is defined and described in a lot of different ways, though the most commonly understood definition of the term is “the capacity to mentally simulate the subjectivity of the other, to put ourselves in the shoes of another,” (Belzung, 2014). To be empathetic is said to be a form of mental imitation for the purpose of understanding other people’s minds (Irimia, 2010). Though while the general idea of empathy is the understanding of other people’s emotions, it should be noted that empathy at times may manifest itself in different ways.
Affective empathy, as one example of the various kinds of empathy, according to Cassels et. al. (2010), is the emotional response that an individual has to another person’s emotion or situation. This does not necessarily mean that the person exhibiting empathy has to feel the same emotion as the affected individual, though their emotional state should correspond with the situation at hand. For example, an ally to a marginalized identity can be angry at the implementation of a socially unjust policy that may elicit fear, instead of anger, in the negatively affected individual. The two people do not express the same emotion, though both reactions pertain to the present circumstance.
A form of affective empathy is ‘empathic concern,’ which is a feeling of concern for the affected individual, thus causing them to focus on the present situation. This is unlike the other form of affective empathy, which is called ‘personal distress,’ which elicits a negative emotion in the individual, though instead of focusing on the affected person, they will turn their focus inward on themselves (Cassels et. al., 2010).
Higher levels of empathy is a predictor of a “heightened valuation of others’ welfare and well-being,” (Cassels et. al., 2010). From a social justice standpoint, this may lead to an increased interest in advocacy for underprivileged groups. Empathic concern, specifically, may anticipate prosocial behavior, such as altruism and helping to alleviate the other person’s negative emotions (Cassels et. al., 2010). On the other hand, lower levels of empathy may contribute to the [fundamental attribution] error of attributing the shortcomings of marginalized groups to their own actions. For example, moralizing the poor by thinking that they don’t spend their money on the right things, thus putting them in poverty is … false. Someone that understands the social and economic barriers that poor individuals deal with would see that this is not often a factor of low-income status. Taking into account the perspective of devalued groups is important for understanding them effectively, though proper knowledge of the disparities that these groups face is necessary as well.
Affective empathy can improve conflict management and decrease conflict engagement. This has strong potential to stifle cultural tension while also encouraging prosocial giving and/or helping, which may facilitate advocacy for marginalized groups. Possessing higher levels of empathy also has the capability of fostering better emotion management and better relationships with other people. This is vital for a socially just world, as having positive relations and experiences with others is necessary for intercultural cohesion.
Catherine Belzung (2014) notes that there are varying levels of empathy, all of which produce different responses. The first level may be referred to as ‘emotional contagion’, that of which is the unconscious, biological response which allows us to “be invaded … by the feelings of others.” The second level involves an individual’s “capacity to be worried by the other,” and is characterized by a desire to help the person. To fabricate such a response requires the first level of empathy, in that one first has to feel the emotions of the other to then be worried about their well-being. The third level of empathy presents itself through one’s ability to put themself in the state of mind of the other. This requires that the individual leave their own perspective and to instead consider what the other person feels and needs. To look at someone else’s situation from your own standpoint can sometimes be helpful, but in relation to marginalized groups, it can lead to a misperception of their experiences. This can be dangerous since the reason prejudice exists in the first place is because people with agency don’t fully or accurately understand what happens to and in marginalized communities.
Social empathy, on the other hand, is the “contextual understanding of structural barriers to social and economic opportunity” along with the “ability to apply macro perspective-taking to understand the social and economic conditions of others,” (Segal & Wagaman, 2017). In summary, social empathy is a person’s understanding of socioeconomic disparities and how those manifest themselves in the lives of marginalized peoples. In relation to this is the idea of interpersonal empathy, which is a person’s ability to understand other’s behaviors and. the meanings of these behaviors, (Segal & Wagaman, 2017). These are both important because empathy serves as a connection between people despite seeming dissimilar, which is vital for social justice movements since there, unfortunately, often seems to be a needed incentive for people to help others. This incentive may be the perceived similarities between the individual and others that promotes concern for the disadvantaged individual(s). Empathy helps people to understand one another, which may facilitate compromise and fairness, (Segal & Wagaman, 2017) as people are more likely to listen to and care for someone if they feel that they have something in common.
Open-mindedness and cultural empathy are inversely related to prejudice (Nesdale, et. al., 2011), thus making a lack of empathy a predictor of prejudice, since social empathy requires an understanding of the affected individual/group and prejudice requires a lack of knowledge regarding said identity. As empathy increases, positive attitudes toward disadvantaged groups increase as well. Empathy also facilitates prosocial and helping behaviors in children, so what’s to say that this doesn’t apply to older individuals?
Empathy seems to be vital for social justice, which is defined as the “ideal condition in which all members of society have the same basic rights, protection, opportunities, obligations, and social benefits,” (Segal & Wagaman, 2017). Social justice relies on the positive relations between individuals and groups, which can, in turn, facilitate cohesion and cultural understanding. Women are known to have a higher rating of cultural empathy than men and this is likely due to the fact that men are not marginalized because of their gender identity, whereas women are in patriarchal societies. Interestingly, social empathy, according to Segal and Wagaman’s study (2017) shares a positive relationship with liberalism, which has a greater focus on social and economic justice for marginalized groups than conservatism. If a person can see that a group faces some form of injustice, they are likely to be more empathetic toward other groups as well, and in turn recognize and stifle their own prejudiced feelings.
Empathic behavior and thinking is the result of positive or neutral exposure to various people, situations, cultures, and values that we may not have been previously familiar with. Therefore, we must expose ourselves to different marginalized identities, or accurate resources related to such, so that we can be more empathetic toward those groups. Increased empathy, in turn, also facilitates cultural intelligence, which is necessary for true social justice. This cultural intelligence is likely to cause people to want to help affected groups, since anyone who is conscious of the issues that marginalized individuals face is not likely to be complacent. Ally-ship should strive to provide the resources needed for a socially-just world, through advocacy and education, among other forms of activism; Without allies, we cannot dismantle oppressive systems and institutions, so we must facilitate empathy in people to create more allies.
The relationship between empathy and sensitivity to marginalized experiences is clear. If we can become more empathetic as individuals and as a society, we will be able to see our own privileges along with the disadvantages that marginalized identities face. This will hopefully cause people to have a stronger desire to help those who cannot necessarily help themselves in the face of injustice, which will then bring us closer to a socially-just world.
