Can a person choose to not feel emotions or empathy?

[SW VandeCarr]

Fear is an emotion that is often treated with anti-phobia type treatments, which involve increasingly close/big experiences with what ever is the cause of the fear.

What you say makes sense, but may not be always be the correct approach. Some people with deep phobias may be severely traumatized by exposure. I have a healthy fear of spiders. I didn't always. As a young child I picked one up and it bit me. My entire hand swelled and it took some time (I can't remember exactly) to recover. However, for many phobias, I agree this technique can work.

The OP was asking something different. The OP wanted to suppress his/her empathy but didn't give a reason for this. Often empathy can cause pain, but not to have empathy is much worse.

 

[BillTre]

The OP was asking something different.

He lists here what he was talking about:

What emotion are you referring to?

Mostly empathy, fear, embarrassment, remorse and love

 

[BillTre]

What you say makes sense, but may not be always be the correct approach. Some people with deep phobias may be severely traumatized by exposure. I have a healthy fear of spiders. I didn't always. As a young child I picked one up and it bit me. My entire hand swelled and it took some time (I can't remember exactly) to recover. However, for many phobias, I agree this technique can work.

That makes sense. Could be similar to the Garcia effect: not wanting to eat food that made one nauseous previously, except its a strong negative reinforcer based on effects of your body.

 

[Laroxe]

No. I was specifically objecting to this:

"The idea that psychopaths lack empathy because they can engage in extreme harm to others without guilt is nonsense, a psychopath knows exactly what effect they are having on a victim, they use this empathy to refine the torment they cause, the difference is is that they enjoy it, if they didn't, why.would they bother." (boldface mine)

While the term term "empathy" may have some variations of interpretation, I asked you to find a reputable source saying that psychopaths that commit heinous crimes against innocent victims for some kind of gratification do not lack empathy and that claiming they do lack empathy is "nonsense". I doubt any expert would say that. Could there be exceptional cases? Sure, but that does not falsify the scientific evidence that true psychopaths have low empathy.

The fact that the relevant brain regions light up when the subject imagines pain in himself simply means the subject fears pain. When the suggestion is pain in another, the empathic response is that the same regions light up. The non empathic response is that these regions remain dark, and in a true psychopath another region associated with pleasure lights up.

I suppose my problem with this is the idea that there is scientific evidence, some issues:
1. the whole concept of psychopathy is difficult, many people see it as deeply flawed, it is in effect only used in legal proceedings and is used to describe certain people who have already committed a serious crime. The principle proponent in this situation is Prof Hare who has made millions on his inventories despite some very serious misgivings about its credibility, its only really widely used in the USA where some courts accept it as evidence.
2. Empathy is an ill defined concept, Carl Rogers originally described it as the ability to experience the emotions of another, an idea that is in fact totally inconsistent with phenomenology, in his later writing he tended to think of it as a communication style that allowed another to really understand the others feelings. Several; workers have tried to subdivide the concept into different types of empathy.
3. fMRI doesn't provide evidence of empathy, at best it provides a proxy measure, but generally there are no specific areas in the brain that only become active in the presence of one stimuli. Historically people who commit serious crimes have been the subject of intensive research efforts and there have been various theories about their emotional "deficits", to date there are no neurophysiological measure that have provided reliable and consistent findings.
This leave us with the problem of explaining what motivates behaviours that can be elaborate and long term, involving the torture of others and that put the perpetrator at high risk, its credible that there may be impaired fear responses, but why act like this for nothing, it doesn't make sense, if they feel pleasure this can only be because they are aware of the effect on their victims.

 

[SW VandeCarr]

This leave us with the problem of explaining what motivates behaviours that can be elaborate and long term, involving the torture of others and that put the perpetrator at high risk, its credible that there may be impaired fear responses, but why act like this for nothing, it doesn't make sense, if they feel pleasure this can only be because they are aware of the effect on their victims.

I don't know why this is so difficult for you.

The normal person responds to his or her own suffering and to the suffering of others by experiencing pain to some degree. That's empathy. The psychopath experiences pain only with his or her own suffering, but responds to the suffering of others either not at all or with pleasure. That's a LACK of empathy.I

 

[Laroxe]

I don't know why this is so difficult for you.

The normal person responds to his or her own suffering and to the suffering of others by experiencing pain to some degree. That's empathy. The psychopath experiences pain only with his or her own suffering, but responds to the suffering of others either not at all or with pleasure. That's a LACK of empathy.I

I think my difficulty might be based on the definition you appear to be using. Researchers generally define empathy as the ability to sense other people’s emotions, coupled with the ability to imagine what someone else might be thinking or feeling. Its a sensitivity to another's emotional state, and applies to all emotional states not just pain. This doesn't mean you experience another's pain or joy, even though that sensitivity is often related to personal experience, exactly the same sensitivity might allow people to experience pleasure if they know someone they really don't like is suffering. Many psychopaths are very adept at reading the effect they are having on their victim and use this to refine the torment, this is empathy. If you are incapable of being sensitive to the suffering of your victim, what pleasure could you get from that, what do you take pleasure in if you can't recognise the suffering you cause and if it has no effect at all, then why do it.? Many people seem to think of empathy as something positive and nice, it isn't its a skill, what you do with that skill is what gives it value.

 

[SW VandeCarr]

I think my difficulty might be based on the definition you appear to be using. Researchers generally define empathy as the ability to sense other people’s emotions, coupled with the ability to imagine what someone else might be thinking or feeling. Its a sensitivity to another's emotional state, and applies to all emotional states not just pain. This doesn't mean you experience another's pain or joy, even though that sensitivity is often related to personal experience, exactly the same sensitivity might allow people to experience pleasure if they know someone they really don't like is suffering. Many psychopaths are very adept at reading the effect they are having on their victim and use this to refine the torment, this is empathy. If you are incapable of being sensitive to the suffering of your victim, what pleasure could you get from that, what do you take pleasure in if you can't recognise the suffering you cause and if it has no effect at all, then why do it.? Many people seem to think of empathy as something positive and nice, it isn't its a skill, what you do with that skill is what gives it value.

Source?

 

[Laroxe]

Source?

Just type define empathy into google and it will come up with lots of dictionaries, they are pretty reliable when it comes to word definitions. As I've pointed out how things are defined is an important issue, I've not come across your before. I'm not really trying to convince you of anything, I was simply responding to the post, if you don't like what I've said that's fine. You seem to want me to search for what I know to be none existent, good quality evidence and I've already described why such evidence is so problematic, I'm afraid presenting a lit review isn't going to happen, but there is nothing stopping you reading more around it.

 

[SW VandeCarr]

="Laroxe, post: 5585584, member: I'm afraid presenting a lit review isn't going to happen, but there is nothing stopping you reading more around it.

And I have.

http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fnhum.2013.00489/full

As the term "empathy' is used in scientific studies, you've provided no source that justistifies you saying that the idea that diagnosed psychopaths lack empathy is "nonsense" (post 23). There are studies that show that psychopaths can have situational empathy, but that does not justify your statement. The article I linked here is technical, but you can skip to the conclusion for the purposes of this thread.

If you continue posting your personal views without sources, you're in violation of PF rules. Frankly I would be very interested in a peer reviewed paper that supports your view.

 

[Laroxe]

And I have.

http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fnhum.2013.00489/full

As the term "empathy' is used in scientific studies, you've provided no source that justistifies you saying that the idea that diagnosed psychopaths lack empathy is "nonsense" (post 23). There are studies that show that psychopaths can have situational empathy, but that does not justify your statement. The article I linked here is technical, but you can skip to the conclusion for the purposes of this thread.

If you continue posting your personal views without sources, you're in violation of PF rules. Frankly I would be very interested in a peer reviewed paper that supports your view.

And I have.

http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fnhum.2013.00489/full

If you continue posting your personal views without sources, you're in violation of PF rules. Frankly I would be very interested in a peer reviewed paper that supports your view.

You provide a link to a study conducted by people who think fMRI can be an effective measure of the experience of a particular cognitive state, that emotionally arousing pictures evoke empathy and who claim that perspective taking has not been studied very much but it evokes concern for others. There are some interesting critiques about this sort of work, which I won't get into.
The physics forum does makes it clear that claims of some sort of scientific truth should be evidenced, there is no suggestion that this removes the need for critical thinking or rational thought.

I take it you didn't follow my suggestion to simply Google the define empathy, the first result was;

The term “empathy” is used to describe a wide range of experiences. Emotion researchers generally define empathy as the ability to sense other people's emotions, coupled with the ability to imagine what someone else might be thinking or feeling.
This was sourced from – greatergood.berkeley.edu/topic/empathy/definition

It is not something that has a clear shared definition and in a similar way the term psychopath is used in all sorts of ways and is a highly contentious description of anyone really, it is not a diagnosis and has in fact been explicitly rejected as such. Anything you would find specifically related to these things is not going to provide good quality evidence of anything, this can be a real problem. OK. there is some related stuff, Simon Baron-Cohen who is Professor of developmental psychopathology at the University of Cambridge wrote a book entitled The Science of Evil in which he attempted to bring a lot of evidence from different field to bare on the problem, he suggested that the term evil be replaced with the term “Empathy Erosion”. In his review of data from studies he estimates that only 1 percent of the variation in aggression they studied could be accounted for by a lack of empathy. He identifies a number of ways in which empathy and violence are causally related. An example; https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24364745

There are also studies demonstrating that empathy can drive aggression, even when it made no moral sense.
http://psp.sagepub.com/content/40/11/1406.short
This study being interesting in that all the neurohormone stuff has been debunked, you just never know with some studies.

The study you quote, suggests that in normal subjects, empathy evokes concern for others, there are in fact lots of studies in business showing exactly the opposite & how empathy (perspective taking) might lead to unethical business practices and lying.
http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/news/minds-business/the-dark-side-of-empathy.html

You are asking a question about ill defined, contentious subjects with strong value associations, a good answer requires an understanding of all the issues involved. A simplistic meaningless answer is yes psychopaths lack empathy, whoever they are and whatever that is. Your right it is an interesting subject, but I have definitely finished with it now.

 

[SW VandeCarr]

You are asking a question about ill defined, contentious subjects with strong value associations, a good answer requires an understanding of all the issues involved. A simplistic meaningless answer is yes psychopaths lack empathy, whoever they are and whatever that is. Your right it is an interesting subject, but I have definitely finished with it now.

This has been the statement I've been challenging from post 23:

"The idea that psychopaths lack empathy because they can engage in extreme harm to others without guilt is nonsense, a psychopath knows exactly what effect they are having on a victim, they use this empathy to refine the torment they cause, the difference is is that they enjoy it, if they didn't, why would they bother."
Boldface mine

The articles you linked are not about psychopathy. Using a word like "nonsense" for peer reviewed material requires a high bar. I'll let the mentors determine whether you reached that bar.

 

[berkeman]

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