Is the ability to feel empathy type related

[07490]

I have to say it's not type related to feel empathy. If I HAD to associate a function, I'd say Fi is empathy, but that might come from a personal bias. I'm described as I highly empathic person, and I try to understand a people and their situations. I agree with bionic, everyone has their own way of being empathic. Ethical types might be more aware of the use of empathy, and therefore exercise it more often and gain skill at it, but logical types have their own way of being empathic.

I think there is a sense of type relation relating to what we are talking about, if socionics.com is any good, I will quote this

ENFp positive trait description

Your strongest virtue is well-developed intuition. This allows you to faultlessly determine the hidden abilities and talents in others, which you accurately point out or compliment them upon. You also try to help people understand their personal problems, often trying to help people feel more positive about them. Your first impression of people is usually the right one. You are able to maintain warm, trusting relations with people. Your feelings for others, both positive and negative are as strong as each other. You are a top class diplomat. You try to help others using your diplomatic abilities to find solutions to often difficult life situations. You help people to avoid humiliation and making hasty decisions that they might later regret.

[Mattie]

I think there is a sense of type relation in what we are talking about, if socionics.com is any good, I will quote this

ENFp positive trait description

I can agree with that description, and I do understand that type does reflect these traits. What I don't agree with is Fe = empathy, because to me personally, NeFi "obviously" is empathy, or at least empathy in my own manner. If anything, I feel like it's both Fe and Fi, they are two sides to empathy. Maybe Fe is the actual observation and Fi is the understanding? Which makes ethical types good at empathy in how we're talking about it here, but in different ways. I feel rather fired up about this subject for some strange reason, like it just hit a chord

[07490]

If anything, I feel like it's both Fe and Fi, they are two sides to empathy. Maybe Fe is the actual observation and Fi is the understanding? Which makes ethical types good at empathy in how we're talking about it here,

yea good point.

[Slacker]

I can agree with that description, and I do understand that type does reflect these traits. What I don't agree with is Fe = empathy, because to me personally, NeFi "obviously" is empathy, or at least empathy in my own manner. If anything, I feel like it's both Fe and Fi, they are two sides to empathy. Maybe Fe is the actual observation and Fi is the understanding? Which makes ethical types good at empathy in how we're talking about it here, but in different ways. I feel rather fired up about this subject for some strange reason, like it just hit a chord

If you're strong in Fi, you're also strong in Fe, and ENFps have Fe as their 8th function, which is a strong producing function. Fe is not a priority for us but it is strong.

I think different types empathize in different ways. For ENFps, i think it's probably a combination of Fe and Fi.

[Warlord]

I can agree with that description, and I do understand that type does reflect these traits. What I don't agree with is Fe = empathy, because to me personally, NeFi "obviously" is empathy, or at least empathy in my own manner. If anything, I feel like it's both Fe and Fi, they are two sides to empathy. Maybe Fe is the actual observation and Fi is the understanding? Which makes ethical types good at empathy in how we're talking about it here, but in different ways. I feel rather fired up about this subject for some strange reason, like it just hit a chord

You are probably rather talking about sympathy rather than empathy. But Fi-egos are also skilled in empathy.

For example extreme Ne + Fi sympath would feel how the test-animals, or starving children of africa are suffering. Although it would be imagined, and couldn't get over the feeling.

Extreme empath would "extract" and be immersed by the feelings of people surrounding, similar way as someone listens to music.

Or so I assume.

[JuJu]

My hunch is it's probably more psychosocial than Socionics.

Personally, I had a block for awhile... That is to say, I wasn't feeling, well, feelings in full -- and like psychological blocks can be, it was caused by build-up of un-dealt with pain.

Me being ENFj, I don't believe, had anything to do with it... Me feeling or not feeling empathy.

[marooned]

only communicates/reads raw emotional content as it's changing through the moments, which allows one to re-create in their mind the internal emotional states flying through anothers mind. I think empathy is far more than just that.

[Lotus]

@ Mimosa: It's not type-related. Honestly, don't attribute things like empathy to Fe. Especially if you're defining it with an excerpt from Wikipedia. The idea of it may seem more Fe-related, but that's a gross simplification to assume.

Anyway, here are some interesting articles on it:

     “A basic human impulse affecting the course of history, culture, and personal connections,
empathy is also a neurological fact—and one that’s increasingly understood.

TO NEUROSCIENTIST JEAN DECETY, empathy resembles a sort of minor constellation: clusters
of encephalic stars glowing in the cosmos of an otherwise dark brain. ‘See how they flash,’ Decety
says, pointing to the orange-lit anterior cingulate cortex and anterior insula on an fMRI scan. ‘This
person is witnessing another person in pain. ... What’s interesting is that this network of regions
is also involved in the firsthand experience of pain.’”

(The University of Chicago Magazine)

     “On the other hand, in one sense empathy may be more unique than many people think. Although empathy
is often mentioned and grouped together with phenomena such as sympathy, warmth, compassion and so forth,
and naturally have much in common with these phenomena, it is likely the only phenomenon that enables us to
understand as well as care for consciousness outside ourselves.”

(http://www2.psychology.su.se/staff/jh/dissertation.pdf)

     “EMPATHY is the idea that the vital properties which we experience in or attribute to any person or object
outside ourselves are the projections of our own feelings and thoughts.”

(Dictionary of the History of Ideas)

I understand how people are feeling - I rarely "feel" or "experience" how other people are feeling. I can and do put myself in other people's shoes, but it's not something I do instinctively, whereas understanding how people feel and where they are coming from is. That being said, I don't think I'm overly sympathetic. I definitely have the capacity for great sympathy, I'm just... less likely to give it to just anyone? Lol, and I don't mean to sound like I'm stingy with my sympathy. This sounds terrible - I'm really not sure how to put it.

That being said, I don't think empathy is highly type related. Any healthy individual has the capacity for empathy and tbh I don't see the point in over-analyzing it.

How is this empathy? Understanding and "feeling" how someone else is feeling is empathy. Adopting their feelings as your own is not empathy, lol. If anything it shows a weak understanding of your own feelings and and an inability to be assert them when necessary.
I think you are taking this whole being empathetic thing a little too far.

To me empathy is beyond what is identified by the mind to something much deeper, so I can't really see it as type related.

I agree with each of you. And to be honest, this thread kind of bothers me.

[calenwen]

I agree with each of you. And to be honest, this thread kind of bothers me.

Thanks for the articles. Wikipedia wasn't cutting it for me either, so I looked up some alternative definitions before replying, lol.
And yeah, this thread kind of bothered me too.

[marooned]

I am still not convinced... However, I agree that the way "empathy" is used in normal language, makes it sounds "positive" - that's why I posted the Wiki-definition, to make people understand what I talked about - a neutral skill. And this "skill" can be used both for better and worse. (Think of a sadist knowing exactly how his victim feels, he can use his empathy in a really terrible way).

I think the "neutral skill" you're talking about is ... reading raw emotional content. The sadist is reading something of the emotions of the victim, or interpreting them at least. It's just that I think that this "neutral skill" isn't the same thing as "empathy," even though it can certainly be involved in empathy (and it's not because I think 'empathy can only be positive').

[calenwen]

I meant that when more people get upset with one topic, then it's normally because there is a general social "taboo" about something. I find it interesting that it's ok to talk about how some types ARE "less intelligent", but not ok to talk about how some types MIGHT be "less empathic".

(It's stereotypical, and I dislike stereotypes, so God forbid I just made a stereotype stronger, I don't want that. I started the discussion ONLY to understand functions better, and as I thought this topic would engage people. When it comes to discussions, I think the more controversial ones are the ones that are useful. If you only stay inside your comfort zone, you never develop any new ideas, and you might just as well not talk. Sensitive topics are always more interesting than the PC ones.)

No, no. It bothers me when someone takes a basic human trait and over-analyzes it into somehow being type-related. I find the idea that intelligence is type-related to be ludicrous as well.

I can't speak for why it bothered Allie, but I'm guessing it's along the same lines, since she agrees that it is not type-related.

So far BG has made the most sense in this thread.

[Wittmont]

What do you make of this interesting quote about how Lyndon B. Johnson (SEE most likely, or maybe SLE) summed up people. Did he "read" people or understand them through an empatic point of view?

Eights - the enneagram ...info from the underground

"A good quotation from Lyndon Johnson's biography illustrates enneatype Eight's means of sizing up an individual:

"While Lyndon Johnson was not, as his two assistants knew, a reader of books, he was, they knew, a reader of men--a great reader of men. He had a genius for studying a man and learning his strengths and weaknesses and hopes and fears, his deepest strengths and weaknesses: what it was that the man wanted--not what he said he wanted but what he really wanted--and what it was that the man feared, really feared.

"He tried to teach his young assistants to read men--“Watch their hands, watch their eyes” he told them. “Read eyes. No matter what a man is saying to you, it’s not as important as what you can read in his eyes”--and to read between the lines: more interested in men’s weaknesses than in their strengths because it was weakness that could be exploited, he tried to teach his assistants how to learn a man’s weakness. "The most important thing a man has to tell you is what he isn’t telling you,” he said. "The most important thing a man has to say is what he’s trying not to say.” For that reason, he told them, it was important to keep the man talking; the longer he talked, the more likely he was to let slip a hint of that vulnerability he was so anxious to conceal. “That’s why he wouldn’t let a conversation end." Busby explains. “If he saw the other fellow was trying not to say something, he wouldn’t let it (the conversation) end until he got it out of him.” And Lyndon Johnson himself read with a genius that couldn’t be taught, with a gift that was so instinctive that a close observer of his reading habits, Robert G. (Bobby) Baker, calls it a “sense”; "He seemed to sense each man’s individual price and the commodity he preferred as coin.” He read with a novelist’s sensitivity, with an insight that was unerring, with an ability, shocking in the depth of its penetration and perception, to look into a man’s heart and know his innermost worries and desires. (From Robert Caro's Lyndon Johnson.)"

[marooned]

I can use my own kids as examples. My IEI daughter is amazing at knowing what other people feel, while my SLE son seems blind to it. But my son is just as sympathic as my daughter. If I TELL him I'm sad, he'll comfort me. He just doesn't notice himself, and if I smile, he thinks I'm happy, etc... He is younger than my daughter, so it's not totally fair to compare them, but I think there is a difference. Of course my kid's behavior doesn't mean this is a general rule

This reminds me of something. I know someone with two children. One of them is very serious and I do think he's empathetic, but that's just from noticing how he interacts with his mother. His face is usually largely blank, but sometimes he'll say things like "don't worry, Mommy" to his mother quietly, while tugging on her hand. He picks up on her anxiety that she hardly expresses at all. He seems to analyze all of her behavior, but he doesn't seem like an ethical type to me at all. He's interested in things more than people; he seems like a very logical, methodical child to me (if he's ethical, I would think it's ). But I can tell he empathizes with his mother far better than I do, because he knows her so well... he's been studying her for a long time and he has learned to read all of the nuances in her behavior. He doesn't respond to emotions displayed around him, and seems to largely ignore (or not even notice) most of them. Every now and then he may seem to consider a few of them in silent thought, but mostly he doesn't seem interested... like if someone laughs at him and seems to expect him to react, he seems to have a perplexed "who cares" attitude about it and soon returns to whatever object he was playing with.

The other child is very expressive, constant emotions are playing out all over his face. If you smile at him, he smiles too, in fact he smiles in a way that matches how I was feeling exactly (and it seems he felt this feeling when he smiled). I'm thinking that's exactly the sort of thing you mean, Mimosa? In other words he seems to rather precisely mirror the emotions of those around him. He follows everyone's feelings, they all play out on his face. He is like an emotional mirror. He reacts to everyone's emotions, and he seems to be very happy when others are being emotionally expressive. His face will light up and he'll giggle as people become increasingly expressive. He conveys his own emotions so clearly that people react a lot to his feelings as well. I think he's very empathetic, obviously, and I also wouldn't be surprised if he's leading or creative.

But... If I questioned which child I thought was more 'empathetic', I would think it's the first one actually. Emotions seem more like play to the second child, while the first child so strongly empathizes with his mother, and pays so much attention to her when he's not pre-occupied with things he's curious about, that I can see that he is maintaining a very deep understanding of her. He is a year older than the other child, but I noticed this behavior a year ago as well (not to say these things can't change later).

Imo the first child doesn't identify with his mother at all though (per Wittmont's post)... her feelings don't seem to change his feelings (his feelings seem independent of anyone else's as far as I can tell)... he seems to think more than he seems to feel in general. The second child though... I could easily see him getting caught up in identification with the feelings of others. The world of everyone's feelings seems to be his world, so much so that maybe it would be more difficult to separate himself from it. I could imagine him losing his identity in it and being easily affected by it automatically. I could imagine him allowing it to control how he feels inside because he is so sensitive to it.

I guess this is just more about what do we mean by "empathy", as Mimosa has been saying. The reason I think the first child is more empathetic is because he seems to actually feel deep down what his mother is "going through"... it seems to register deep inside him... where as with the second child it's more this sort of surface level transient thing... but because of the generally playful nature of the second child I can't tell what he feels deeply inside (yet), and I think that will become more apparent as he gets older. (eta: I don't see either of them very often, and I don't *know* either of them deeply, so these are very simple observations.)

I said all this to try to illustrate some of my thinking. I had typed a few arguments but I deleted them because I just didn't think it was working.

[Ezra]

FTR, I have very little empathy. One of my best friends who is Beta extrovert has very little empathy. Many of the guys I know in OTC have very little empathy (they are probably primarily Beta and Alpha, although I know a few who are probably Gamma SFs and they react badly to some of the unempathic things I say/do).

On the other hand, my mother and her fiancée have a lot of empathy. I think they are both Delta.

Simplistic, typical SLE deduction: Fi = empathy, Fe = no empathy.

[calenwen]

Ah.. Then I get you.

But that is of course not my intention with this thread, you misunderstood me. Empathy is - as defined in this thread - the ability to "feel what other's feel". Of course ALL types DO and try to do this. But I would not be surprised if ethical types do this a lot more directly - and faster - than logical types, thought their Fe (valued or unvalued), while the logical types need more experience to manage on the same level. I can use my own kids as examples. My IEI daughter is amazing at knowing what other people feel, while my SLE son seems blind to it. But my son is just as sympathetic as my daughter. If I TELL him I'm sad, he'll comfort me. He just doesn't notice himself, and if I smile, he thinks I'm happy, etc... He is younger than my daughter, so it's not totally fair to compare them, but I think there is a difference. Of course my kid's behavior doesn't mean this is a general rule, but I am not afraid of asking the question, nor of making hypothesis. I'd feel bad about concluding, though, since I can't know this. But I DO get a feel for the real answer through all of your answers.

I think the general human trait you talk about is the WISH to understand others, and then I agree with you. Empathy - to feel what others feel - seem to be an ethical more than a logical field. I still can't see that this is wrong?

And IQ tests are testing Ti an Ni, so of course some types will have a higher average than other types. Is it bad to ask the question "is intelligence related to type? or gender?" NO - cause it will only broaden your mind when you find the real answer to that question. I wouldn't be surprised if the truth lies in intelligence being type related because of the way the tests are made. But how can anyone know unless they have a debate about it? Statistics are not very useful, since they'll only confirm the stereotypes. So what about empathy? Is it type related? I don't know. That's a good reason for a debate. Allies quotes showed that semantics is a big thing in this, and that's a very good point. It wouldn't been out here had it not been for the thread. Neither would BGs answer that you like.

You're sweet. I was just in a weird mood earlier. I think I'm overly sensitive to the idea of things being type-related. Maybe it bothers me to think that almost everything could be attributed to type if someone tried? I'm not sure and it's not important.
It does make sense that ethical types would pick up on peoples' moods better than logical types.
I don't believe that IQ tests = intelligence, but I see your point nonetheless.

It doesn't bother me when people discuss anything, but it would bother me if there was a stereotype/description/consensus coming from this. So in a way we agree, I think. (I just think we might be discussing for different reasons?) IMO, Socionics pretends to be able to explain way too much of how humans function, when in fact the personality type only relates to our conscious egos. What goes on underneath is a mix of personal and colletive mechanisms, and they are not (only) type related.

Also, as Loki says, I have probably discussed Fe just as much as empathy in this thread. But I've learned loads, so I don't mind.

Yeah, I don't mind when people discuss whatever either, but sometimes I think people make things too personal and then it's just ... weird. But that's my problem, not anyone else's.
And I very much agree with the part that I bolded.