Too much compassion is not good

the Ability to empathize with others is both important and difficult. As pack animals we need to find a solution that is beneficial to more than a few dominant individuals, at the same time as we make sure to cover our own needs.

Columnist Aris Theophilakis

is the co-founder and entrepreneur born and raised in Oslo. He has designutdannelse, an MBA as well as a provider of continuing education units from Stanford and MIT. Aris writes about marketing, innovation and management.

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Studies show that the very rich (and very powerful) people are more blunted empathic, because they are, a bit simplified said, feel that they "don't need" other people in the same way. People outside of their ecosystem is largely irrelevant, while those who are in this ecosystem certainly are useful idiots.

Scientists at Imperial College in London did a study where they gave a group of marketers, both new graduates and experienced, the task of demonstrating empathy with the people who were not like them.

It should be a straightforward task for people who are professionally concerned to understand other people's needs. But the deeper these groups went into the task, the more they ended up thinking of himself. The more empathetic they were asked to be, the more selfish they became.

We are struggling with to tear ourselves away from our own needs, often these needs a framework for how all other needs can be understood. But it does not mean that we are not empathetic or don't understand other people, just that it is complex and not always intuitive. Ford in the united STATES created what they called "empatimagen", a kind of digital bladder that simulated a pregnancy with all it meant of the physical strain.

Ford also made a aldringsdress, which meant that one was moving slower, so less and had more pain – everything together to put the employees into customers ' challenges, when they should choose and use the car. Ford and their employees say that they gained new insight through to live in someone else's life, and there is no reason to doubt it.

for example tried to do your daily chores with the blindfold? This experience makes it is possible for you to understand and empathize with those who are blind or have low vision and think that "surely they must be good to get to this".

But the experience of messing around in the blind can in fact also do you think that blind is less capable people because YOU are not fix to do things in the blind, and that when simple things become difficult so is complicated to-do list completely impossible to fix.

But the blind, who has the training, tackles the much of this just fine. So empathy can land at two different places.

There are studies that show that the closed empathy, it will say that you demonstrate a lot of empathy with anyone in a given group, for example colleagues in an environment, making sure you can end up with a lot less compassion for the similar colleagues in a different environment.

the Theory is that we have a bank account with empathy, and when it is empty so there are no more to take off.

You could believe that some people were more empathetic than the others, and that these had compassion for the people. But so simple, it is certainly not. To exercise empathy is easy when we naturally identify ourselves with the other person. The more we have in common, the easier it becomes.

But missing something of this is empathy a heavier job that must be processed through thoughts and feelings. And then it is limited what we are able to produce of compassion before we get tired or run out. Is it any wonder?

No. At one end of the scale we find the avstumpede who apparently do not care about other people before de is on his deathbed and undo everything, while we in the other end they find that is self-negating anxious to please other people until they themselves pass away of exhaustion.

Empathy is a balancing act between their own and others ' needs, and the more you believe you can manage yourself, the less empathy you are willing to share out, the gjerrigere are you on the compassion, even if you really have your account full.

my Father, who experienced both occupation and civil war, said that solidarity was something that was in distress, but that evaporated as soon as egeninteressen got a little room. Humanity depends on that we can balansengangen.

- Therefore, less empathy good for the world " Plus