#empathy gap

When “Humanity” Goes Offline When empathy is replaced by analytical literalism, the social contract goes offline. This essay explores “Weaponized Literalism” and “Digital Gaslighting,” documenting how interpersonal apathy and automated filters conspire to erase the reality of terminal illness, ultimately treating the human condition as a policy violation. Explore the crisis of empathy in a…

In an Age of Insults and Division, Human Interest Stories Share Our Humanity In a time of media rants, insults and middle-finger flip-offs, human interest stories can fill a societal empathy gap. As online polarization drives us apart, human interest stories provide space to share our humanity.  For many Americans who barely know their next door neighbors, Steve Hartman’s On the Road series on…

By: Amit Kumar

Published: Feb 17, 2025

So that our knowledge and skills don’t shrivel and decay, psychotherapists like myself have to regularly take continuing education training. I recently took a multi-day training on treating victims of a certain type of abusive relationship, also known as a pathological love relationship or narcissistic abuse. Quickly into the training, I learned that I wasn’t being instructed in how to identify and treat people in these relationships but how to identify and treat women in these relationships. 

A perfunctory disclaimer was given stating that the group’s research was on women as victims and men as the pathological partners but that the dynamic could be reversed as well. There was no curiosity about how often males are victims; the possibility that the male experience as victim could be different than the female experience; or whether a female pathological partner exhibits different behaviors than a male one.  

Although disappointing, this was not surprising. A recent review paper by researchers Maja Graso and Tania Reynolds titled A Feminine Advantage in the Domain of Harm: A Review and Path Forward shows that research consistently finds that compared to males, females evoke greater instincts of empathy, care, and protection. Moreover, it is easier for individuals to typecast females as victims and males as perpetrators. 

The researchers convincingly make their case citing numerous examples. Two studies find that people are more willing to sacrifice a man’s life than a woman’s in ethical dilemmas where they can end a life to save others. When viewing pictures of men and women in pain, greater concern is reported for women. In a study where individuals could gain financially from inflicting pain on others, they harmed male targets more whereas they chose to receive less money to shield women from pain. 

In scenarios of identical mistreatment from a same-gender friend, people felt less sympathy and were more dismissive to men compared to women. Study subjects were more willing to support a drug that provided overall benefits but had side effects for men versus one that had the same benefits and disproportionate side effects for women. 

In discussing research about hiring discrimination, Graso and Reynolds state that “[p]eople more strongly believe women’s under-representation in male-dominated fields (e.g., engineering) reflects societal discrimination and warrants social action compared with men’s under-representation in female-dominated fields (e.g., nursing).” Furthermore, people “overestimate the degree of hiring discrimination against women and underestimate the degree of discrimination against men.”

Graso and Reynolds also discuss sexual harassment, stating that “[e]xperiments reveal people perceive the same actions as more sexist, harassing, and insulting when they are committed by a man than a woman,” and that “people desire harsher punishments and are less willing to forgive a man (versus a woman) who makes a potentially inappropriate comment at the workplace.”  

In both mock juror experiments and in real life courtrooms, males receive harsher treatment even when accounting for the defendants’ criminal record and the nature of the crime (in case you didn’t think there were enough links in that sentence, here is another mock juror study, and three more real world analyses).

Of particular relevance to my training, Graso and Reynolds also note that “male victims of female-perpetrated intimate partner violence are met with ridicule, doubt and minimization, despite evidence suggesting women commit intimate partner violence at similar rates to men.” 

In my training, I was instructed that the perpetrator profile we were studying was that of individuals with narcissistic and antisocial personality disorders because they were the most dangerous. Research shows, however, that it is borderline and antisocial personality disorders that exhibit the most psychological and physical abuse in romantic relationships.

I suspect this discrepancy stems from the female favoring biases discussed in the Graso and Reynolds paper. Narcissistic and antisocial personality disorders are found more in males, who are more easily viewed as perpetrators, and borderline personality disorder is generally considered to occur more often in females, who are more easily viewed as victims. 

This blind spot may inadvertently disadvantage many women in pathological relationships as well because although borderline personality disorder is diagnosed more in females, studies show roughly equal prevalence in males and females. One more place where these biases may appear is that treatment protocols for borderline personality disorder are developed and researched using mostly female patients, and unsurprisingly typical treatments don’t work as well with males.  

I’ve noticed this female advantage in my clinical work, too, like in clinical exercises drawing on Solomon’s Paradox, which refers to the consistent and reliable finding that people reason better about others’ problems compared to their own. 

Solomon’s Paradox is why therapists often ask questions to force the client to view their situation from another perspective—questions like, “What would you say to a friend in the same situation?” “What would you say to yourself if you were your own coach or mentor?” Or controversial psychologist Jordan Peterson’s uncontroversial suggestion to “[t]reat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping.” 

Using this principle, I ask my clients in pathological relationships to imagine what they would think of a loved one in a similar relationship. In the past, I would have them imagine someone of the same gender, assuming similarity of the hypothetical protagonist would be most effective, but it was never as powerful an exercise with men. After learning about these female-favoring biases, I began to ask male clients about their sisters instead of their brothers. Their responses transformed from helpful but tepid support offered to their brothers to righteous paternal love and anger, sometimes through tears, on behalf of their sisters. 

After these thought experiments, some male clients express the same bias plaguing their relationships: As men, they are supposed to persevere through the pain, confessing that they are not worth the same consideration as women, not deserving of the same love and respect as the other half of the species.

Understanding John Green Through the Generations You can estimate a person’s age by how they first encountered John Green. For older millennials, the introduction came in the late 2000s via YouTube, where John and his brother Hank showcased their musical talents through quirky songs about Harry Potter and built a vibrant community known as “Nerdfighters.” In contrast, younger millennials likely…

There are people out there who do not share your fundamental baseline for 'reality.'

Aside from being dreadful to each other, these two facts also kind of create each other. Every time you ask yourself, 'how could other people think what is happening in the world is okay?' you need to understand that somebody who has a completely different idea of what the world is like, or should be like, is thinking the same thing about you.

I'm not saying that all of these perceptions are equal. A bisexual trans teen looking at political bills that remove their human rights, is not equivalent to an US-Evangelical preacher who thinks that same teen is violating the fabric of his reality. A poor person who is just trying to survive and reads about genocide on the other side of the world on their prepaid phone is not equivalent to a lobbyist who thinks of both the poor person and 'war' in abstracts.

But when we talk about 'reactionary politics', we're not just talking about reactionary response to political decisions, but also what is reactionary to 'the reality' the decisions create. A lot of thought pieces or commentary fall flat on this concept with terms like 'economic anxiety,' or summarizing mass reactionary movements with seemingly little cohesion as 'populism' without explaining anything at all. Gawking at seemingly silly conspiracy theories or culture-war items doesn't really do anything unless it illuminates what these represent for the participants 'sense of reality.'

In Abigail Thorn's video essay, A Man Plagiarised My Work: Women, Money, and the Nation, she goes to investigate conservative thought to understand reactionary rejection of feminism and what 'role' reactionary structures expect women to play for 'the nation.' She went to Roger Scruton, author of How to Be a Conservative, for her answers and part of those answers included a description of how conservative roles for women are the backbone of reality for that point of view. That if those roles (implicitly: 'to be providers of free labor') were to change, according to him the floor falls out from underneath all laws and any baseline confidence people have. To me, the excerpts sound like Scruton is terrified of being unplugged from The Matrix.

One of the quotes Abigail pulled even described how Scruton sees 'history' as somehow changeable:

(screenshot credit to Abigail Thorn's video)

What Scruton is talking about here is not actually that history can literally be altered, like we're Marty McFly. He's talking about the perception of reality. Which CAN VARY between people or change over time: including our ability to look back on the past and contextualize it. And Scruton absolutely DOES NOT WANT to enter a reality where the facts of the past are interpreted by brains different from his own, outnumbering his own.

Even if he believes the justification for his desired reality is fundamental, he doesn't believe that reality itself is fundamental. Reality can change and vary, and therefore people MUST be brought back into his own to maintain its stability. He believes those people can connect with him, MUST connect with him, empathise with him, accept his reality. Or else they will never comply with it.

It can be hard to swallow. But not only is someone else out there thinking the game of the world is checkers and that it's a violation of them that you're spending time with mancala... on some level they already accept that actually THEY COULD play mancala too, experience connection with you... and be 'a loser' compared to you, by 'your game', 'your rules.'

"This person doesn't live in the same reality, does not comprehend 'the' order of things," is a required component to "this person is just a little less human"; it's easy to dehumanize each other. And because of the above, it's easy to fear the violence of being dehumanized, if that reality isn't broad enough to support enough people. But even then, a society and reality built on tolerance will experience the paradox of tolerance. So at least one fear reactionaries have is realistic. If their reality doesn't become dominant, they'll experience some form and degree of violence. Probably not as much violence, if they are opposing those who believe in human rights, but they won't know that. They know themselves.

You must accept that:

Full human beings out there will not see things the way you do, may not have the same underlying assumptions you have, really and truly,

AND said thinking, "this person does not comprehend the minimum requirements for civilization," has been part of every oppression in history EVEN IF we reel every day from how public figures can demonize disenfranchised refugees, or how nations could tolerate genocide,

AND that because we have empathy for other full human beings we typically believe that others COULD be brought into our own realities,

+ As someone who battles daily with two incurable degenerative diseases, I wish from the bottom of my heart that Jamie and his family will recover after this difficult moment. Those people who don't respect his health situation need to go to hell.

__________

You're so right nonny!!! I really wish people would be more respectful. Like I know that Jamie Foxx is a very talented actor but I feel like there was more respect given to Bruce Willis and his aphasia you know? I don't know maybe its my perception of it but I really think that white people get more sympathy when sick than people of color. The term for this is the empathy gap and its talked about in this video in a piece of media that everyone knows about.

anyways I really think this happens alot not just fictional media but also news media.

Sending you prayers and good wishes Nonny! I hope you have a good support system. *hugs*