Attorney, blogger and legal ethicist Franco Tarulli has a thoughtful post on The Ethical Lawyer about the results of a recent study I had missed, and now that I know about it, I almost wish I was still missing it. The findings are ominous.
Sara Konrath, of the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research, analyzed the results of 72 different studies of American college students conducted between 1979 and 2009. She delivered her findings at a recent conference. “College kids today are about 40 percent lower in empathy than their counterparts of 20 or 30 years ago, as measured by standard tests of this personality trait,” Konrath concluded.
Her analysis found that today’s students are less likely than college students of the late 1970s to agree with statements such as “I sometimes try to understand my friends better by imagining how things look from their perspective” and “I often have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me.” In a separate analysis, Konrath found that representative samples of Americans also show a reduction in people’s kindness and helpfulness over a similar time period.
If America is turning into a society without empathy, it suggests three important and related questions:
- Why is this happening?
- What does it mean, and
- Can this trend be reversed?
Tarullo suggests that a decline in empathy will have a deleterious impact in professions such as law, which depend on trust. He writes,
“I have said in the past that ethics is about the members of a profession acting in ways that suggest the member is trustworthy. That goes beyond reading a code of professional responsibility, and trying not to break any of the rules. It depends on understanding the reasons for the rules, and making judgment calls concerning right conduct when presented with a particular set of circumstances. If a professional can’t understand the ways in which others might consider his behavior less than trustworthy, the professional is more likely to succumb to unethical behavior.”
And it is more than just professional conduct at stake. Democracy, more than any form of government, depends on mutual trust—trust in neighbors, trust in leaders, trust in institutions, trust in government. Empathy—the ability to identify with the needs and feelings of other human beings—is essential to caring about communities, society, and the human beings beside ourselves who live in them, and in turn bolsters trust that others care about us. The link between empathy and trust is not obvious, but Tarulli is spot on: in the absence of mutual empathy, everyone becomes a stranger, and no one can or should be trusted.
The debate over why America is losing empathy will predictably fracture along ideological lines. Liberals will blame the heartlessness of capitalism and conservatism that they believe minimizes empathy-based values like sympathy, charity, and kindness, Conservatives will counter that empathy has eroded as the Left has championed individual license to excess and the disadvantage of society generally, resulting in the decline of empathy-based conduct like politeness, civility, decorum, respect for traditions, and sacrifice. Certainly the decline of religion in American life is a factor; the Golden Rule is ultimately a rule of empathy, after all. American society’s growing obsession with material goods and personal fame are also likely factors.
Agreeing on why we are becoming less empathetic, however, is less important than committing ourselves to reversing the trend. We aren’t going to find a solution in a single blog post or fifty, but one thing is clear immediately: a large part of the solution is holding ourselves, our friends and associates, our institutions, our leaders and our culture to ever higher standards of ethical conduct.
Nothing is stopping us from doing that right away.
Ethics Alarms 
I have to add that another factor in the gradual decline in empathy is the increasingly litigious society. Many people refuse to engage with others, even to do charitable work, because of the fear of being sued over something they do. Even if the case it without merit, it’s still expensive to defend oneself.
An example I recently heard of: At Universal Studios in Orlando, one of the hotel employees told us about how much excess food gets thrown away on a regular basis. At one time, U.S. donated the food to shelters and other charities, until there was an incident where someone got sick and tried to sue Universal. According to the employee, there was no evidence and a very flimsy case and the case was dismissed. But the predictable result: U.S. just throws all the food away now.
You’ve written about a number of other examples here (the Miami doctor and the artichoke, and the judge and his lost pants come immediately to mind).
The overall attitude that prevails in America today is that the courts are a place where one can “win the lottery”. And it demonstrably fails the “What if everyone does it?” test.
–Dwayne
OH! I forgot to add:
If you want to kill off empathy in America *really* efficiently, keep using the “the defendant apologized/expressed regret/offered to assist/administered first aid, therefore he/she admits to being at fault” argument.
–Dwayne
P.S. Okay, I know there are laws most places covering that last one, but you get my point….
I’d add that another likely culprit is the internet. Adults like us, who grew up in the pre-cybernetic age, learned social intercourse on a personal basis. Thus, while appreciating the internet as a valuable tool, we’re not dependent on it. Nor have we become depersonalized. It’s been my observation that far too many children are now learning their social skills online to the exclusion of personal interaction. That’s no substitute at all. When people are reduced to words on a screen or an occasional image, they lose their human identity. There can be no sense of empathy under such conditions.
I see an interesting theory, one that I’m somewhat partial to, but there’s no causal evidence. You can’t say it’s likely the internet’s fault. You can’t even say that online interaction causes a loss of human identity. You can theorize, but that’s it.
How have you observed “far too many children… now learning their social skills online to the exclusion of personal interaction”? I have no idea how I’d even go about looking into that.
Yeah, I’m not sure how or if the internet figures in this, except to the extent that it is easier to treat an abstract name on a screen with less respect than you would a real person, face to face, and that this can lead to bad habits.
Hmm… Score 1 for the Internet:
http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/social.media/01/18/internet.groups/index.html?hpt=Sbin
Conservatives will counter that empathy has eroded as the Left has championed individual license to excess and the disadvantage of society generally, resulting in the decline of empathy-based conduct like politeness, civility, decorum, respect for traditions, and sacrifice.
Did I read that wrong, or did you claim that the right would attack liberals for being libertarians?
You read it right. I think liberals think conservatives are libertarians and conservative think liberals are libertarians.
Libertarianism: to be hated and courted by all political parties.
I think that could be a bumper sticker.
Excellent! And absolutely true, unlike most bumper stickers.
Personally, TGT, I would agree with that statement you posted. No doubt, to your vast unsurprise!
I think habits do influence our interactions with others, and if we are limited in those interactions, say, behind the wheel of a vehicle or whipping off responses to blogs or news articles, then I think it is possible a certain attitude can develop that does diminish one’s regard or empathy for others. I don’t know that I could argue the internet is exclusively at fault for this, but rather, it is part of an array of interactions “once-removed” from face-to-face encounter.
To the definition of libertarianism, are we speaking theory or in practice?
Libertarianism only exists in theory. In practice, it is impossible.
Indeed.
My I suggest a further resources to learn more about empathy and compassion.
The Center for Building a Culture of Empathy
The Culture of Empathy website is the largest internet portal for resources and information about the values of empathy and compassion. It contains articles, conferences, definitions, experts, history, interviews, videos, science and much more about empathy and compassion.
http://CultureOfEmpathy.com
Let’s Find 1 Million People Who Want to Build a Culture of Empathy and Compassion
http://Causes.com/Empathy
I’ll put a link up, Edwin. Thanks.