Why Show Sympathy ?

[N/A]

So I was wondering why people show sympathy , what drives them to do it . Is there a trigger ? And how does it classify ?

For example do you sympathize with people you can relate to or share something in common with more or is it the reason you're sympathizing with them in the first place ?

Are people naturally sympathetic or is it something we're conditioned to do ? In my personal experience from people I've known , the ones who had a difficult life growing up were split to "I feel you bro" and "I've had worse you bum" camps . And the ones who were well off and came from wealth were more more prone to sympathy yet also much more self absorbed .

Thoughts , Experiences ,Stories , criticism ;all the above ... All welcome.

[kairparavel]

Do you mean sympathy or empathy?

[N/A]

Do you mean sympathy or empathy?

Both I suppose .

Eta: don't they usually go Hand in hand ? I mean when you try to mean it negatively you'd say "pity" no?

And Jesse , that's a slippery slope , chicken or egg type of thing ,no ?

[ElizabethB.]

So I was wondering why people show sympathy , what drives them to do it . Is there a trigger ? And how does it classify ?

For example do you sympathize with people you can relate to or share something in common with more or is it the reason you're sympathizing with them in the first place ?

Are people naturally sympathetic or is it something we're conditioned to do ? In my personal experience from people I've known , the ones who had a difficult life growing up were split to "I feel you bro" and "I've had worse you bum" camps . And the ones who were well off and came from wealth were more more prone to sympathy yet also much more self absorbed .

Thoughts , Experiences ,Stories , criticism ;all the above ... All welcome.

when do you show sympathy?

[N/A]

when do you show sympathy?

Clever . This is actually the question I asked myself and couldn't give a clear answer , hence me starting this thread .

I found I range all the way from "I hate everyone and everything" to somehow showing sympathy to someone I don't know and having nothing in common with . It was curious for me . I also found that people who have sympathized with me personally were people who were naturally sympathetic .

[Red Wedding Cake]

I've had friends who feel sympathy/empathy are useless emotions. I think they're important to communication and functioning within a society. Sometimes they're even motivators.

[Bronn Stone]

GRRM already answered this in AGoT. Because to not do so is to be Joffrey.

Tyrion turned to his nephew.
“Joffrey, it is past time you called on Lord Eddard and his lady, to offer them
your comfort.”
Joffrey looked as petulant as only a boy prince can look. “What good will my
comfort do them?”
“None,” Tyrion said. “Yet it is expected of you. Your absence has been
noted.”
“The Stark boy is nothing to me,” Joffrey said. “I cannot abide the wailing
of women.”
Tyrion Lannister reached up and slapped his nephew hard across the face.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

RWC,

I've had friends who feel sympathy/empathy are useless emotions. I think they're important to communication and functioning within a society. Sometimes they're even motivators.

Absolutely. I feel terribly for people who lack empathy/sympathy. How much more difficult is it to interact with other without the ability to put yourself in their shoes?

[Disturber of Peace]

The capability to sympathize/empathize developed by accident and slowly, as any other trait did.

Those creatures who were capable of bits of empathy, if they tapped into that capability, were more likely to advance within the social structure of their groups and therefore more likely to pass on their genes.

As the genes for the capability to recognize and act based on the emotions and behaviour of others spread, that group reaped benefits due to developing altruism and.

Thats it. I guess.

[Trebla]

GRRM already answered this in AGoT. Because to not do so is to be Joffrey.

Tyrion turned to his nephew.

“Joffrey, it is past time you called on Lord Eddard and his lady, to offer them

your comfort.”

Joffrey looked as petulant as only a boy prince can look. “What good will my

comfort do them?”

“None,” Tyrion said. “Yet it is expected of you. Your absence has been

noted.”

“The Stark boy is nothing to me,” Joffrey said. “I cannot abide the wailing

of women.”

Tyrion Lannister reached up and slapped his nephew hard across the face.

I really wish we still had the Like button!

[Weeping Sore]

Any sociopath knows that showing sympathy or a convincing similacrum of empathy is essential to manipulating the target.

[N/A]

Well I wouldn't say the lack of caring is equating to the lacks of Joffrey . I mean we have materialists in this world and a lot of them . It's part of capitalism so to speak . Not caring is not the same as enjoying suffering . You can simply be indifferent .

Btw I have no agenda with this , my personal opinion is that caring is a wonderful and powerful thing and I'd like to understand it better . Because I have personally had the feeling of genuinely caring for someone and not knowing why .

[Theda Baratheon]

I feel sympathy for those who don't feel empathy. It doesn't make you a bad person to not empathise with others or anything, I just find it's good to be able to, especially with friends.

[armidil0]

All the sympathy and empathy couldn't make someone care.

[Castel]

RWC,

Absolutely. I feel terribly for people who lack empathy/sympathy. How much more difficult is it to interact with other without the ability to put yourself in their shoes?

Well, they're not the same thing? You don't need sympathy, you don't even need perfect empathy to get people, you just need a sort of cold, cognitive empathy.

[Eyron]

Feeling a lot of empathy is good for connecting with people, but it's also pretty unhelpful at times. The world is pretty shitty, and sometimes it gets too much.

I don't know any of this, but I'm thinking that as a trait, we would benefit if we were empathetic since our children are extremely unfit for the world when they are born. For them to survive we had to quickly be able to understand their needs, via facial expressions and sounds etc. They need body heat, so we have to be motivated to hold them and tend to them at all times. We also needed a social structure that was aimed at making sure these incapable little humans to survive for a couple of years when they couldn't survive on their own. Like with day people/night people, I think the human race has needed both very empathetic individuals and individuals who weren't.

Personally, I'm not sure why I start caring about individuals. I have to like them and they have to have some interesting quality that triggers it, that's the starting point. After that it's a case for case study, that I haven't done.

[N/A]

Well, for people saying it's not "needed" per say , may I try to contrast it with courtesy for example to not say they're related but compare having to lack of .

For example you might dislike your neighbor but wouldn't it traditionally require having a certain level of courtesy when dealing with them ? Or in politics when leaders and representatives who we know are on bad grounds to one another deal with courtesy . It's a smooth facade but can we truly let go of it ? Of course we can't and shouldn't , it isn't really "needed" per say but it's part of our lives as civilized people . Aren't sympathy or empathy there on the same level where we can make the argument that we don't need them but could never let go of them in reality ... Because , well I asked the question ;)

[ab aeterno]

I would suspect that our empathy, as with most other parts of our societies such as collaboration, administrative hierarchies and the belief in a higher power(s), developed because they are all beneficial to our survival as a species. Collaboration made us more effective hunters and warriors, and also enabled us to prosper by pooling resources for the benefit of the community, reducing the marginal cost of each human. Administrative hierarchies make the collaboration more effective and also help to enforce social taboos, for example, incest, that would lead to a weakening of the community. The belief in a higher power helps sew all of these together by creating common bonds within a society, legitimising the hierarchy, and giving added weight to social prohibitions.

All of these also contribute to a sense of structure that humans generally desire in their societies. Empathy has a similar role to belief in a higher power - if we are to work together we need to be able to approximate understanding one another, and to be able to place a sense of value on the lives of others - it helps create trust. Empathy plays an important part in administrative hierarchy because a leader needs to be able to understand people in order to maintain power - whether through benevolent or malevolent means. If you look at almost every belief system in the world, they almost all have some form of principle along the lines of "treat others as you wish to be treated;" they seek to reinforce empathy and societal bonds.

As Eyron says, there is also likely a strong role of empathy in ensuring that parents protect their young, and that, by extension, the society protects the young in general, as they are essential to the future of society, and of survival. This factors in to studies that have shown that people show protective instincts towards babies even when they have no relation to them.

It's also worth noting that, observationally, empathy is designed to ensure "our" survival. That is, it is designed to hold "our" society together against "theirs," when "they" could be a threat. This would go some way to explaining the development of what we would consider negative aspects of society, such as racism, as our empathy is geared to be stronger towards those who we see as being part of "our" group. Of course, there are many other aspects to the development of racism and society in general, but most of them can be observed to serve similar functions with regards to ensuring prosperity, in its most basic sense.

[Eyron]

I think we need empathy because it's a faster route than being simply rational in social settings. For organizing, mobilizing etc. it's a better approach to appeal to empathy (hey, politics) than to just get the involved to rationally understand.

Hey Ab! Yes, as in hunting and war as well.

[ztemhead]

So I was wondering why people show sympathy , what drives them to do it . Is there a trigger ? And how does it classify ?

For example do you sympathize with people you can relate to or share something in common with more or is it the reason you're sympathizing with them in the first place ?

Are people naturally sympathetic or is it something we're conditioned to do ? In my personal experience from people I've known , the ones who had a difficult life growing up were split to "I feel you bro" and "I've had worse you bum" camps . And the ones who were well off and came from wealth were more more prone to sympathy yet also much more self absorbed .

Thoughts , Experiences ,Stories , criticism ;all the above ... All welcome.

From a purely self interested basis, it is very challenging to convince anyone of anything unless you can show at least a little empathy; i.e., ability to identify with another person's wants.

This can come in handy when you are interviewing for a job, negotiating price buying a car, talking to your significant other about anything, or interacting with anyone, ever.

It's something I struggle with, appealing to the emotional rather than getting frustrated when people fail to immediately agree with the rational.