The Importance Of Sympathy
In the dictionary sympathy is defined as the identification with, or the experiencing of, another person’s feelings, thoughts or attitudes. Put another way, sympathy is like having an invisible link with someone, which allows you to feel what they are feeling and experience what they are experiencing.
In this article we are going to be looking at why this is important, and how the level of sympathy you feel towards someone can have both a positive and negative influence on your behavior.
So to begin, let’s start by examining some of the benefits that sympathy has on us as individuals and society as a whole.
Benefits Of Sympathy
When we feel sympathy and emotionally resonate (feel the same way) with another person, we become motivated to help them. Sympathy therefore has a very beneficial effect on society, as it enables us to get along together whilst motivating us to help those who are less fortunate than ourselves.
In fact, this desire to help other people may actually be built into our DNA, as if we look at society as a whole, the only way it can survive is through its people working together and helping each other.
If we did not experience sympathy and were not motivated to help each other, we would live in a “free for all world” where everyone would have to fend for themselves and where the strong would prey on the weak.
So even though at times you may think that you receive no direct benefit from displaying sympathy towards another person, the indirect benefit that you receive is a relatively stable and peaceful society to live in.
Levels Of Sympathetic Feelings
Although sympathy seems to be a natural human reaction, we tend to feel more sympathy towards the people we care about the most, and less sympathy towards the people we care about the least.
For example, if we look at the relationship between a mother and her child, we can see that there exists a very strong bond between the two. Should one member of this relationship experience pain or distress, the other is likely to also experience that pain or distress.
Once they experience this shared pain, they then become motivated to help the other person so that they can end that pain, and by doing so, end their own pain.
This example shows just how powerful sympathy can be in generating emotional resonance, as it can cause us to not only feel the emotional pain, but also the physical pain of people who we are close to.
Effects On Relationships
If we now look at relationships where no bond exists between two individuals (such as between two strangers), we can see just how dangerous of an effect lacking sympathy can have on human behavior.
For example, if you hate another person or through social conditioning are made to hate a certain group of people, your lack of sympathy towards them can cause you to do the most terrible things.
One such example can be found during World War 2, where a lack of sympathy, combined with a socially conditioned hatred, lead to the persecution and murder of millions of innocent Jews.
In today’s society we see something similar, only this time, it’s terrorists whose lack of sympathy towards people who do not agree with their beliefs allows them to kill innocent people throughout the world.
Love & Caring
The level of sympathy you feel is generally determined by the level of love and caring you have for another person.
For example, you are more likely to empathise with your own child than you are with someone else’s child. You are more likely to emphasize with a close friend than a complete stranger, and you are more likely to emphasize with your neighbor than with someone who lives in a different city or country.
So as a general rule, just remember that the more you care about a person the more likely you are to feel sympathy towards them and the more likely you are to help them out in times of need.
Similarity
Another factor which determines the level of sympathy that we feel is how similar another person is to us. The more we have in common with another person, whether it be their physical appearance, religious beliefs or nationality, the more likely we are to associate and empathize with them.
This natural tendency to emphasize with similar people seems to be hardwired into our DNA, as it allows us to form groups with similar people for safety and avoid dissimilar people who could potentially cause us harm.
Throughout history this sympathy from similarity has naturally lead to both wars and peace, as communities were pulled together or pulled apart depending on how similar they were to each other. In today’s modern world, things haven’t changed that much, as we see still wars occurring between dissimilar groups of people.
On a more localized scale, a lack of sympathy between dissimilar people can be found with different racial groups. For example, whites and blacks, whites and Asians or variations of all of these. A lack of sympathy is also very evident between supporters of different sports teams. Soccer violence is a very obvious example of this.
As these examples show, sympathy can have both positive and negative consequences on society. It can bring groups of similar people together for safety, but at the same time, put them in danger as they fight against groups of dissimilar people.
It certainly is ironic that the very thing which has allowed humans to survive for so long, is also the very thing which could one day lead to our ultimate destruction.
Fear
Fear and sympathy are closely interrelated, because whenever someone else becomes afraid, we also become afraid, either for our own safety, or for their safety. The fear we experience then motivates us to help them out in some way, so that they can avoid or prepare for the danger they face.
For example, if a boy gets bullied at school and then tells his older brother what’s happening to him, the sympathy generated by that fear will motivate the older brother to take action against the bully to protect his younger brother.
In exactly the same way sympathy can enable nations to bond together against a common enemy, so that an attack against one nation becomes an attack against all those nations. This is how World War 2 started.
How To Appropriately Express Sympathy
Sometimes the sympathy that we feel towards others can cause us to overreact, and help people who either don’t need our help, don’t want our help or are perfectly capable of helping themselves.
In cases such as this where we inappropriately respond to our feelings of sympathy, we can actually do more harm than good even though we started out with the best of intentions.
A good example of this can be found with overprotective parents, who, out of love for their child, try to prevent them from experiencing the bad things that happened to them when they were growing up.
Unfortunately, this can lead to the parent sheltering their child from the world or making them fearful of it, which consequently, prevents them from experiencing the very things that would have enabled them to develop into a strong and healthy adult.
Inappropriately responding to sympathy may later cause the child to resent their parent, as they become more and more frustrated from constantly being told how they should or shouldn’t live their life.
Causes Of Inappropriate Sympathy
The reason why a person may inappropriately respond to their feelings of sympathy, is largely due to two reasons.
The first, is that they feel an emotional resonance with a person. They love and care for that person, and so feel the invisible connection to them which we talked about earlier on. The stronger the love for that person is, the more they will be motivated to help them and so the more they will risk inappropriately responding to their feelings of sympathy.
Should this interpersonal emotional resonance become combined with an emotional resonance from the past, the effect will be even greater and so will the risks of an inappropriate response. The reason for this is that when we experience emotional resonance with the past, we can end up seeing a younger version of ourselves in another person.
This can strongly motivate us to help that person by giving them the assistance we never had, or wished we had, when we were their age. In many cases, this can be beneficial, as it motivates the older generation to help and guide the younger generation thereby allowing people to succeed whereas otherwise they may have failed.
Unfortunately because this amalgamation of interpersonal and past emotional resonance results in such a strong motivation of human behavior, it can sometimes cause people to become overprotective or controlling over the very people they care about and are trying to help.
Identifying & Expressing Sympathy
Use the following guidelines to help you identify sympathy and respond appropriately to it.
1) Identify
When you feel sympathy you feel connected to another person in some way, like there is a bond between you.
2) Remember The Meaning
Sympathy tells you that something good or bad is happening to a person whom you care about. If it is something bad, you should take action to protect them or end their pain.
3) Determine Why You Are Feeling This Way
Sympathy can be generated by interpersonal emotional resonance, which occurs when you feel someone else’s pain. Or, emotional resonance with your past, where you feel connected to someone because something similar happened to you in the past.
Sympathy can also be generated as a result of both of these in combination.
4) Respond Appropriately
The first step to take in responding to sympathy is to determine whether your perception of the situation is correct. Ask yourself whether you really should take action on behalf of another person? If you decide it is appropriate for you to do so, then create a plan of action to help them.
Doing this step first is very important, because sometimes our desire to act is driven by emotional resonance with our past and the other person does not actually need our help.
Note : The feeling of wanting to help another person can sometimes be your body’s way of telling you that you need to help yourself by overcoming an unresolved issue from your past, or fulfilling a currently unfulfilled need.
Do They Really Need Your Help?
The next step is to question whether your perception of the other person’s pain is actually correct? Are they really in as much pain as you thought? Do they really need your assistance? Sometimes people may appear to be suffering when in fact they are not, and so helping them would be unnecessary.
Taking this step can help you from becoming overprotective over someone, and having them later resent you for providing them with assistance which they did not need or want.
Provide Help If It Is Appropriate To Do So
If after all this you decide that the person is in real danger, or suffering from real pain, then respond appropriately to your feelings of sympathy by taking action to help them.
Summary
Sympathy can be a very beneficial feeling as it allows society to work together for a common good. However, sympathy tends to be restricted to people who are similar to ourselves, which can result in a lack of sympathy towards dissimilar people.
When we lack sympathy towards others, there is a very real chance that we may experience conflict with them in some way. Often, this conflict occurs as violence. In addition to this, conflict may also occur when we inappropriately express sympathy, such as by helping someone when they don’t need or want our help.
