Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Empathy, Group Identity, and the Mechanisms of Exclusion: An Investigation into the Limits of Empathy

  • Published:
Topoi Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

There is a conspicuous tendency of humans to experience empathy and sympathy preferentially towards members of their own group, whereas empathetic feelings towards outgroup members or strangers are often reduced or even missing. This may culminate in a “dissociation of empathy”: a historical example are the cases of Nazi perpetrators who behaved as compassionate family men on the one hand, yet committed crimes of utter cruelty against Jews on the other. The paper aims at explaining such phenomena and at determining the limits of empathy. To this purpose, it first distinguishes between two levels of empathy, namely primary or intercorporeal and extended or higher-level empathy. It then investigates the mutual interconnection of empathy and recognition, which may be regarded as a principle of extending empathy to others regardless of whether they belong to one’s own group or not. However, this principle is in conflict with ingroup conformism and outgroup biases that hamper the universal extension of empathy. Thus, a denial of recognition and exclusion of others from one’s ingroup usually results in a withdrawal or lack of extended empathy which then influences primary empathy as well. On this basis, and using the historical example of mass executions during the Holocaust, the paper investigates the mechanisms of exclusion which may lead to a withdrawal of recognition and finally to a dissociation of empathy.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. This is now often simply called “cognitive empathy”, particularly in cognitive neuroscience (for example Smith 2010; Shamay-Tsoory et al. 2009). However, since the very term empathy implies an affective (not necessarily positive) attitude towards the other, the notion of “cognitive empathy’’, rather seems an oxymoron. The cognitive processes involved rather serve to differentiate and usually to intensify one’s empathetic feelings. This is not to deny that for example psychopaths may use merely cognitive means of imagining others’ feelings and thus all the more effectively manipulate them. However, if there is really no affective experience involved whatsoever, it would be more adequate to speak of “quasi-empathy” in this case.

  2. On a third form of “reiterated empathy” (Stein 1989), that means, feeling the other’s empathetic feelings towards oneself, see Fuchs 2017a.

  3. A neurally based resonance system (“mirror neurons”) contributes to this intercorporeal resonance at the roots of empathy (Gallese 2002; Bråten 2007). To take only one example: seeing someone else being painfully hurt activates one’s own neural pain matrix in the cingulate cortex (Hutchison et al. 1999), as if one would feel the pain in one’s own body. It should be noted, however, that primary empathy, as being based on a “dialogical” process, has to be distinguished from emotional contagion, in which a similar emotion is induced in oneself without being aware that it is caused by the other (e.g. babies start crying when they hear other babies cry, to give a well-known example).

  4. A similar critique of Honneth’s overstretching the concept of recognition has been put forward by Butler (2008), Geuss (2008) and Varga and Gallagher (2012). The latter propose to use the term “affective proximity” instead, which characterizes primary intersubjectivity in a similar way as my notion of primary empathy.

  5. This normative concept of recognition is also supported by Brandom: “To recognize someone is to take her to be the subject of normative statuses, that is, of commitments and entitlements, as capable of undertaking responsibilities and exercising authority” (Brandom 2007, p. 136). One may argue that this does not apply to Cavell’s notion of acknowledgement which is not necessarily related to a Hegelian background. This cannot be discussed here in more detail; however, I am inclined to demand higher-level intersubjectivity as a presupposition for acknowledgment as well.

  6. Interestingly, Kant also emphasizes the decentering that is implied in the important notion of respect: “Respect is properly the conception of a worth which thwarts my self-love. (…) The object of respect is the law only, that is, the law which we impose on ourselves, and yet recognize as necessary in itself. (…) Respect for a person is properly only respect for the law (of honesty, etc.) of which he gives us an example” (Kant 1873, p. 18). One might not share Kant’s emphasis on an abstract principle of law in this context; nevertheless it becomes clear that feelings belonging to recognition such as respect presuppose a higher-level standpoint, from which the “general other” (Mead) comes into view.

  7. “Under the effect of reifying stereotypes (of women, Jews, etc.), groups of individuals are retroactively deprived of the personal characteristics that have been accorded to them habitually and without question on the basis of antecedent recognition” (Honneth 2008, p. 81; emphasis added).

  8. Of course, this is not to deny that groups of individuals may also be “retroactively deprived” of recognition and empathy, as Honneth argues (and I will investigate these processes in what follows). I am rather defending the more skeptical view that universal recognition and empathy are from the outset the exception rather than the rule.

  9. One can empathically understand another’s anger or shame without feeling angry or ashamed oneself.

  10. See Calloway-Thomas (2010) for an extensive study on the intercultural dimension of empathy.

  11. Thus, studies have found that dispositional disgust-proneness of individuals is associated with dehumanizing tendencies (Hodson and Costello 2007). Moreover, when test subjects were shown pictures of disgust-inducing groups (like homeless or drug addicts), their fMRI scans lacked activation of the medial prefrontal cortex, a brain region that is otherwise involved in social cognition and cognitive empathy (Harris and Fiske 2006). In other words, the presented groups were perceived as more object-like.

References

  • Azevedo RT, Macaluso E, Avenanti A, Santangelo V, Cazzato V, Aglioti SM (2013) Their pain is not our pain: brain and autonomic correlates of empathic resonance with the pain of same and different race individuals. Hum Bain Mapp 34:3168–3181

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brandom R (2007) The structure of desire and recognition. Self-consciousness and self-constitution. Philos Soc Crit 33:127–150

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bråten S (ed) (2007) On being moved: From mirror neurons to empathy. John Benjamins, Amsterdam

    Google Scholar 

  • Browning CR (2001) Ordinary men: reserve police battalion 101 and the final solution in Poland. First published 1993. Penguin, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Butler J (2008) Taking another’s view: ambivalent implications. In: Honneth A (ed) Reification: a new look at an old idea. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 97–119

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Calloway-Thomas C (2010) Empathy in the global world: An intercultural perspective. Sage, Los Angelos

    Google Scholar 

  • Cavell S (1969) Knowing and acknowledging. In: Must we mean what we say? Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 238–266

    Google Scholar 

  • Corriveau KH, Harris PL (2010) Preschoolers (sometimes) defer to the majority in making simple perceptual judgments. Dev Psychol 46:437–445

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Decety J (2005) Perspective taking as the royal avenue to empathy. In: Malle BF, Hodges SD (eds) Other minds: how humans bridge the divide between self and others. Guilford, New York, pp 143–157

    Google Scholar 

  • Dunham Y, Baron AS, Banaji MR (2008) The development of implicit intergroup cognition. Trends Cogn Sci 12:248–253

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Field TM, Woodson R, Greenberg R, Cohen D (1982) Discrimination and imitation of facial expressions by neonates. Science 218:179–181

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fuchs T (2013) The phenomenology and development of social perspectives. Phenomenol Cognit Sci 12:655–683

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fuchs T (2014) The virtual other. Empathy in the age of virtuality. J Consciousness Stud 21:152–173

    Google Scholar 

  • Fuchs T (2017a) Levels of empathy – primary, extended, and reiterated empathy. In: Lux V, Weigel S (eds) Empathy. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke

    Google Scholar 

  • Fuchs T (2017b) Intercorporeality and interaffectivity. In: Meyer C, Streeck J, Jordan S (eds) Intercorporeality: emerging socialities in interaction. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Fuchs T, De Jaegher, H (2009) Enactive intersubjectivity: participatory sense-making and mutual incorporation. Phenomenol Cognit Sci 8:465–486

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gaertner SL, Dovidio JF, Johnson G (1982) Race of victim, nonresponsive bystanders, and helping behavior. J Soc Psychol 117:69–77

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gallagher S, Hutto D (2008) Understanding others through primary interaction and narrative practice. In: Zlatev J, Racine TP, Sinha C, Itkonen E. (eds) The shared mind: perspectives on intersubjectivity. John Benjamins, Amsterdam, pp 17–38

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Gallese V (2002) The roots of empathy: the shared manifold hypothesis and the neural basis of intersubjectivity. Psychopathology 36:171–180

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Geuss R (2008) Philosophical anthropology and social criticism. In: Honneth A (ed) Reification: a new look at an old idea. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 120–130

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Gutsell JN, Inzlicht M (2012) Intergroup differences in the sharing of emotive states: neural evidence of an empathy gap. Soc Cognit Affect Neurosci 7:596–603

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Haney C, Banks WC, Zimbardo PG (1973) A study of prisoners and guards in a simulated prison. Nav Res Rev 9:1–17

    Google Scholar 

  • Harris LT, Fiske ST (2006) Dehumanizing the lowest of the low. Neuroimaging responses to extreme out-groups. Psychol Sci 17:847–853

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Haslam N (2006) Dehumanization: an integrative review. Pers Soc Psychol Rev 10:252–264

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Haslam N, Loughnan S (2014) Dehumanization and infrahumanization. Annu Rev Psychol 65:399–423

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Haun D, Tomasello M (2011) Conformity to peer pressure in preschool children. Child Dev 82:1759–1767

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hegel GWF (1807/1967) The phenomenology of mind. Harper & Row, New York

  • Hobson RP (2002) The cradle of thought. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Hobson JA, Hobson RP (2007) Identification: the missing link between joint attention and imitation? Dev Psychopathol 19:411–431

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hodson G, Costello K (2007) Interpersonal disgust, ideological orientations, and dehumanization as predictors of intergroup attitudes. Psychol Sci 18:691–698

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Honneth A (1996) The struggle for recognition: the moral grammar of social conflicts. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA

    Google Scholar 

  • Honneth A (2008) Reification: a new look at an old idea. Oxford University Press, New York

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Hunt M (1990) The compassionate beast: what science is discovering about the humane side of humankind. Anchor Books, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Husserl E (1952) Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie. II. Phänomenologische Untersuchungen zur Konstitution. Husserliana vol. 4. Martinus Nijhoff, Den Haag

  • Hutchison WD, Davis KD, Lozano AM, Tasker RR, Dostrovsky JO (1999) Pain-related neurons in the human cingulate cortex. Nat Neurosci 2:403–405

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kalayjian A, Paloutzian RF (eds) (2009) Forgiveness and reconciliation. Springer, Berlin New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Kant I (1873) Fundamental principles of the metaphysic of morals (Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, 1785). In: Critique of practical reason and other works on the theory of ethics (pp. 2–84). Trans. by T.K. Abbott. Longmans, London

  • Killen M, Mulvey KL, Hitti A (2013) Social exclusion in childhood: A developmental intergroup perspective. Child Dev 84:772–790

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kunstman JW, Plant EA (2008) Racing to help: racial bias in high emergency helping situations. J Pers Soc Psychol 95:1499–1510

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Leyens JP, Rodriguez-Perez A, Rodriguez-Torres R, Gaunt R, Paladino MP, Vaes J, Demoulin S (2001) Psychological essentialism and the differential attribution of uniquely human emotions to ingroups and outgroups. Eur J Soc Psychol 31:395–411

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Likowski KU, Mühlberger A, Seibt B, Pauli P, Weyers P (2008) Modulation of facial mimicry by attitudes. J Exp Soc Psychol 44:1065–1072

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Maoz I, McCauley C (2008) Threat, dehumanization, and support for retaliatory aggressive policies in asymmetric conflict. J Confl Resol 52:93–116

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Meltzoff AN (2007) The ‘like me’framework for recognizing and becoming an intentional agent. Acta Psychol 124:26–43

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Meltzoff AN, Moore MK (1997) Explaining facial imitation: A theoretical model. Early Dev Parent 6:179–192

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Merleau-Ponty M (1960) Le philosophe et son ombre. In: Signes. Éditions Gallimard, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  • Milgram S (1963) Behavioral Study of Obedience. J Abnorm Soc Psychol 67:371–378

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Milgram S (1974) Obedience to authority: an experimental view. Harper & Row, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Misch A, Over H, Carpenter M (2014) Stick with your group: Young children’s attitudes about group loyalty. J Exp Child Psychol 126:19–36

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nichols S, Svetlova M, Brownell C (2009) The role of social understanding and empathic disposition in young children’s responsiveness to distress in parents and peers. Cognit Brain Behav 4: 449–478

    Google Scholar 

  • Nussbaum M (1995) Objectification. Philos Publ Aff 24:249–291

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Okasha S (2005) Altruism, group selection and correlated interaction. Br J Philos Sci 56:703–724

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Okasha, S (2013) Biological altruism. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2013/entries/altruism-biological/

  • Over H, Carpenter M (2009) Priming third-party ostracism increases affiliative imitation in children. Dev Sci 12: F1–F8

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Popitz H (1992) Phänomene der Macht. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen

    Google Scholar 

  • Pratto F, Glasford DE (2008) Ethnocentrism and the value of a human life. J Pers Soc Psychol 95:1411–1428

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Saucer DA, Miller CT, Doucet N (2005) Differences in helping whites and blacks: a meta-analysis. Pers Soc Psychol Rev 9:2–16

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Scheler M (1923/2008) Wesen und Formen der Sympathie. Gesammelte Werke, Bd. 9. Bern München: Francke. The nature of sympathy (2008) Trans. P. Heath. Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick London

  • Schütz A (1967) Phenomenology of the social world. Trans. G. Walsh & F. Lehnert. Northwestern University Press, Evanstone

  • Shamay-Tsoory SG, Aharon-Peretz J, Perry D (2009) Two systems for empathy: a double dissociation between emotional and cognitive empathy in inferior frontal gyrus versus ventromedial prefrontal lesions. Brain 132:617–627

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Smith A (2010) Cognitive empathy and emotional empathy in human behavior and evolution. The Psychological Record 56:3–21

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Staub E, Pearlman LA, Gubin A, Hagengimana A (2005) Healing, reconciliation, forgiving and the prevention of violence after genocide or mass killing: An intervention and its experimental evaluation in Rwanda. J Soc Clin Psychol 24:297–334

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stein E (1989) On the problem of empathy (Zum Problem der Einfühlung, 1916). Trans. W. Stein. ICS Publications, Washington DC

    Google Scholar 

  • Stern D (1985) The interpersonal world of the infant. Basic Books, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Tangney JP, Robins RW, Tracy JL (eds) (2007) The self-conscious emotions: Theory and research. Guilford Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Taylor C (1992) The politics of recognition. In: Gutmann A (ed) Multiculturalism: examining the politics of recognition. Princeton University Press, Princeton, pp 25–73

    Google Scholar 

  • Thompson E (2001) Empathy and consciousness. J Consciousness Stud 8:1–32

    Google Scholar 

  • Tomasello M (1999) The cultural origins of human cognition. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA

    Google Scholar 

  • Tomasello M (2016) A natural history of human morality. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Tomasello M, Haberl K (2003) Understanding attention: 12- and 18-month-olds know what is new for other persons. Dev Psychol 39:906–912

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Trevarthen C (1979) Communication and cooperation in early infancy: a description of primary intersubjectivity. In: Bullowa M (ed) Before Speech. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 321–347

    Google Scholar 

  • Trevarthen C (1993) The self born in intersubjectivity. In: Neisser U (ed) The perceived self: ecological and interpersonal sources of self-knowledge. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 121–173

    Google Scholar 

  • Trevarthen C, Hubley P (1978) Secondary intersubjectivity: Confidence, confiding and acts of meaning in the first year. In: Lock A (ed) Action, gesture and symbol: the emergence of language. Academic Press, London, pp 183–229

    Google Scholar 

  • Tronick EZ (1998) Dyadically expanded states of consciousness and the process of therapeutic change. Infant Mental Health Journal 19:290–299

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Varga S, Gallagher S (2012) Critical social philosophy, Honneth and the role of primary intersubjectivity. Eur J Soc Theor 15:243–260

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Viki GT, Osgood D, Phillips S (2013) Dehumanization and self-reported proclivity to torture prisoners of war. J Exp Soc Psychol 49:325–328

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Warneken F, Tomasello M (2006) Altruistic helping in human infants and young chimpanzees. Science 311:1301–1303

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Warneken F, Tomasello M (2007) Helping and cooperation at 14 months of age. Infancy 11:271–294

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Welzer H (2004) Mass murder and moral code: some thoughts on an easily misunderstood subject. Hist Hum Sci 17:15–32

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Welzer H (2009) Täter: Wie aus ganz normalen Menschen Massenmörder werden Fischer S (ed). Verlag, Frankfurt/M

    Google Scholar 

  • Zahavi D (2001) Beyond empathy. Phenomenological approaches to intersubjectivity. J Consciousness Stud 8:151–167

    Google Scholar 

  • Zahavi D (2011) Empathy and direct social perception: a phenomenological proposal. Rev PhilosPsychol 2:541–558

    Google Scholar 

  • Zahavi D (2015) You, me, and we: the sharing of emotional experiences. J Consciousness Stud 22:84–101

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

I am grateful for the valuable comments and suggestions of Lukas Iwer, James Dowthwaite, two anonymous reviewers and the editors on earlier versions of the paper.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Psychiatric Department, University of Heidelberg, Voss-Str. 4, 69115, Heidelberg, Germany

    Thomas Fuchs

Authors
  1. Thomas Fuchs
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Thomas Fuchs.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Fuchs, T. Empathy, Group Identity, and the Mechanisms of Exclusion: An Investigation into the Limits of Empathy. Topoi 38, 239–250 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-017-9499-z

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-017-9499-z

Keywords

Search

Navigation