? Heuristic of the Day: Empathy Gap
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Can you recall a time when a friend was madly in love with a partner or going through a difficult family issue, and you failed to respond appropriately?
Empathy Gap describes how we often underestimate the influence of our current emotional/bodily state on our behavior or thought process. Empathy Gap also occurs when we fail to understand the impact of another person’s emotional state on their behavior simply because we don't always experience the same emotional state.
When we are in a “cold” emotional state, like being untriggered, calm, relaxed, numb, or neutral, we fail to acknowledge the impact of “hot” emotional states, like anger, excitement, irritability, or anxiety, on our (or others’) preferences, attitudes, and behaviors. When we are in a hot state we underestimate the effect of hot emotions on decisions; likewise, when we are in a cold state we overestimate the stability of our cold-state preferences.
Empathy Gap can cause many problems like being dismissive of others' mental states while trying to help them. Or it could blind us to our own intentions and actions.
To hack Empathy Gap and improve our ability to put ourselves in the mindset of others, we need to develop our sense of awareness. Even though we cannot eliminate emotions, by becoming more mindful, we can understand when and how they affect us which in turn enhances our ability to predict and appropriately react to future situations.