positivesum

As kids, long before our frontal lobes have finished developing, we’ve all had the instinct to tease. Just watch two toddlers interact, you can see the malicious glint in their eye as they discover that calling one of their peers a “poopy head” triggers a devastating emotional response. Believe it or not, that glint is actually one of the first seeds of empathy. They’re beginning to learn about the inner world of the person in-front of them, what buttons can be pushed there, and discovering that at the end of the day they’re not so different themselves (since after the inevitable retaliation, they promptly learn that they do not enjoy being on the recieving end of “No you’re a poopy head!” either). Now might be a good time to extend a personal appeal not to tease me for the title of this post. I took a high risk for no discernible reward. I’ve met too many high functioning sociopaths in sales, finance, and life not to notice how good they usually are at reading the person infront of them. The fact that they’re calculated and self-serving doesn’t mean that they aren’t good at empathising with whoever is standing before them - on the contrary, they’re highly proficient in it. Trouble is, they don’t hesitate to exploit their skills ruthlessly to their own advantage. When discussing emotional intelligence, Empathy tends to be divided into two categories: Affect (Emotional) Empathy: The visceral, emotional, part of caring. Usually including a measurable physiological response (eg. watching a video of someone getting hurt increases heart rate, crying when sad, experiencing cringe). Cognitive Empathy: The analytical ability to identify and understand what a person infront of you is feeling and why - without necessarily feeling it yourself. As I’m sure you can intuitively guess, high scores on the usual Dark Triad traits tend to be associated with low Affect Empathy. However! Cognitive Empathy tends to remain intact even among people with Antisocial Personality D