This column will change your life: empathy

What the world really needs, according to the Yale psychologist Paul Bloom, is a bit less empathy. Yes, I know how that sounds. So does he: "Like announcing that you hate kittens," as he put it recently in the Boston Review. In a world clearly suffering from what Barack Obama calls the "empathy deficit", it seems that he's being obnoxiously counterintuitive for the sake of it. Research suggests that empathetic people are more altruistic; higher empathy is associated with better relationships. Roman Krznaric, author of the recent book Empathy (he's in favour of it), thinks that "outrospection" – the deliberate effort to seek out other people's experiences – might help solve everything from inequality to climate change. Has Bloom been converted to the ramblings of Ayn Rand? Did he get out of the wrong side of bed? Actually, I think he might have a point.

The problem is that empathy – the attempt to feel or think how someone else is feeling or thinking – isn't a reliable way of doing good. For one thing, we find it easier to empathise with better-looking people, and with those of the same race, so the more we rely on empathy as a guide to action, the more we're vulnerable to such biases. We also get entangled in the "identifiable victim effect": empathy makes us care more about, say, the single missing child than the thousands who might be harmed by a government policy, never mind the as-yet-unborn victims of future global warming. Bloom quotes the economist Thomas Schelling: "Let a six-year-old girl with brown hair need thousands of dollars for an operation that will prolong her life until Christmas, and the post office will be swamped… Let it be reported that without a sales tax the [hospitals] of Massachusetts will deteriorate and cause a barely perceptible increase in preventable deaths – not many will drop a tear." A surfeit of empathy may hurt the empathetic, too: it's been linked to burnout and depression, neither of which make people better at helping others.

It's hard to accept that we might sometimes get a clearer picture of the world by resisting the urge to step into someone else's shoes. Yet depersonalising things is often the best way to make decisions. That's why job interviews can be more meritocratic – and less prone to sexism or racism – when they don't include a free-wheeling "getting to know you" section, relying instead on structured tests. Tyler Cowen, the blogger and economist, recommends soliciting feedback not by asking "what do you think?" – the personalised version – but "what do most people think?"

Instead of empathy, Bloom concludes, we need compassion: a cooler, more rational, "more distanced love, kindness and concern for others". A relative of his undergoing cancer treatment doesn't like medical staff who overflow with empathy: "He gets the most from doctors who are calm when he is anxious, confident when he is uncertain." As the Saturday Night Live writer Jack Handey wrote, before you criticise someone, walk a mile in their shoes: that way, you'll be a mile away, and you'll have their shoes. But if you want to help them, staying planted in your own shoes may be preferable. Sure, I could feel your pain. But wouldn't you rather I did something about it?

oliver.burkeman@theguardian.com
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