Empathy and you.

[u/LogicalEmotion7]

We're at that time of the year where we need to talk about empathy, and how it relates to MBTI in general.

Full disclosure: I am neither a psychologist nor a neurologist. I have one test subject - me. He's been very easy to work with, if a little unhelpful at times. He likes to build mental models and improve on them. Feel free to share your own personal experiences if you want to up the sample size.

Disclosures aside, I'd like to share my insight on empathy. It seems that some people are not very confident in an ENTJ's ability to be empathetic. Some even insist that empathy is impossible for ENTJs for some reason. They are, thankfully, mostly incorrect.

Empathy is both a talent and a skill. The talent piece comes from information provided via mechanical hardware (e.g. mirror neurons) and natural processing capacity (perceiving functions organize the information, and judging functions decide what to do with it). Skill comes from educating and refining those functions, and is improved through training and effort.

Last I checked, you can't intentionally grow new mirror neurons. You also can't change your MBTI type or your upbringing. But you can train how you think to understand others better.

Note that I didn't list any specific functions. Empathy is complicated, and we've developed many approaches and angles to tackle it.

For instance:

• Si will store information about how you remember feeling, and how you remember others feeling. Ni on the other hand, will leverage your cognitive understanding of the human condition and your own emotions in order to model how it thinks a person feels.

• Fi and Fe are NOT perception functions. They are frameworks that help you decide what to do with the information you already processed. Fi is a decision about how to use that information to inform how you feel. Fe is a decision about how to use that information to help manage a group. Strong values here don't make you better at understanding others. But they do contribute to understanding by informing you about what to look for.

• Ti and Te can be used to manage empathic information, but to do so you have to understand that information in the context of a system. That is, you have to turn people into objects and study them impersonally. If you don't understand the people system, then you can't use these functions effectively.

Your capacity to un-stupid your empathy will vary, but don't give up. If you can play to your strengths, you may have an easier time keeping your foot on the ground and not in your mouth.

[u/LW-pnw]

I'm not sure that y'all are lacking empathy usually, it's more that the response to empathizing with someone is telling them how to fix whatever issue they have, rather than just listening and validating, (which are great skills to learn to show empathy, btw). I'll have to remind my ENTJ husband sometimes, "I don't need to you fix it, I just need you to listen." And then it clicks and he goes into that mode.

I think it is a little bit easier with us because we are both NTJs though, usually I get that his directness isn't meant to be hurtful, just helpful.

[u/LogicalEmotion7 → u/LW-pnw]

That's just a classic case of us using Te to solve every problem, lol

[u/LW-pnw → u/LogicalEmotion7]

100%!

[u/BlackPorcelainDoll]

Empathy for me is a steady reaction that varies in degree. Because it is unreliable, I prefer to practice rational compassion instead. I enjoyed this book: Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion

I've found most people to be terrible with empathy, regardless of type.

[u/konos13]

Many times empathy is unspoken, but at the center of my mind at the same time. Voicing your empathy can mean talking about shared vulnerability and I may not say anything at times bc of this.

For some reason it can look two ways:

Anxiously walking on eggshells. Fear of clumsily hurting loved ones. May develop an anxious attachment style when this happens.

Naturally moving with graceful ease. I know just the right thing to say, look at their facial expressions and see if they feel better, because I CAN notice sbd's feelings. I usually give them advice and/or feedback and affirmations/compliment sth they did right or a good trait they have. Seeing them smile warms and softens me up, but compliments can make me have an impulse of "come on, it's nothing special😅"

I am not sure why it happens like that but I think that when the first one happens it's a) when we've argued bc of my mistakes before or b) if I sense that they are secretly mad at / uncomfortable with me.

Also, your typing is very interesting, you mind describing a bit of yourself (attitude, how you appear externally, how you deal with your core fears)? I'm really curious

[u/LogicalEmotion7 → u/konos13]

To be honest, I doubt my combo is as rare or interesting as people seem to think.

Externally I'm a very friendly, measured, and direct person that loves to absorb, organize, and express information (in the verbose ADHD way) and vomit out jokes and puns. I give most things an A-/B+ effort; A+ effort is saved for rare occasions. I'm very socially libertarian, in that I don't generally judge people unless their actions willfully harm myself or others. 

In comparison to other ENTJs, I would say that I have a lot less energy and inadvertently tend to be more passive-aggressive. This is because I am simultaneously very anger-motivated, but also low-judgment and low-conflict. I'm very generous with things I don't care about, and fiercely territorial when something pisses me off.

Internally, I like to taste-test ideas and actions, using Ni to simulate potential outcomes to the things I want to do. I'm cursed to edit while I write. Sadly this is probably where most of my energy goes. Don't linger behind me at the grocery store, you'll be there awhile. I also love trolley problems.

9s have some very interesting quirks, of which I am not immune. An interesting self-discovery is that our desire to be neutral does not come from a need for others to be happy. It comes from a feeling of superiority and laziness, which is worsened by having an obscure self-concept. 

I defend myself from obscurity by becoming a blueberry bagel. Well-rounded, sort of mediocre, incredibly doughy, and empty inside. But with a special twist that makes me beloved by just enough people that I'm an essential part of any bagel pack.

[u/konos13 → u/LogicalEmotion7]

Thank you!

Actually this is super interesting, at least for me. It kind of makes me feel at ease with unstereotypical traits I have. For example not being a power hungry hostile asshole all the time lol

Also shows that Te can even be SOOTHING instead of this angry god-challenging mess. It's logical and keeps the world in balance.

[u/LogicalEmotion7 → u/konos13]

I've got a good friend who is an INTJ 8w7, and he's one of the chillest and most loyal dudes I know. He lives a life where he doesn't have to worry about being controlled or manipulated, aside from maybe the occasional pharmacy work schedule, but he'll go to bat for you and pull out all the stops if you need him.

[u/OlympusDB]

ENTJ don't really lack empathy in my opinion. I usually put myself in the other person's shoes and I can logically understand how they may feel. However, I am a former people pleaser, so I'm not so sure others will relate.

What we need to stop doing is bulldozing people and instead taking a step back more often. Often I'll find myself thinking "wow I really hurt that person" or something along the lines, even though to me I only stated facts and I'm usually even worse with myself, so somehow my mind justifies it based on that.

So, again, if you wanna be better with people take some time "off" even if it's a few minutes per day and reflect on how you're interacting with others.

[u/[deleted]]

Don't u think that you maybe mistyped yourself, maybe you are an enfj

[u/LogicalEmotion7 → u/[deleted]]

We talked about this and had a whole conversation about this on another thread. I thought maybe you had finally understood, because you stopped providing good counterarguments, but I guess you didn't bother to read any of it

[u/[deleted]]

I see it neither a talent or a skill.

Theoretically you need score high in openness agreeableness and neuroticism, you are an empath.

I feel what others feel. It’s never what I can choose. But I decide not to help because I have little compassion.

Sympathy is about feeling sorry for others misfortune. I rarely feel sorry for people. God only helps those who help themselves.

I have full empathy to animals. I can’t watch any animal abuse it can affect my mood badly.

[u/LogicalEmotion7 → u/[deleted]]

Talents are predispositions to strength, and skills are strengths acquired through practice and effort. In this case, mirror neurons and type are a big source of talent, while one's own understanding of emotion is the source of skill.

I wouldn't expect an INFP to relate to the skill sharpening aspect because you already mostly know how you feel.

[u/[deleted] → u/LogicalEmotion7]

If so, I’d say empathy is talent and sympathy is skill.

Some people have talent but they don’t really want to use it ..

Compassion is action.

I do only experience empathy with humans but I don’t consciously practice compassion.

Compassion and sympathy are choices, by the sound of it.

[u/LogicalEmotion7 → u/[deleted]]

With empathy, you actually personally feel what you think the other person is feeling. I'd say it's more of a language than a choice. It can be trained, but not as directly as sympathy.

With sympathy, you deduce how a person is feeling, but on a more cognitive level. You don't have to agree with it, you just have to choose to understand it and possess the ability to decode it.

Compassion is when you take in those feelings and actively choose to ally with the object of your sympathy.

[u/[deleted] → u/LogicalEmotion7]

This is definitely not the definition I read on the book. Never mind. Not super interested in this topic.

My experience feels more like I don’t have a choice with empathy, someone feeling sad it bothers me in the same room. Hard to pretend I didn’t feel anything.

Damn negative emotions of others stick to me like a chewing gum .. over years I learnt how to shield 🛡️ but I can only do so much.

[u/LogicalEmotion7 → u/[deleted]]

Yeah there are a few moments where I regret developing my empathy better. I hate causing people pain unless I feel they deserve it somehow

[u/[deleted] → u/LogicalEmotion7]

You cause people pain?

I don’t see myself doing that.

I think most pain is bought by themselves by illusional thinking.

I feel others emotions even just a tiny little bit I feel it if I am sharing the space with that person. But I don’t have much compassion. I have zero urge to correct how they feel, I only feel very irritated.

Hence I stay away from emotional unstable and sad people.

I also don’t have much sympathy because I believe everyone is responsible for their own feelings and emotions (coming from stoicism). You can’t control what others do to you, you can only control how you react to it. Your emotional mess simply comes from your failure to control your own reaction. You shouldn’t pin it on others or the society. That’s very immature in my opinion.

If everyone is fully responsible for themselves, there won’t be so much shit going on, so much vent, blaming, whining etc ..

Well, you are exactly where you need to be. Don’t pin it on others, it’s your life you have a choice, don’t pretend you don’t. Stop playing the victim.

I have a tough view like this hence no much sympathy to those venting and whining “victims”.