Empathy and Love Languages

Achooooo! If only it were from the dust…

Sadly, the last few weeks have seen much of the western US blanketed in unhealthy smoke. Thick, hurt your lungs, make your eyes water, smell of fire nearby smoke. Spurred by wildfires currently fueled by record-breaking heat and minuscule precipitation, it reminds me more of a post-apocalyptic nuclear winter than a region known for its stunning natural beauty. As the conditions have worsened, it seems our crowded marble has become more aggressive – Abrasive clients and angry drivers abound.

I took the long way home a few nights ago… Around the largest lake in our county, through precious little remaining old growth forest, across a railroad track shaded by a dappled sunset where a doe was shepherding two fawns away from encroaching civilization. I wondered, can empathy in our transactional society be related to the book I had just finished on ‘love languages’?

Two months ago, I reserved Gary Chapman’s The Five Love Languages as part of a co-reading experiment. I’m not one for the self-help books, unless the travel section is considered self-help these days, but I wanted to give this experiment a try and support my friend. Libby, my library app, took the liberty of finally downloading the title. Sadly, the co-reader has gone but that hasn’t stopped me from reading the material anyway.

Originally penned in 1992, Dr. Chapman distills his thirty years of experience as a marriage counselor into three simple principles:

1. We all have a ‘love tank’ that needs to be tended. (Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.)
2. There are five primary ways people express they care for one another, although, these tend to be a continuum more than discrete boxes.
3. We each experience the world differently, often filtering our experiences based on our own ‘love language’. Cue epic miscommunications and mayhem when we realize we aren’t speaking the same language!

Chapman uses vignettes as gentle case studies to help illustrate how easy it is to misunderstand each other and how frank discussions and diligent efforts might mend the hurt. Having sold over 11-milliion copies worldwide, translated into 50 languages, and a #1 New York Times Bestseller for over 8 years the book has now spawned a series distilling the message for children, teens, singles and scores of other demographics. He must be on to something.

Chapman’s observations caught my attention in relationship to empathy in our transactional world. Are people ‘meaner’ because our world is more about transactions than relationships? Especially given that relationships take diligent communications in the right language and transactions do not. In Jamil Zaki’s piece “What, Me Care? Young are Less Empathetic”^[1] he explores two studies examining our changing attitudes. Using the Interpersonal Reactivity Index, Konrath and colleagues noted, “almost 75 per cent of students today [2011] rate themselves as less empathic than the average student 30 years ago.”^[2]  With a decline in empathic skills between 34% and 48% in the past decade ^[3], it’s unsurprising the world feels grumpy. More alarming to me was a small aside – Jean M. Twenge noticed “during the same period student’s self-reported narcissism has reached new heights.”^[4] Zaki suggests several possible reasons, including what information we consume and how we engage with it, noting work by Raymond A Mar demonstrating “adults who read less fiction report themselves to be less empathic.”^[5] Cue flashing master alarm…

P.J. Manney observed in her Op-Ed “Is Technology Destroying Empathy?”^[6] that “We learn to be in the shoes of another person through real-life observations or storytelling” with communication being at the center of empathy creation. For me, Chapman’s ‘love languages’ distilled this idea – if I communicate more deliberately (not just with a partner) based on how others may experience the world, maybe just maybe a little bit of positivity will follow. Obviously, there are no guarantees, but I’d rather have a relationship over a transaction any day, regardless of the effort required. And, read more fiction!

Next on the reading pile are two books – end of summer popcorn fiction Ernest Cline’s ReadyPlayer One; and a work-related non-fiction volume Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain. Tweets will center on the later so as a not to ruin the storyline in the former. Until then...

Do you know your primary love language? Take the quiz! How might learning a new language change your daily transactions into relationships?

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1: Zaki, Jamil. “What, Me Care? Young Are Less Empathetic” Scientific American, Springer Nature America, Inc., 1 January 2011, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-me-care/

2: Konrath, S.H., O'Brien, E.H., and C. Hsing. "Changes in Dispositional Empathy in American College Students over Time: A Meta-Analysis." Personality and Social Psychology Review 15.2 (2011): 180-198. Print.

3: Caprino, Kathy. “Is Empathy Dead? How Your Lack of Empathy Damages Your Reputation and Impact as a Leader” Forbes, Forbes Media LLC., 8 June 2016, https://www.forbes.com/sites/kathycaprino/2016/06/08/is-empathy-dead-how-your-lack-of-empathy-damages-your-reputation-and-impact-as-a-leader/#162034093167

4: Twenge, Jean M. and W. Keith Campbell. "The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement." Free Press, 2009. https://www.narcissismepidemic.com/

5: Mar, R.A., Tackett, J.L. and C. Moore. "Exposure to Media and Theory-of-Mind Development in Preschoolers." Cognitive Development (2009), doi:10.1016/j.cogdev.2009.11.002

6: Manney, P.J. “Is Technology Destroying Empathy?” LiveScience, Purch, 30 June 2015, https://www.livescience.com/51392-will-tech-bring-humanity-together-or-tear-it-apart.html