martin hoffman empathy theory examples martin hoffman empathy theory examples
Effective inductions are not only developmentally appropriate but also reflect an optimal level of parental power or influence. This basic exploratory tendency accords to reasoning a more fundamental motivational status (cognitive primacy) than that of servant to the thrall of the passions (affective primacy). Accordingly, our conception of moral motivation will expand to include not only cognitive but also affective primacy. As have Haidt and evolutionary psychologists, Hoffman (2000) suggested that empathic bias reflects our evolutionary tendency to help those with whom we share the most genes; i.e., our primary group. Given such a message, children may be induced to reflect on the kind of persons they wish to be, appropriate the parental values for themselves, feel a disappointment in themselves, and determine to be more honest or considerate toward others in the future. We find relief in Hoffmans theory from a decades-old (even pre-Haidtian) complaint against Kohlbergs theory as cold in that its cognitive-developmental approach gives relatively little attention to the strong emotions of the ego (Maccoby, 1980, p. 325). Egocentrically inclined adults notwithstanding, Hoffman (2000) concluded that egocentric projections are especially prevalent in the empathic responses of very young children. Extending from Hoffmans work, de Waal (2009) concluded: I rate humans among the most aggressive of primates but also believe that were masters at connecting and that social ties constrain competition. Disappointed expectations are related to other-oriented induction in positive discipline. Later, the mothers smile alone may function as a conditioned stimulus that makes the baby feel good. In terms of classical conditioning, basic empathy is an acquired or learned response to a stimulus that is temporally associated with ones previous affect (distress, joy, etc.). Some mothers commented to researcher Julia Krevans that their early-adolescent children were often already aware of how a transgression of theirs had harmed another and would have felt hurt, scolded, or talked down to by an explicit description (Krevans, personal communication, December 30, 2002). A neurosurgeon, for example, avoids operating on loved ones because empathic concern may be so strong as to cause a normally steady hand to shake, with potentially disastrous consequences (Batson, 2011, p. 189). Elaborate by selecting three required skills for this industry and explain why . But given individual egoistic motives, how is that prosocial minimum attained? The technique is called reframing or relabeling, as when we reframe an otherwise abstract out-group with a suffering individual. Let us look, then, at factors that can complicate or limit the contribution of empathy to situational prosocial behavior. Less conscious and voluntary than strategies, beliefs, or principles is habituation through repeated and excessive exposure to distress cues. Parental power is expressed either in physical terms (demands, threats, actual punitive or restraining force, or deprivation of a privilege or possession; i.e., power assertion; Hoffman, 1960) or psychological terms (love withdrawal).8Close Even the most nurturing, inductively disciplining parents bring an implicit power dimension to the discipline encounter. Whereas basic empathic concern may have originally pertained to infant care or group synchrony, empathic understanding may have emerged with maturation of the prefrontal cortex and its reciprocal connection to the limbic system and development of a sense of self (Decety & Svetlova, 2012, p. 3; cf. It is a stronger power. Although distinguishable, the Hoffmanian and Kohlbergian aspects of the story are intimately interrelated and complementary. Robert Trivers described this reciprocal altruism in terms of the folk expression you scratch my backI scratch yours (de Waal, 1996, p. 25). Furthermore, it specifies the optimal sense of the social perspective-taking entailed in ideal moral reciprocity or full implementation of the condition of reversibility (Chapter 1). Eleanor Maccoby (1983) suggested that parental nurturance promotes cooperativeness in the child and hence reduces the necessity for parents to resort to heavy-handed, power-assertive modes of control (p. 363). just-world hypothesis), Sympathetic distress (cause of distress clearly not attributable to victim), Empathy-based or transgression guilt (cause of victims distress attributed to self; cf. Like mimicry, conditioning can induce quick and involuntary empathic responses. Empathic responsiveness emerges at an early age in virtually every member of our species and hence may be as natural an achievement as the first step (de Waal, 1996, p. 45; cf. Since Hoffmans (2000) work, others have noted as well the multifaceted or complex nature of the full-fledged empathic predisposition. The ultimate aim of the Process is to . SIMULATION THEORY A prominent part of everyday thought is thought about mental states. As noted, some empathic and information processing bias might have some adaptive value. What is empathy? As noted in Chapter 3, older children begin to grasp mixed or subtle emotions and to take into account social context in judging anothers feelings. In Chapter 6, we will study moral exemplarsthose who evidence Hoffmans mature stages of empathy in sustained action as well as feeling. I will call this blind attraction preconcern. Nonetheless, beyond that of any other species, humans have great imagination. Beyond the daunting statistics, the massive presentation of individual profiles and graphics may have accounted for this counter-productive over-arousal (Seider, 2009, p. 69). Also potentially deleterious is the radical protective defense of psychic numbing against overwhelming and unacceptable stimuli. If prolonged, psychic numbing can lead to despair and depression, or various forms of withdrawal and a generally constricted life pattern (Lifton, 1967, pp. Mimicry in moral development refers to a synchrony of changes in body and feeling between self and other. Generally, the observer synchronizes changes in his facial expression, voice, and posture with the slight changes in another persons facial, vocal, or postural expressions of feeling. These changes trigger afferent feedback which produce feelings in the observer that match the feelings of the victim (Hoffman, 2000, p. 37). Too much feeling at the smaller frames and too little at the larger frame can have disastrous consequences. Like moral principles, then, mental representations such as scripts owe their moral motive power to empathic affect. After all, even highly empathic children can get emotionally involved when pursuing their goals or when their desires conflict with [those of] others (Hoffman, 2000, p. 169). Rebecca hahner 3mo. This means an attitude of empathy is a must-have. In the first stage, the baby has no sense of separation between self and other, and its ability to empathize is limited to a general expression of distress on witnessing or hearing another's. Their claim is that cognitive development brings about a psychological self-awareness in the second year that enables veridical empathic distress and hence appropriate, discerning prosocial behavior. Mirror-test results (do participants try to remove, say, a mirrored facial smudge? Hoffman's Theory of Moral Development Hoffman (2000), whose theory of moral development has provided the most comprehensive view of empathy. Consider, for example, the idea of "inductive discipline" that Slote (following Hoffman) emphasizes in his discussion of moral education. The forces that propel me into action are the same, but I carry out the mission like a smart missile instead of a blind rocket. Instead, the results indicated the opposite: The disappointment subscale was the stronger component factor. Rutland, Killen, & Abrams, 2010). Much more than did Haidt, Hoffman has focused our attention on the role of empathy in moral development. Doctors and nurses in emergency rooms just cannot afford to be constantly in an empathic mode (de Waal, 2009, p. 80). A young child, for example, may simply laugh along with a momentarily laughing but terminally ill peer.4Close Although there are precocious exceptions, childrens attention tends, to be fixed or centered on the more salient personal and situational cues of anothers distress in the situation. Indeed, distressed (or deceased) victims who are no longer salient may lose out in sympathy even to culprits who are now the focus of attention and, for one reason or another, appear to be victims themselves (Hoffman, 2000, p. 212; cf. Fortunately, empathic arousal levels can be moderated: self-regulatory processes play an important role in empathy-related responding. And even highly empathic individuals must still interpret appropriately anothers distress. The main concept is empathy - one feels what is appropriate for another person's situation, not one's own. Hoffman, a leading theoretician on the development of empathy in childhood, recognizes two dimensions to the study of empathy: The recognition of other people's internal states. Nancy Eisenberg (1996) called empathy the good heart and made impressive contributions to its measurement. de Waal (2009) mentioned well-intentioned but thoughtless friends whose gifts reflected what they like. For example, they never noticed that we dont have a single blue item in the house, but since they love blue, they bestow an expensive blue vase on us (p. 109, emphases added). For example, one may read a letter describing anothers situation and affective state. It is also necessary if each child is to empathize with the other and anticipate his disappointment at not getting what he wants and for each child to accept his share of blame and be ready to make amends or compromise (p. 138). Hoffman suggested that, although influence almost certainly flows in the main from parent to child, a longitudinal research design and structured equation modeling would yield more definitive data and conclusions regarding the causality question. Humans are uniquely capable of reaching the most advanced forms of knowing what others know and understanding their situation (see Hoffmans Stages 5 and especially 6, below). In phylogeny, the concurrent emergence of advanced helping behavior (e.g., consolation) with self-recognition is consistently evident in apes but not Old World monkeys, suggesting that these advances may be functionally linked, co-emerging relatively late in phylogenetic history (de Waal, 2009, 2012). Such behavior can also be adaptive for the helper insofar as the individual helped is genetically related (even if the helper does not survive, some percentage of the helpers genes are passed on through the surviving recipient) (Hamilton, 1971). In this volume, the author brings these 3 dimensions together while providing the first comprehensive account of prosocial moral development in children. (p. 95). (Hoffman [2011] has also written on empathys contributionsboth positive and negativeto legal justice and the law.). Batson, 2011). Again link it back to the case studies. Empathically driven behavior in the egocentric or cognitively immature senseand its uselessness (at least directly) for the distressed otherhas been observed among infant rhesus monkeys: Once, when an infant had been bitten because it had accidentally landed on a dominant female, it screamed so incessantly that it was soon surrounded by many other infants. Hoffman, 1975a; Zhou et al., 2002). The optimal level of pressure to attend elicited in inductive discipline is congruent with the broader balance between parent-centered (authoritarian) and child-centered (permissive) orientations achieved in authoritative parenting (Baumrind, 1989; Damon, 1995). Yet de Waal (2009) suspected that the self-comforting and simple emotional contagion of this first step cant be the whole story (p. 95). By the same token, others perceived as dissimilar (such as Edward in the camp incident; see Chapters 1, 2) are less likely to elicit empathyalthough some empathy may remain. It is a matter of common observation, however, that mature empathy does not necessarily eventuate in prosocial behavior. But even the most sophisticated layers of the doll normally remain firmly tied to its primal core. And yet he must have feelings to hold in place the larger goals of his behavior in that particular situation, feelings connected with the sense of responsibility for the life of his passengers and crew, and for his own life and that of his family. Hoffmans affective-primacy theory of empathy-based moral development and prosocial behavior (as well as the inhibition of aggression) starts with biologically based predispositions. Martin L. Hoffman's theories of empathy and guilt have been influential in the study of the development of human psychology. Decety (2007) attributed such responses to a basic arousal mode, namely, mimicry or emotional contagion, perhaps the first step on the road toward full-blown empathy (de Waal, 2009, p. 74). If members of disparate groups find themselves working together to achieve a superordinate goal, the respective group members may begin to redefine themselves as common members of a single superordinate group (e.g., Dovidio, Gaertner, Shnabel, Saguy, & Johnson, 2010; Echols & Correll, 2012). action tendencies, e.g., Saarni, Campos, & Witherington, 2006) propel action (affective primacy) but gain more or less smart direction from cognition. Martin Hoffman has studied the development of empathy and moral reasoning in children. This further implication is often difficult to establish in practice, however (Eisenberg, Fabes, & Spinrad, 2006). When the newborn cries in reaction to hearing anothers cry, that reactive cry is more than a weak imitation or simple reaction to a noxious stimulus. Hence, parental expression of disappointed expectations may be even more important than other-oriented induction for the socialization of cooperative and prosocial behavior, at least for older children (our participants were early adolescents).12Close. The construction of ideal and necessary moral reciprocity, for example, has a place in moral motivation that affective primacy fails to capture. Do Kohlbergs and Hoffmans theories of moral development enable an adequate understanding of prosocial and antisocial behavior? We now review the basic and mature modes, followed by the developmental stages of empathic distress (see Table 5.1). Specifically, Hoffman advocates the use of inductions or parental messages that highlight the others perspective, point up the others distress, and make it clear that the childs action caused it (p. 143). As Hoffman continues sharing his theory of empathy he unpacks many aspects of empathy. When a juvenile in a captive baboon colony had an epileptic seizure, other baboons immediately turned highly protective (de Waal, 1996, p. 52). The immature stages of (reactive, egocentric, quasi-egocentric) empathic distress are seen most exclusively during the first year or so of life, as a rudimentary sense of the physically present other influences the impact of the basic arousal modes (motor mimicry, conditioning, direct association) upon social behavior. a definitive account of Marty's theory, Empathy and Moral . A dramatic case of sudden prosocial behavior generated partly from mature but fast-acting empathy and moral judgment was introduced in Chapter 2and will be further examined in the next chapter. They seem blindly attracted, like a moth to a flame. Haidt (2012; and see Chapter 2 herein) interpreted Damasios findings as support for his Hume-inspired affective-primacy (rather than cognitive-primacy or co-primacy) view of moral motivation: Here were people in whom brain damage had essentially shut down communication between the rational soul and the seething passions of the body. Central to Hoffman's theory is the occurrence of empathic distress in response to another's distress where, 1) empathic distress is associated with helping, 2) empathic distress precedes helping, and 3) observers feel better after helping. Martin L. Hoffman aims to determine the extent of which empathy affects the creation, and execution of law through the writing "Empathy, Justice, and the Law." . A victim-blaming attribution also supports the belief in moral reciprocity (studied in social psychology as the motivated just world hypothesis or need to believe that the world is just; Lerner, 1980; see Hafer & Begue, 2005). In order to show genuine interest in someone else, offering help when required, one needs to be able [in a wave of emotion] to keep ones own boat steady. We examine the major influences on our lives, trace the root of the adopted negativity, and release any pain, grief, anger, shame or resentment that has been stored there. (Hoffman, 2000, pp. We all know how joy spreads, or sadness, and how much we are affected by the moods of those around us (de Waal, 2013, p. 142). Experiments suggest that many of the components of cognitive empathy are in place. share_arrow_outline arrow_2_rectangular_clockwise_thin bell play_outline dot_3_horizontal. We draw heavily on Hoffman's theory, even as we also consider recent refinements, issues, and challenges (de Waal, Decety, Zahn-Waxler, Bloom). Nonetheless, their help may still be more appropriate to relieving their own discomfort (e.g., bringing a distressed peer to ones own mother even though the friends mother is present, or offering ones own rather than the peers favorite toys)suggesting a somewhat egocentric projection of ones own onto others inner states and needs. Generally speaking, empathic over-arousal undermines the contribution of empathy to prosocial behavior and hence should be reduced. Under optimal circumstances, one who sees another in distress is likely to help. A heightened self-identity allows a subject to relate to the objects emotional state without losing sight of the actual source of this state (de Waal, 2012, p. 94; cf. Had I been openly empathic it could have disrupted his denial, so I went along, got lost in conversation and enjoyed myself; empathic distress was kept under control in the back of my mind, but it returned afterward. In the social behavior of toddlers, one can discern not only the superficial stages but also empathic discernment and appropriate prosocial behavior. Consistent with a high threshold for responding, subsequent self-comforting (or crawling to mother) reactions were only infrequently observed in young infants in a recent longitudinal study (Roth-Hanania et al., 2011). Hoffmans research-based typology of parental discipline techniques remains in prominent use today. 78 sixth and seventh graders (138-172 months in age), their mothers, and teachers completed multiple measures of Hoffman's constructs. While he has his critics, his basic theory of the development of . Where power assertion is less harsh, corporal punishment is culturally normative, and the physical punishment is not interpreted as rejection by the child, the negative relationship between power assertion and childrens empathy or prosocial behavior may not hold (Dodge, McLoyd, & Lansford, 2005). For example, Hoffman (1987) argued that empathy in children develops across four different stages and that each stage lays down the foundation for the next. Hoffman discusses empathy's role in five moral situations. Nurturance combined with low levels of induction or demandingness (often called permissive or indulgent parenting), for example, does not predict child prosocial behavior. After all, such discipline contains no message about alternative, appropriate behavior, focuses childrens attention away from the consequence of their behavior for others, and may teach children to avoid getting caught rather than to curtail the unacceptable behavior; it may even encourage children to view their appropriate behavior as externally imposed, rather than motivated by internal factors (Kerr, Lopez, Olson, & Sameroff, 2004, p. 370; cf. (p. A21). Maintaining self-serving cognitive distortions may require the expenditure of cognitive resources (see Chapter 7). Furthermore, it appears that cognitive empathy,asopposedtoaffectiveempathy,in-volves creating a cognitive ToM regarding the other's mental and emotional states. Instead of support for exclusively affective primacy in morality, the more cautious conclusion from Damasios findings is simply that certain brain lesions can shut down both affective and cognitive sources of motivation needed for sociomoral and goal-directed behavior. Hoffman, 2000). Psychologist Martin Hoffman Definition of Empathy. Martin L. Hoffman. The broad scope or abstract quality of moral principles can help the empathizing helper to decenter from the salient features of the victims plight, and thus respond with more appropriate empathic distress (Hoffman, 2000, p. 238). Again, these are likely to be the members of ones in-group; such persons are especially likely to stimulate the primitive empathic arousal modes (physical saliencedriven modes such as mimicry or conditioning). Recently, New York University psychologist Martin was even more emphatic. But a new study suggests . As a phenomenologist, he sought to investigate the constitution of the structures of consciousness, including the structures of mental actssuch as feeling, thinking, and willingand of their inherent objects or correlatessuch as (in this case) values, concepts, and projects. They embed empathic affects in cognitive representations, thereby imparting longevity: the empathic affects should survive in long-term memory. Lawrence & Valsiner, 1993). "Empathy is a building block of moralityfor people to follow the Golden Rule, it helps if they can put themselves in . With cognitive and language development in the second year and beyond, two more advanced modes of empathy arousal take root and foster more subtle and expanded empathic responding. This makes it possible for one to realize that the same holds true for others: Their external image is the other side of their inner experience. One can say generally that the empathy stages emerge for most part in infancy and early childhood (in contrast to the stages of moral judgment). A ignores Bs crying and plays with the toy. Morally mature or exemplary individuals may be especially prone to discern such universal qualities and act accordingly (cf. Empathy by association can take place even in the absence of conditioning. The more widely noted of Gilligans (1982) claims, that female respondents are artifactually downscored in Kohlbergs stage system, has been generally disconfirmed (Walker, 1995). These stages specify a cognitive developmental growth beyond the superficial in empathic morality. John Bowlby's attachment theory-John Bowlby's attachment theory suggests that it is important for a child to have an adult in their life that they have a close bond to, whether this be parents, grandparents or . As we will see, it is depth of feeling in morality that is highlighted in Hoffmans theory. reactive crying, or emotional contagion (Martin & Clark 1982; Sagi & Hoffman 1976; Simner 1971). Preschoolers begin to understand that an event can evoke different emotions in different people and that people can control the expression of their feelings. Thus, in aiding a friend, I combine the helping tendency of cooperative animals with a typically human appreciation of my friends feelings and needs. Besides reframing and other cognitive strategies, the activation of moral principles or philosophical ideals (Hoffman, 2000, p. 223) can also serve to remedy the limitations of empathynot only empathic over-arousal but also empathic bias. Early empathy is here-and-now, based on the pull of surface cues and requiring the shallowest level of cognitive processing (p. 48). Affectively charged moral principles can reduce empathic over-arousal and biases insofar as they give structure and stability to empathic affects (p. 216). Empathic bias is the second limitation of empathy. [These] scripts are [thereby] enriched and given a moral dimension (my actions can harm others). Especially in ambiguous circumstances, observers may be motivated to make precisely that causal appraisal to reduce empathic over-arousal (discussed later). These findings that disappointed expectations generally behave like other-oriented induction led Hoffman (2000) to conclude that disappointment messages are often interpreted by the child as other-oriented inductions specifying the parent as the hurt other (but that rejecting or ego-attacking expressions of disappointment might be interpreted as love withdrawal). Although children with their pronounced centrations (see Chapter 3) are especially vulnerable, even mature observers capable of representing others life conditions beyond the immediate situation are vulnerable to here-and-now bias. Put positively, empathy provided the crucial variance in the link between inductive discipline and prosocial behavior. Indeed, the medical profession has a longstanding struggle to achieve an appropriate balance between empathy and clinical distance (Decety & Svetlova, 2012, pp. From this reflection emerged a sense of self-disappointment (I, too, was disappointed in myself). The key claim of Hoffmans moral socialization theory is that empathy mediates the relation between parents use of inductive discipline and childrens prosocial behavior. (pp. That two independent studies using different methods found such similar results bolsters confidence in the validity of the support for Hoffmans inductive discipline theory. Martin L. Hoffman focuses on Social psychology, Empathy, Developmental psychology, Moral development and Prosocial behavior. This leads to more extensive processing of information and clearer impressions about individuals (p. 89). Modes of empathic affect arousal (activated singly or in combination): Decety, 2007). Hoffman and we argued, however, that the relations between parent and child variables were most likely bidirectionalin particular, that induction and empathy feed each other in complex, interlocking ways (Hoffman, 2000, p. 169). I have for some time been working on a comprehensive theoretical model for empathy, and in this paper, I present the most recent version of this model. Although early roots and sociocultural factors should be studied, cognitive development plays a major role in the substantial increase in acts of comforting and helping during the second year of life (Davidson et al., 2003, p. 3). Depending on how beholders interpret the straits of another person, their response to another persons pain may be empathic, neutral, or even counterempathic (Pinker, 2011, p. 578; cf. Such a finding would have meant that, whatever the reasons for the inductionprosocial behavior relationship, it could not be attributed to parents promotion of childrens empathy. Well, yesbut thanks mainly to the primacy of empathy; otherwise, why should perspective-taking serve prosocial rather than egoistic [e.g., manipulative] ends? (Hoffman, 2000, p. 131). Yet parental expression of disappointed expectations might also foster in the child a sense of the relevance of morality to his or her self-concept (Patrick & Gibbs, 2007, 2012). Accordingly, Joscha Kartner and colleagues in their 2010 study suggested an alternative pathway (through certain sociocultural emphases) to advanced prosociality. It also discusses the roles of causal attribution, inference, principles, and other cognitive processes in the formation of empathic anger, empathy-based guilt, and other empathic affects; the limitations of empathic bias and empathic over-arousal; how parental warmth and optimal arousal of attention influence moral socialization; and the impact of parental expression of disappointed expectations in the discipline encounter. Helpful in reducing empathic intensity to a more manageable level are the development of prefrontal cortical maturity and self-regulatory processes. Particularly impressive has been the systematic, integrative work of Martin Hoffman (2000, 2008). This inspired Kurt Schneider to distinguish two sorts of depressive illness, each conforming to a Strung (disorder) in different levels of Scheler's hierarchy.
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