Today's College Kids Lack Empathy

Would anyone care to explain to me why people who always claim this sort of thing are also usually the first to say mean things about their neighbors or just be outright rude? If empathy was a thing of the past why are so many in their 50s+ just plain selfish and mean? - usually in equal numbers to those in their 20s and 30s.

I'd also like someone to clearly define what empathy truly is. Don't mix it up with sympathy, which is what most people mistake for it.

Really? It sounds like exactly the opposite of what you've been telling me. A lack of empathy isn't "me, me, me". A lack of empathy is "well, what ABOUT you? Get a second job, lock your kids in a closet during the day and buy your OWN health insurance!!!!"

I would think you'd appreciate that in the new generation.

Interesting. I didn't graduate high school until 2000, so I would technically fall into the "less empathetic" category. However, I find that at times I'm TOO empathetic and sensitive to those around me.

But I do recall being odd for my empathy compared to others around me. I also find it frustrating when my DH just doesn't GET it.

Overall, I find generational studies to be interesting, intriguing even, but I wonder if social media and easier access to those being studied are skewing the results.

Think about it...in the 70s, the Internet was still in its infancy and only our government had access to it. I believe it wasn't until the 80s that universities started using it for research. It wasn't really until the 90s that the majority of college students had Internet access, and even later than that, that most of them came from homes that had Internet.

But maybe I'm just crazy.

That's still sympathy.

True empathy is better described in such situations as say a sports game where all the people get caught up in the mood and yell and cheer along loudly when in normal everyday life they wouldn't behave that way.
Riots are another example of this. Where people get caught up and then commit violent acts along with the rest of the mob when in everyday life they would never harm anyone or thing.

Situations where a friend's family member dies and you feel sad along with your friend is not empathy. That's sympathy because most people have lost a loved one and because you care about the friend.


I honestly don't believe there has been a change related to generation. Look at all of those controlling the big corporations, the banks. I can guarantee those aren't college kids. Do you think they have any feelings at all for the lives they ruin?

Instead what was reflected in the study likely has more to do with stress and "burn out". Put a heavy work load of school, and many juggling a job along with it, and you get people that during those times of stress can become more emotionally blunted. It happens along all age groups. The other part of is simply that people emotionally mature as they age (usually, some never do) through life experience - again, that's how it's always been.


As someone who has little to no empathy (I don't get caught up in the above mentioned situations, nor has peer pressure ever had the slightest affect on me, your mood won't affect mine) and is less emotional than most people - I can tell you there's a huge gap between myself and my peers, and of those younger in college age.

And to blame the internet would be to completely discredit all of the threads on here where people provide support and condolences. Unless everyone is going to admit they felt absolutely nothing and were just faking it?

*sarcasm* Yes, that's exactly what I said. *end sarcasm*

I was only trying to draw a correlation between the ease of gathering information today, vs. decades ago. I wasn't saying that the Internet was evil and sucked empathy from people. I apologize if that point was lost.

And I always felt empathy wasn't merely feeling sad for a friend who lost a loved one, but for being the type of person who could cry with a stranger who is clearly upset.

If I see someone upset or highly emotional, it affects me. I try to control it for the most part, but it does clearly impact me. I was always in trouble with my parents as a child because I would walk up to strangers who were crying and ask them was what wrong, tears in my eyes.

So yeah, I sympathize, but I also empathize.

My post wasn't even in response to your's, I only barely skimmed your post and paid no attention to it. My response was to ckblv copying of a definition - not her own words, and to the article itself. She didn't make a post containing anything worth quoting, thus I didn't quote it.

IMO, mob behavior is not empathy. It may start as empathy (vicariously experiencing another's emotions) but it gets out of control which is way past empathy. It may be the EXTREME of empathy, but not the commonly accepted definition. Empathy is being about to understand the feelings of others, and can be separate from sympathy where you try to help in anyway you can.

For example, I can truly understand why a woman would be upset and call into work to get money out of her retirement account to bail her daughter out of jail. I don't know the circumstances behind it, but I can tell she is upset and feels like her world is coming down around her. I don't really sympathize because I have no experience with this to relate it to, but I do empathize with her because she is upset. That, I think, is the type of empathy they are talking about in the survey.

I do agree with Emeraldsky in that maybe the surveys done that long again may not get the same results as today because of technological advances and easier access to an audience that wants to answer the questions and is more informed.

I agree and I too am in my 20s and I find myself overly empathetic. Sometimes I've even fainted due to too much empathy.

And yea it's important to realize that empathy has nothing to do with how willing you are to help others; that is sympathy, empathy is only whether or not you feel what they feel.
Though I don't completely agree that mob mentality is empathy either, a good example of empathy to me is, if I see someone get stabbed in the knee, I feel pain in my knee as if I'm being stabbed also..these are times when I usually faint and black out btw- If I see someone who is getting hurt really badly. And it has nothing to do with being squeamish about blood, it's all about feeling the pain that the other person is feeling and it being too much for my conscious mind to handle so I pass out.

Another example is if I see someone who is visibly really upset, like if someone is crying, even not knowing anything about why the person is upset- I start to shake and worry and feel really, really uneasy and lightheaded.

Sorry, my response was really in response to your last paragraph, and seeing as I believe I was the only one to mention the Internet, I took that to mean you were responding to me.

I apologize if that wasn't the case, and apologize for being in too much of a hurry to correctly quote just that tidbit.

Oh, and for the sarcasm part too. I blame my husband.

Would you feel the exact same stress she feels and her depression?

utopia's comparison is a little closer. But her anxiety issues probably play a part into this and make her hyper responsive. Sorry utopia, your over sensitive vasovagal response isn't that common.


Honestly, I had nearly the whole post formulated shortly after making the first one in this thread because I knew what the response to asking one to define empathy would be. I checked back over the article and read discussions on it elsewhere - thus mention of internet. (I didn't have a computer or internet until 10 years ago, btw. Not all of the younger gen. have families that can afford them, even now.)


I do suggest people study up on theory or mind, empathy disorders, and what empathy is defined as in psychology. Maybe some will find it interesting. And yes, mob mentality is an extreme example but one that most people have seen examples of. No one commented on what happens at sports games, though, I noticed.

While I don't really empathize with people, I can completely with animals. I'm also not selfish - that really has little to do with empathy for a lot of people.

I wonder if today's younger generation is just a tad bit more honest about their feelings than the previous ones. Society has come a long way towards "getting in touch with their true feelings" since I was young. I was raised in a generation that was trained to repress their true feelings.

Ok, by your definition empathy, if you see an animal that is starving...are you then feeling the hunger pangs? Are you weak and can barely move? Do you lay down and start crying for food?

thanks I always thought it's most likely linked with my anxiety...

calico222
I am not sure why but I don't see myself empathizing with a hungry person. I can feel sympathy for them but not empathy. Maybe it's because hunger is not exactly an emotion...
But then again pain is not exactly an emotion either, it's a sense just like hunger. I guess now that I think of it it's not really the pain that is transmitted through empathy but the fear of pain that comes with being stabbed in my example....

I found this article in ncbi in the journal Science
"Empathy for pain involves the affective but not the sensory components of pain"
and this is what the abstract says
I dont' have access to the full article but I think the last 2 sentences summarize in short what they conclude in the article...Lol, sorry I just found this a little too interesting..I wish I could read the full article.

I have heard some say that we have raised probably the most useless generation in our country's history. Many youth today would not even be any good for canon fodder, should we have a serious war.

That may be a little harsh, and certainly would apply only as a generalization, because I know some great kids. Maybe it's always been this way.

As a member of that generation I think it's a case of having been fed too much self-esteem training without having been taught much in the way of solid skills to back it up. Give us some time to learn something useful and un-learn this stupid sense of greatness-entitlement and then maybe we'll make something of ourselves; it is going to take longer for us to turn into real adults than it's taken other generations, though. The recession's not helping either because with all the downsizing above us in the employment food chain, even the start-at-the-bottom jobs where we're supposed to get the shiny knocked off us and learn we aren't hot stuff after all aren't hiring us...which leads to a lot of living at home, living off parents, going back to the same schools that taught us we would be automagically supersuccessful in the first place, and whining about how it's nooooooooot faaaaaaaaair.

Just give us time; we should eventually be able to upgrade ourselves to cannon fodder.

No, those are definitely not empathy. Your sports example is team spirit, or being caught up in the moment; riots are an example of mob mentality. Neither have anything at all to do with empathy.

Empathy is genuinely feeling someone else's emotions in your own heart.

Your first example is indeed empathy if we really feel the friend's sadness deep down, like we are experiencing it ourselves. We express sympathy when we understand that a friend is going through a difficult time, and we are supportive and act appropriately.


Just as someone who admits to having never loved would have a difficult time defining feelings of love.


Empathy is developed during the elementary school years. People with no empathy have a common background of extreme sadness or violence in the home during childhood years. The emotions are sometimes too much for the child and he or she "turns off" the developing empathy - it is a conscious choice, as is keeping the empathy switch off for good. (Of course, not every child with a sad or violent childhood turns off the empathy.)

Empathy can be taught to older children and some adults, but there is question if it's true empathy or more behavioral training, because they learn that people like people with empathy and people liking you makes life more pleasant. It is a sad fact that people without any empathy are unable to give or accept love. In fact, people without empathy think everyone else is faking it like they are, and they often mimic actions of those around them so their behavior seems like everyone else's.




As for the survey, it is flawed, as was the one before it. To capture a real picture of youth and proclaim them to be a certain way they cannot focus only on university students.

^I agree with you that it's a poor survey.

As for forming during elementary years, in my case I have found out that at that age they were telling my parents they strongly suspected a developmental disorder and to get me evaluated. (too unbalanced of skills, such as reading by age 3) There was no money to do that so it never happened.


I'm still curious if anyone has read up on theory of mind, yet.

Theory of Mind is understanding our own or someone else's mental state or "where they're coming from." Empathy includes ToM but goes beyond it to where we feel another's emotions; it feels as if the event that caused the emotions actually happened to us.

When lack of empathy is suspected in a child or adult, it is most often because that person is cruel or hurtful to other living things without remorse, without compassion, and with the belief that others are objects with no feelings.

Lack of empathy has nothing at all to do with learning successes or disabilities... it's a personality disorder... and it's pretty scary stuff.

^ Autism spectrum disorders cause a person to lack or have decreased ToM and empathy.

Lack or decreased empathy doesn't mean one is cruel, either. You're simply stuck in your own head on things.