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Areas › Anger › Growing empathy
People who get angry often are usually sharp readers of other people. They catch the tone, the face, the walk, and can play it back exactly. Try that on someone's distress instead of their weak spots: sit the way they are sitting, let your face do a little of what theirs is doing, and see what turns up in you.
no one group of men should jeer at another, who may after all be better than them (Quran 49:11). Mockery is blocked by making you reconsider the very person you were about to dismiss.
الحجرات
يَٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُواْ لَا يَسۡخَرۡ قَوۡمࣱ مِّن قَوۡمٍ عَسَىٰٓ أَن يَكُونُواْ خَيۡرࣰ ا مِّنۡهُمۡ وَلَا نِسَآءࣱ مِّن نِّسَآءٍ عَسَىٰٓ أَن يَكُنَّ خَيۡرࣰ ا مِّنۡهُنَّۖ وَلَا تَلۡمِزُوٓاْ أَنفُسَكُمۡ وَلَا تَنَابَزُواْ بِٱلۡأَلۡقَٰبِۖ بِئۡسَ ٱلِٱسۡمُ ٱلۡفُسُوقُ بَعۡدَ ٱلۡإِيمَٰنِۚ وَمَن لَّمۡ يَتُبۡ فَأُوْلَٰٓئِكَ هُمُ ٱلظَّٰلِمُونَ
Believers, no one group of men should jeer at another, who may after all be better than them; no one group of women should jeer at another, who may after all be better than them; do not speak ill of one another; do not use offensive nicknames for one another. How bad it is to be called a mischief-maker after accepting faith! Those who do not repent of this behaviour are evildoers
Qur’an 49:11read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
In a randomised controlled trial with men in a batterer intervention programme, adding motivational strategies improved emotional decoding along with cognitive and emotional empathy. So the ability to read what another person feels can shift, in exactly the group people assume is fixed. It was one trial in one programme, and a better score on a decoding measure is not yet a changed evening at home.
Romero-Martínez Á, Lila M, Gracia E, Moya-Albiol L. (2019). Improving empathy with motivational strategies in batterer intervention programmes: Results of a randomized controlled trial.. The British journal of clinical psychology doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Copying someone's outward state is the quickest way to get a hint of their inward one.
The real feeling usually crosses someone's face for less than a second before the polite version arrives. If your attention is elsewhere, the polite version is all you will ever meet.
It is tempting to decide that a cruel person simply came without the wiring for feeling. That story is far more confident than the research allows, and it quietly excuses you from seeing them as a person.
When you are already angry, imagining your way into someone else's head asks the tired part of you to do the heavy lifting. Start with your body instead: look at their face, let your breathing and your shoulders come closer to theirs.