The secret of empathy: Stress from the presence of strangers prevents empathy, in both
mice and humans
Date: January 15, 2015
Source: McGill University
Category: social psychology
Empathy is the ability to each other people’s emotions, understand what they feel, and
imagine oneself in that place. In this article, researchers were trying to find out if stress
diminishes the ability to empathize with humans and mice. Most people can feel empathy for a
friend experiencing either physical or emotional pain. However, it can be difficult when it comes
to a stranger. Mogil, a neuroscientist at McGill University, studied if lower stress is the secret to
finding empathy in humans and mice.
Previous research demonstrated that mice and people could feel another person's pain,
especially if they know the person. These experiments also demonstrated that being around a
stranger increases stress levels in both mice and humans. To look for a connection between stress
and empathy, Mogil and his team used a stress-hormone blocker called metyrapone on humans
and male mice to see how they respond to pain in others.
In the case of mice, they started responding to strangers in a way that was often reserved
for familiar cagemates, which led researchers to conclude that the medication promoted greater
empathy. In additional studies, the researchers discovered that when they put mice under stress
the mice exhibited less empathy for their suffering peers. In order to assess undergraduate
students' empathy, the researchers paired them with either a friend or a stranger and asked them
to rate the pain of holding a hand in icy water for 30 seconds. When tested alone, the students
ranked the pain about midway on the scale. These pain results stayed the same whether they felt
the pain alone or sitting across from a stranger. When these students submerged their arms in ice
water next to a friend, the pain increased. But the students taking metyrapone displayed a greater
capacity for empathy towards strangers. Participants who used the medicine reported feeling
more pain, as well as having more painful facial expressions, and touching their own hands more
frequently while seeing someone else in distress.
This does not imply that Mogil would advise someone seeking to develop greater
empathy to take a medication. There is a simpler method. According to the researchers, playing a
game of Rock Band served as a straightforward psychosocial contact that increased empathy
toward others just as effectively as medications. Participants were allowed to play Rock Band
with a stranger. After 15 minutes of playing, these strangers showed empathy to one another
from the pain to ice water. The researchers claim that the findings are the first to point to a
critical function for the stress axis in the brain and endocrine system in regulating our response to
other individuals. Additionally, they claim that social behaviors between mice and people are
surprisingly identical.
According to the study, people's natural tendency is to be sympathetic toward others, but
stress prevents them from feeling their suffering. The results also highlight how deeply ingrained
the fear of risk from strangers is in both mice and people. This research allowed us to better
understand how “social stress” can be reduced and foster a deep level of empathy among people.
A simple shared activity like playing a video game together can help people transition from the
"stranger zone" to the "friend zone". This study shows how fundamental social stress-reduction
techniques could help us go from a deficit to a surplus of empathy. The findings may help people
bond with strangers in the workplace, school, etc thereby developing connections. We only tend
to feel empathy around our own people, friends, or families. But if we can reduce our stress
around unknown people, we can get to know them better and increase our interpersonal empathy.
Then the stress of not knowing a stranger would not block our natural capacity for empathy. This
can also help relationships where one is unconsciously seeing their partner as a stranger,
therefore lacking empathy towards them.
References:
McGill University. "The secret of empathy: Stress from the presence of strangers prevents
empathy, in both mice and humans." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 15 January 2015.
<www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/01/150115122005.htm>.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/01/150115122005.htm