The Empathy section of Dan Pink’s section stood out to me, as expected. Post-discussion of Joan Halifax’s TedTalk I kinda had a feeling this section would.

Reading the section not only stood out to me but I actually had fun doing the exercise for once. I made a home made card for my big brother in my fraternity. He’s helped me a lot during pledge-ship. While at first I thought of it as childish, I later thought about the emotions I have had and truly how much he has meant to me throughout this period.

I inserted a shot of the cover, obviously my artistic skills are lacking, but that is not what matters. I truly do need to thank my big brother for all he has done. I will likely hand him the card at sometime this week, well maybe not, but I will thank him at some point this week. I will later post his reaction.

In Daniel Pink’s chapter “Empathy,” he describes empathy as
the ability to imagine yourself in someone’s position and know what they are
feeling. He starts off the chapter by describing a scene and then saying that a
sign of empathy is yawning, as contagious yawning is a primitive empathetic
mechanism. Now it may be the fact that I barely got 3 hours of sleep last
night, or maybe I’m just a really empathetic guy; but either way I yawned quite
a lot during that passage.

At the end of the chapter I decided to do the exercise entitled “Test Yourself.” The
individual exercises were somewhat short, so I picked a couple of them. First I
took the empathy test, which measured empathy based on a series of questions. A
lot of these questions had to do with the process of things, and how we thought
about different things. The score was out of 80, with the average male score
being a 30 and the average female score being a 24. As the scores get higher,
it indicates less empathy. I scored a 33 on the test, which means that I am
slightly less empathetic than the average male.

This result was actually surprising, as I consider myself an empathetic person in
most areas. But as I thought more deeply about the results I came to the
conclusion that I am very empathetic person on some issues and very not
empathetic on other issues.

For the second activity I took a second test where you are shown videos of people
smiling, and you have to determine whether their smile is genuine or not. This exercise
allows you to read facial expressions and use different clues about muscles in
the face to determine whether the smile is real. I got 16 out of the 20 faces
correct, which shows that I am fairly good at recognizing facial features and
reading people’s emotions.

Daniel Pink’s definition of empathy is very important, and after doing some of these
activities, I will be more aware of its effect on everyday life and attempt to
show more empathy towards others.

I always thought empathy was about sympathizing with people, but after reading Dan Pink I realized that empathy is so much more than that. Pink said, “Empathy isn’t sympathy- that is, feeling bad for someone else. It is feeling with someone else, sensing what it would be like to be that person.” After reading this, I realized how important empathy is. People don’t like to just have someone feeling sorry for them, they want someone to actually feel what they are going through. Through this reading, and the compassion video, I have noticed that we need leaders to be able to be empathetic. How are they supposed to get us through hard times when they cannot even feel what we are going through?

Empathy also has a lot to do with facial expressions. If you do not feel any empathy for someone, you won’t have a genuine facial expression. In psychology I learned about the same experiment Pink described in his book about Ekman’s experiment. Ekman went to many different countries to see if people could recognize the what facial expressions were being expressed in photos of Americans. Everyone guessed the same. He decided to go to New Guinea, where there would not be any Western influence, to see if the results are the same. This showed that facial expressions are universal. I was really curious to see if this would be true for me, too. I decided to to the first empathy exercise, Test Yourself. There were four links of where you could test how well you can decipher facial expressions.

The first link I went to was to see if you could tell if someone had a genuine smile or not. There were twenty faces and you got to see a video of them smiling. I went through the quiz, and it was not too bad. I got 18 out of 20 right, which isn’t too bad. The only problem is, in psychology we learned how to figure out a fake or real smile. The easiest way to figure it out is to see if the person has a crinkle on the sides of their eyes. I got to see if my psychology teacher was right, but I did not get to see if Ekman’s experiment really worked for me. Since I kind of cheated, I decided to try the next link.

The next link was 36 pictures of eyes and you had to determine what facial expression they had from a list of given expressions. I had absolutely no help from psychology on this one. I was on my own trying to figure out how in the world I could possibly figure out if someone was amused or joking from just a pair of eyes. I honestly thought it was a little difficult.  The average score people get on this is from 22-30. If you are awful at decoding facial expressions you get a score of less than 22, and if you are great at it, a score of over 30. I was really shocked to find out my score was 32. I did not realize how much eyes can give away a person’s facial expression, and I am really glad that I can actually do it.

Dan Pink’s section on empathy made me realize how I should try to be less symapthetic and try to put myself in other people’s shoes. I also know how to make my facial expressions show that I am really genuine when I am feeling empathetic for someone, and that I am not putting on a fake smile. I know now that when someone does not seem genuine to me, they most likely are not. Being empathetic and genuine are things people should learn to be, so that we can all understand the problems we all have to deal with.

 

photo from clip art

“You’re never fully dressed without a smile!” Cute little redheaded Annie told us this important lesson at a young age. No matter what you are feeling, put a smile on! She does not seem to care that this smile could be genuine or fake. As adults in the real world, should we worry about the fact that our friends, family, and society may be wearing a false front everyday? I say yes!

 

I performed the spot the fake smile test in which you watch 10 second clips of 20 different people smiling. I correctly identified 14 out of 20 smiles, which is way above the average ability. Most people do not know how to decipher the difference between a real smile and a fake smile because they simply focus on whether they see a display of pearly whites and curled up lips in front of them. The test asked which part of the face shows if the smile is genuine or not and I correctly identified this as the eyes. I will admit, I learned this from watching countless seasons of America’s Next Top Model. Tyra taught me well!

 

I decided to test myself and took one photo of me ‘fake’ smiling and one photo of me genuinely smiling. In order to get a true emotion I thought about a funny and happy memory to get my eyes as well as mouth in the correct form. My results were consistent with the scientific findings of the differences in real and fake smiles.

 

In my fake smile, my eyes are open and do not contract. This is because the brain willingly contracts the mouth muscles because it has been taught to associate ‘open and curled mouth’ with smiling.

 

In my genuine smile, my eyes are far more intense, contracted, and have that happy ‘sparkle’ to them.  At least I like to think so! Scientists use the eye contractions as the true way to measure a real smile because these muscle movements are less voluntary and occur with the sudden emotion that evokes a smile.

 

I found this exercise important because it worries me that many people put on fake smiles that others cannot always recognize as ‘covers.’ If someone is not feeling well, they should not continuously put up a false front and pretend like everything is just peachy. It is ok to feel sad, anxious, or stressed at times. It is also ok to share these less than sunny emotions with someone else. Usually people tend to feel better once they open up to another individual. This relates to Dan Pink’s empathy evaluation. Empathy is good for society because people are comforted when they receive empathy from others and in return, the giver feels satisfied by being able to connect and soothe another person.

 

While fake smiles are good for photos and making a good impression, I feel that people should not hide their true emotions to close family and friends. When emotions are bottled up, extreme and usually negative consequences can occur. So to Annie, I say you can be fully dressed without a smile, but you may need to phone a friend to help you ‘zip-up.’

 

Images courtesy of Glossop Operatic and Dramatic Society and Christine Proctor

I decided to test myself to see how good I am at finding “fake smiles” with the BBC test. 14 out of 20 correctly spotted. Not bad, but it still shows the difficulties people have in detecting fake smiles. Out of the six smiles I was unable to correctly identify, three of them were actually genuine while three of them were fake. So its not as if I’m more confused by fakes than by genuine smiles, it seems I am equally confused by both types.

The next test I took was the “Mind in the Eyes Test”, which showed different pictures of peoples eyes (and just their eyes) and asked me to choose between four choices of the possible mood the person was in. Out of thirty six questions, I got twenty eight correct. With an average range from twenty two to thirty, I feel as if I am able to judge emotions only from the eyes well enough, however I am not out of the ordinary in this. This seems like an odd test for empathy as looking at ones eyes and recognizing what they are feeling seems easier for someone who is more observant rather than just more empathetic.

One final test to round out the group was the “Empathy Quotient”. After answering several questions, I was given a score from 0 to 80. My score? 28. The normal score for any male? 42. Well, what am I to say to this? That I lack empathy? It’s entirely possible if empathy is being defined by sixty simple questions. It’s entirely possible that I am not empathetical in the same ways as people. It’s difficult to say though, as this is the only “empathy” test I have ever taken in my life. It does not seem very promising sadly.

 

Hello once again my fellow kitchen-mates.  I will be your chef today, and now let’s see what kind of cookies we have baking:

 

After reading the chapter ‘Empathy’, I once again, felt nothing towards the subject. I found it a little more uninteresting than previous chapters, which of course meant that the exercise I was to perform was not a thrilling one.  Reading this chapter might have been bland because I can already relate to people in my own way, so reading a new way just kind of seemed unnecessary. Although I do have to agree, relating to people is necessary in both business and social incidences. It is important socially because it helps you listen to people and understand how they feel, and when you understand how they feel, you can often see a clear way to help that person. It is important in business because it helps you get in touch with how they customer is feeling, and then you can ask yourself questions like: “Why would I use this product?” “How does it help my situation?” “What would I prefer instead?”

 

The exercise I chose to talk about is the one where you make someone a card instead of buying one. I didn’t actually perform this exercise, but I have done it in the past several times.Making personal cards affects me in two ways.

 

First, it brings out my creative side once again. I am not satisfied by simply writing a phrase and signing my name. I usually write a funny little anecdote and illustrate a picture to go along with it.

 

Second, it has always made my mother very happy to receive a hand-made card rather than a store-bought card, and that also makes me happy.

 

Well readers, that’s all the cookies we had baking in the oven tonight. Stay tuned.

 

 

My parents got married on October 4th, 1987. Next year, it will be my parents’ 25th wedding anniversary. It is also called the silver anniversary. The silver 25th anniversary is a milestone wedding anniversary. And rightly so! Spending a quarter of a century in love with one person is to be celebrated.

I appreciate their sacrifice in time and work to make me a good person and I would like to design a card to show my appreciation. I love them and I hope I can go back to celebrate with them by doing something for them such as cooking them a dinner and singing a song for them. I with they happy all the time.

background pic from

http://cache.aries.sina.com.cn/nd/allvic/201006civic/07/f7/20100721232325_67811.jpg

I read over the different exercises that Daniel Pink recommended that we partake in in order to fully grasp the concept of empathy in our everyday lives. After considering a few options, I felt the most compelled to blog about “Volunteer.” Now I didn’t necessarily volunteer today or yesterday since the assignment was posted; however, I would like to reflect on a past memory that I decided to take on along with a few other of my friends.

It was summer time in my junior year of high school and me and a few friends had nothing to do. At the time I was actively involved with church and a couple of trips downtown to feed the homeless. I always wondered why we had to go with church officials? Why can’t I just go by myself with a group of friends and do the same work? So I did, and I asked friends to join and they thought it was a great idea. We each pitched in around 5 dollars which accumulated into 60 value meal burgers at McDonalds and 48 bottles of Deer Park water. This was all great and we were doing a great deed because we sympathized with these people who were less fortunate than us; however, Daniel Pink states the the difference between sympathy and empathy is that when you sympathize, you hurt for the individual, but when you empathize you hurt with the individual.

The giving out food end of the trip was the sympathy. This next story I’m about to tell you was empathy. I decided to set myself apart from the group to look around hurt park, which is right next to GA State. As I walked for probably only around a minute, I saw at least ten people with stories on their faces. Suddenly I had this tug on my heart to speak to one of them. It started off with simple conversation and for those who may not know, homeless people are not such a threat. Well some are, but most are very friendly and are just looking for a person to tell their story to. I was the lucky individual who got to hear how one man arrived to be the person he is today. His name was Kenny and he talked about how his family struggled ever since the recession wrecked America and ever since he’s been roaming the streets all across the southeastern United States.

Suddenly, this old man with dark brown freckles on his face transformed into this little boy as I saw tears trickle down his cheek. At that moment, I felt this enormous pull on my heart that told me to continue to reach out to these people and feed them for at least one day of their lives. I actually made a video of our trip in order to promote more trips downtown to feed the homeless and the numbers grew. If you guys want to you can add me on Facebook and my video is posted up there.

After reading the chapter Empathy, I decided to study Paul Ekman.  I went to his website. (www.paulekman.com) First, I briefly read his biography, then I moved on the training section.  Sadly, I had to purchase a training program to learn how to detect the facial expressions, so I just moved on.  I looked through his current projects.  There were some interesting projects like studying body languages of different countries in the world and making emotional profiles.  Then, I read some of his news articles and watched some videos, but they weren’t really interesting to me.  I found out that the TV show “Lie to me” is based on the true stories of Paul Ekman.

As a result of spending some time studying Paul Ekman, I learned that there are people who are really passionate about their field for more than 50 years.  He spent more than half of his lifetime studying facial expressions and detecting lies.  I can never imagine myself doing the same thing for over 20 years, but he did it.  I think he’s a really great scientist and human being because he’s so passionate about what he’s doing.

http://www.google.com/imgres?num=10&hl=en&biw=1366&bih=653&tbm=isch&tbnid=rT3gCsvNmYAeeM:&imgrefurl=http://www.hulu.com/lie-to-me&docid=AzOvyZ8vLzod7M&imgurl=http://assets.huluim.com/shows/key_art_lie_to_me.jpg&w=900&h=350&ei=xX25TpT5JeW22gXtlOWpCw&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=139&vpy=146&dur=100&hovh=140&hovw=360&tx=227&ty=96&sig=115085359848834604841&sqi=2&page=1&tbnh=77&tbnw=198&start=0&ndsp=18&ved=1t:429,r:12,s:0

Empathy is feeling with someone else.  As I read the introduction of the chapter in A Whole New Mind, I continuously found myself yawning, not because I was bored or tired, but because the author frequently mentioned the act of yawning.  ”Contagious yawning is likely a primitive empathic mechanism,” says Steven Platek, a cognitive neuroscientist.  Platek’s “research found that contagious yawners score high on various tests that measure levels of empathy” (Pink, 2005).  I found this interesting.  I consider myself a contagious yawner but not a very empathetic individual, so for my Empathy activity, I decided to complete Simon Baron-Cohen’s Empathy Quotient test.  I received a score of 40, considered “average” (females scoring about 47 and males scoring about 42).  My score was slightly below that of both men and women.  I wasn’t surprised by my score.  I can easily place myself in other people’s shoes and listen to their problems, but I never know what to do to help.  Also, many people may consider me to be inconsiderate or detached, due to my predisposition to speak before thinking and lack of certain social skills.  I think my score reflects my inability to “help” or “console” others and my independent personality.  I rarely go to others to discuss emotions, therefore, I do not know the actions to take when someone approaches me, except to just listen.

Another activity suggested in the Empathy Portfolio is the “Spot the Fake Smile” question test on BBC. I took the test a year ago and received a 100% on detecting fake smiles.  Further supporting my reasons for my EQ score.

I couldn’t apply many of the empathy concepts to careers not involved in healthcare and law, compared to the other concepts discussed in the book.  However, I found it important that empathy is a factor in many of the other concepts, such as story and symphony, that can be applied across various fields.  Empathy is required to connect to your audience or your consumers.  Understanding what they are feeling can assist in the development of new products and the treatment of patients.

Want to know how empathetic you are?  You can take the Empathy Quotient Test at the link below. Try and see what you get!

http://glennrowe.net/BaronCohen/EmpathyQuotient/EmpathyQuotient.aspx