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Stress is a contagious disease that can be spread not only by real-life individuals, but also by characters such as Matthew McConaughey crying in a movie or Leland Palmer’s obsession with Bob. Empathy stress, where we can experience full-blown stress just by witnessing it in others, can only be overcome through extreme measures.
Watch and weep
Researchers from the Max Planck Institute and the Technical University of Dresden, interested in this phenomenon, began to conduct experiments on people. They invited 362 people aged 18-35, including both established couples and complete strangers. All of them were divided into two groups: one was the victim who was subjected to stress, and the other was the observer.
According to the experiment requirements, those who were already familiar should have been in a relationship for at least six months. Complete strangers were strictly forbidden to interact before the experiment.
After all the preparations, the researchers began to torment the victims with the Trier social stress test.
Scientists who have decided to thoroughly rattle the nerves of their subjects use this 15-minute test. The test subject is introduced into a room where a three-person jury is sitting. During the first 5 minutes, they ask the subject to prepare for an interview presentation. Then they interview the subject for 5 minutes and then force them to solve mathematical problems for the remaining 5 minutes. Cynical experimenters take away the paper and pen from the subjects immediately before the second stage. The entire process is recorded on camera and on a dictaphone.
While the victims were being prepared for the test, their partners—the observers—were told that they themselves would not be subjected to anything similar to the Trier test so as not to anticipate and distort their physiological reactions. During the study, partners observed their victims’ adventures either through a one-way mirror or on a live screen. Meanwhile, researchers measured the level of cortisol and alpha-amylase in the saliva of the observers, as well as their heart rate.
On average, 26% of observers had a significantly increased level of cortisol after viewing an improvised interview. Of course, in the case of close relationships and live observation through a mirror, this figure increased. In familiar pairs, 40% of subjects who watched the testing process experienced it, while in unfamiliar ones, this figure was only 10%. Those who watched the lynching through the glass experienced stress in 30% of cases. When observing live, the figure dropped to 24%.
Empathetic women, insensitive men
Whether you caught stress or put yourself in it, in turn, it will affect the mechanisms of empathy. Scientists from Austria, Germany, and Italy, for example, found that the level of empathy in men drops catastrophically during stress, while women become as empathetic as ever.
Researchers arranged a public version of the Triere stress test for 40 women and 40 men: they had to perform in public and solve arithmetic tasks in their heads. Once they were sure that everyone was stressed out, the scientists started measuring the subjects’ empathy levels. To do this, they asked the subjects to reproduce hand movements by repeating them after a person on the screen, to recognize other people’s emotions and to move objects on the shelf in accordance with the instructions of the person looking at the shelf from a completely different position.
The scientists’ hypothesis was as follows: all people without exception become more egocentric when stressed in order to protect themselves from additional emotional stress. However, women said a resounding “no” to the logical assumption and began to empathize left and right. Scientists, who did not expect such a setback, speculated that the increased production of oxytocin in women under stress was the cause.
A Groove in the Guardian of Empathy
Experiencing because of something that happened to someone else makes our brains, as usual, work. More precisely, it is the right temporal sulcus in the temporal lobe of the brain that is responsible. This is what George Silani from the Italian International School of Advanced Research (SISSA Institute) and his colleagues claim. Without this sulcus, we would all be egocentric and indifferent, but like a smartphone auto-correction, it intervenes in our carefree human nature and makes us worry and frown about things that don’t concern us at all.”
Whether it’s children – complete egotists who don’t take into account other people’s emotions.
The thing is, they are simply incapable of empathy due to the underdeveloped right superior gyrus, researchers from the Institute of Human Cognitive Science and Brain Science of Max Planck Society believe. To prove this, they sat down children aged 6-13 and adults for paired computer games, in which only one could win, and after the game was over, they asked the winners to assess the emotional state of the opponents. Children who showed an absolute inability to understand what the loser was feeling had very low activity in the right superior gyrus, based on which the researchers concluded that the key to understanding children’s egocentrism lies in its work.
These carefree psychopaths
Definitely not threatened by emotional stress are the psychopaths. American researchers found this out by scanning the brains of 121 Z-psychopaths with varying degrees of disturbance. They showed them pictures of bodily injuries and asked them to imagine that they had a leg amputated or that someone else had a hole in their stomach.
When they were asked to imagine that it hurt them, the parts of the brain involved in empathy for pain acted lively: they increased activity and made it clear to the researchers that the psychopaths were afraid of pain. However, as soon as they switched their thoughts and attention to the pain of others, the brains calmed down and pretended they had nothing to do with it.”
And in some cases, they even demonstrated activity in the zone participating in pleasure.
If you’re not a psycho but want to avoid empathetic stress, there’s another sure way to get rid of the power of cunning overhangs. Start making important decisions in the face of a severe time shortage. As the abode of absolute virtue requires, in the case of such mental efforts, the overhang begins to give up its positions, and now you don’t sympathize with anyone and you wanted to spit at someone’s stress. The main thing is not to stop, quickly make decisions, come on!
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