Social media would teach you that empathy and narcissism are a dichotomy of character. In actuality, how different are they?
by Mauve Maude
March 7, 2021
How many articles, memes, and quizzes have you seen posted on Facebook that express something to the effect of these ideas?
You might be an empath.
You over-extend yourself to others because you’re an empath.
You attract toxic personalities because you’re an empath.
The toxic personalities you attract might be narcissists.
You are an empath, and everyone you’ve ever broken up with was a narcissist.
Empaths must focus on themselves to avoid narcissists.
You might be a narcissist.
These simplified terms have been floating around the mediasphere for a few years now, so empathy and narcissism have become well-known social terms, much like introversion and extraversion before that. And they almost seem to have formed a dichotomous frame for American relationships, mostly focused on women and men in heterosexual pairings. Now, so many (women mainly) have recognized themselves in the terminology–found a name for something they’ve always felt, found their own view of themselves fitting the description–a whole industry has sprung up to help America’s empaths break free from their polar opposites (and perpetual abusers), the narcissists. But businesses can target empaths for the same reasons narcissists might. If one spent too much time, possibly too much money shopping in these aisles, one might think fifty percent of the country is fighting the other half. (Hm.)
So is that true? Is the relationship world entirely comprised of empaths and the narcissists who abuse them? Well, yes and no.
What actually is an empath?
If you want to know if you are one, you can find endless quizzes, checklists, articles, books, even seminars, consultants, and support groups . . . explaining what empaths are like, and more than likely, you’ll find some of your traits in it. So what is an empath actually?
To put it simply, an empath is a person who can feel the feelings of others. Empathy is the ability to feel in one’s self the emotional experience of another person. You might say it’s what allows human beings to truly connect with one another and live in some kind of harmony, and it’s what most people aspire to. Even if they don’t have the word for it, it’s generally believed that: the better someone gets along with others, the happier they’ll be as a person, and in turn, the more people get along with others, the better society functions. And the best way to get along is to imagine what somebody else is feeling. It’s why an adult might correct an overly aggressive child by asking them, “How would you feel if somebody did that to you?” Intentional parents, caretakers, and educators tend to try and teach children how to empathize, because an inability to empathize reduces a person’s relationship potential with, well, most other people. In fact, an inability to empathize shows up in the profile of a legitimate psychopath.
But what sets apart “an empath” from others? Don’t most of us have the ability to empathize? Can’t we all feel the emotions of others? Who doesn’t get a lump in their throat when they watch videos of soldiers coming home to their families, or cry at the climax of a moving film? Who doesn’t know that a frustrated child just needs to heard, maybe held? Actually, plenty of people don’t. And though most of us have the ability to practice empathy and learn how to behave in an empathetic manner, some of us are naturally more inclined to do so. And still some others have trouble not feeling the emotions of others; possibly, they’re not even able to distinguish their emotions from other people’s.
A deeper definition of empathy will reveal that it actually has three distinct categories: cognitive, emotional, and compassionate. These categories amount to empathy serving three different purposes. The term “empath” in particular, deals with the emotional, or affective, category. This 2017 Vice article from UK writer, Hannah Ewens, explains, as well as it can be explained, the nature of the empathic. She argues that, although all empaths are highly sensitive to the emotional energy of others, not all people with high emotional energy sensitivity are empaths (high sensitivity basically meaning above average). Further, the lack of research on emotional energy sensitivity leads high-sensitivity individuals (again, mainly women) to believe they are empaths. In 2018, Ewens followed up on her original article, after a new study showed about 1-2 percent of the population report super-empathic “abilities”, relating to a specific condition called mirror-touch synesthesia.
As Ewens points out, this highly specialized knowledge of neurological function is very little. Actually, knowledge of neurological function even in general is quite little. Scientists have so much more to learn, and emotional energy sensitivity is just beginning to be explored. But more than likely, empaths in the definitive sense of the word, make for a remarkably small percentage of the population. The rest of us have to learn, at least those of us who can. That’s the bright side. On the other hand . . .
What is a narcissist?
If you want to know if you’re a narcissist, you probably aren’t one, right? The arch-nemesis of the empath, a narcissist is something nobody wants to be characterized as (except maybe Charles Boyer). So one might worry if their behavior puts them in narcissist territory. But a narcissist wouldn’t care. So what exactly is a narcissist?
The definition of narcissism is a little more complicated, and a lot misunderstood. Narcissism started out as a psychological academic term, taking its name, of course, from the Greek myth of Narcissus, a story most associate simply with vanity. But vanity isn’t all narcissism is about. It can take many different forms, some of which are quite vulnerable, and some of which are much more sinister. Most of the material we find about narcissists on social media speak of predatory men in the dating world or “energy vampires”, constantly searching for vulnerable, empathetic people to somehow exploit as much as possible, holding them as emotional prisoners, manipulating, pulling nasty tricks like “gaslighting.” That’s not pulled from nowhere. Just as some are born with a natural tendency toward the empathetic, some are born without it. A high level of narcissistic traits can indicate that certain lack of or low propensity for empathy, and without management, it can lead to toxic relationship behaviors that tend to become patternized, becoming much harder to modify after the fact. But most of us have and use both, empathetic abilities and narcissistic traits, and some level of narcissism is actually healthy, and necessary.
Of course, nature isn’t responsible for everything. Environmental factors usually play just as much of a role in human development, creating intermingling effects on people that are practically impossible to untangle. This article by Rebecca Webber in Psychology Today explains, in-depth, what and who a narcissist actually is, why narcissism suddenly seems so pervasive, and how most people getting thrown into the narcissist box are just being given a hard time.
Psychologists in the last forty years have used the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) to decide what levels of narcissism are healthy or unhealthy, but it’s not as simple as a number on the scale. It has more to do with how individual subjects compare to their peers. Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), or pathological narcissism, is the extreme end of the narcissism continuum, and it’s diagnosed not just with an NPI score, but when it affects an individual’s ability to function in daily life. And it is rare. Like mirror-touch synesthesia, it affects about one percent of the general population.
What exactly is at the root of narcissism is still in question, but scientists have linked it recently to depression and deep insecurity. An inflated sense of self-esteem is not the issue. Depression itself has been linked to genetic roots, though there are environmental factors that can lessen its risks. In much the same way, what parents can do to try to steer children away from narcissistic traits they may have inherited, is to focus on healthy attachment styles. Children who are shown affection, interest, encouragement, and acceptance have better chances of avoiding the deep-seated insecurities that cause so many mental health issues.
So, are parents just doing a bad job?
“We’ve set up a society that encourages the narcissist as opposed to one where that kind of behavior is discouraged.”
David Ludden, Professor of Psychology
It does seem as though everybody’s coming up narcissist lately. Why are so many people being labeled as narcissists? Mainly, it’s because our society has evolved into one that’s über-competitive. Webber explains that narcissists do exist in other cultures, such as in China or Japan, where society is more communally-minded; they just manifest in different ways. They also existed in earlier generations. But earlier generations didn’t live in a society that was as hyper-media aware as we are now. We now know people are narcissistic because we hear everything from everybody. And, economically, it’s become necessary, even for people who aren’t the most driven competitors, to compete: self-branding, self-promoting, and inherently, self-aggrandizing to some level, for any success. On the flipside, industries are realizing that empathy is good for business.
So what does all this mean for relationships?
If you think about it, calling one’s self an empath can be a little bit narcissistic. And if one thinks of themselves as possibly narcissistic, at least in the sense that they may want to correct it, that indicates empathy. Really, only two or three percent of us actually qualify as narcissists or empaths. The rest of us are swinging somewhere in between, depending on emotional health, what we want, and how well we control our own behavior.
Self-awareness is probably the key. If we’re so fortunate as to survive childhood, we all arrive at the door of adulthood with some level of trauma and resilience, and we must pay attention to our own tendencies and enforce our own boundaries. Ultimately, the self is the one who has the final say on how it goes. It’s our own show. Many, perhaps most of us, spend a lot of our adulthood learning only that, and perhaps the earlier we learn it, the better.
Should women, and men, protect their sensitive emotional centers? Certainly. Should we all mind our impacts on the emotions of others? Yes. Will mistakes be made? Endlessly.
Our lives, our decisions, and our relationships ride on how well we know ourselves: what we value, what we think we deserve, what we will or won’t put up with, and how we decide to treat ourselves and others. Empathy and narcissism both have their place in us, and their time for us. The question is: how, where, and with whom, are we going to use them?
What do you think? We would like to hear from you, but you won’t find the typical Comments section here. If you have given the issue some thought or have an experience to share, please enter it here, or send your response to Maude@mauvereport.com. We would like to share viewpoints from all sides.