From Empathy to the Aggression–Compassion Continuum

*Neil E. Grunberg and Erin S. Barry*

### **Abstract**

Empathy is relevant to but not sufficient to fully understand relationships. Recent research has proposed that empathy is part of a continuum—from pity to sympathy to empathy to compassion—and that compassion is the key to building good relationships because it includes actions. We offer an extension of this concept to include neutrality (apathy) and add four constructs of opposition—from antipathy to animosity to hostility to aggression. We describe all nine constructs with regard to cognitive, emotional, and behavioral support or opposition. Further, we propose that it is useful to consider these constructs in terms of character, competence, context, and communication at four psychosocial levels—personal, interpersonal, team, and organizational. We believe that relationships can be best addressed with these concepts in mind and that application of the support versus oppose poles of the aggression-compassion continuum are not equivalent to good and bad.

**Keywords:** compassion, empathy, sympathy, pity, apathy, antipathy, animosity, hostility, aggression

### **1. Introduction**

Over the past millennium, countless individuals have offered some version of the concept that actions are particularly important to human relationships. In the 1200s, Francisican friar Anthony of Padua is attributed with saying, "… let your words teach and your actions speak." In 1628, John Pym said, "… actions are more precious than words." In 1693, Thomas Manton wrote, "… Work and Scope … speak much louder than Words." In 1856, Abraham Lincoln said, "'Actions speak louder than words' is the maxim." Or, in modern vernacular, "Don't just talk the talk; walk the walk [1]." Yet, what we do depends on what we think and feel. Therefore, it is important to understand how thinking, feeling, and behaving relate to each other.

Psychology involves cognitions, motivations/emotions, and behaviors. Cognitions are what we perceive, think, and believe. Motivations/emotions are how we feel and underlie why we think and act as we do. Behaviors are actions that we take, for and against ourselves and others. What we think matters; what we feel matters; what we say matters; but what we actually do probably matters most, especially with regard to treatment and relationships with others.

During the twentieth century and continuing to this day, empathy has received interest and attention from counselors, educators, life coaches, spiritual leaders, political leaders, scholars, and researchers in the social sciences and neurosciences because of its relevance to all aspects of life and interactions with others. The fact that empathy is the subject of this volume exemplifies the breadth and depth of interest is this psychosocial concept.

Recently, the question has been raised whether empathy *per se* is sufficient to understand and to help improve relationships and the human condition or, instead, that actions must flow from feelings to truly matter. Hougaard and colleagues [2, 3] have proposed that empathy alone is necessary but not sufficient to optimize relationships; instead, compassion that includes actions is necessary to build better relationships. These authors further propose that empathy lies along a continuum of feeling and acting with regard to others, ranging from pity to sympathy to empathy to compassion. We agree that distinguishing among these concepts and how they relate to each other is valuable, but we believe that these concepts are a subset of a broader psychosocial continuum that ranges from aggression to compassion. In addition, we suggest that understanding the psychological constructs which exist along this broader continuum also requires consideration of four elements of each of us at four psychosocial levels [4–7]. This chapter addresses these topics.

This chapter begins with a discussion of the scholarly origins of empathy because of the substantial attention already given to this particular concept and because empathy is the focus of this volume. That discussion introduces the importance of actions beyond thoughts and feelings. Next, we present nine different psychological constructs along an aggression-compassion continuum that includes two dimensions. Each construct is defined and briefly explained. Then, we present four biopsychosocial aspects of people—character, competence, context, communication—and four psychosocial levels—personal, interpersonal, team, organizational. We relate these eight elements to the constructs of the Aggression-Compassion Continuum. Finally, we discuss how the constructs that appear on the Aggression-Compassion Continuum are distinguished from good and bad cognitions, emotions, and behaviors.

### **2. Scholarly origins of "empathy"**

*Empathy* refers to cognitive and emotional responses aligned with others' thoughts and feelings. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, empathy is "understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner [8]."

Interestingly, in 1871 Charles Darwin described how humans and animals come to help others. Darwin's discussion of what he called "sympathy" included concern and actions that are more similar to what we now refer to as "empathy" and "compassion [9]." This focus on concern and actions for the welfare of others complemented Darwin's notions of competition and survival of the fittest [10].

Consistent with Darwin's Theory of Continuity of Species, primatologist Frans de Waal has noted that apes and other infrahuman species also demonstrate behaviors that involve caring for others and, perhaps**,** feeling the emotions of others [11]. Shortly after Darwin's [9] discussion about humans and animals helping others, the German concept of "Einfühlung"—or "feeling into"—was introduced by Robert Vischer in 1873 to explain relations of people to others and to artwork [12]. This

*From Empathy to the Aggression–Compassion Continuum DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.106516*

particular application of "feeling into" to understand other people as well as reactions to artwork was further discussed by Theodor Lipps [13, 14] (cf. Curtis and Elliott [15] for a historical overview). Edward Titchener [16] and James Ward (cf. Lanzoni [17]) translated this concept with the English word "empathy [12]."

In the twentieth century, empathy has been addressed in more detail by authors, scholars, and scientists with a wide range of interests and expertise. The study and analysis of empathy and how it relates to other psychological constructs, such as sympathy and compassion, is ongoing among psychologists and neuroscientists.

For example, author and motivational speaker Brené Brown has offered that empathy involves four qualities that distinguish it from sympathy [18–21]:


Other researchers have differentiated between "emotional or affective empathy" and "cognitive empathy," where "affective empathy" involves sensations and feelings in response to others' emotions and "cognitive empathy" involves identification and understanding of others' emotions [22, 23].

Emotional empathy consists of three separate components, according to Hodges and Myers:


Cognitive empathy (or empathic accuracy) refers to how well we can perceive and understand the emotions of another [23, 24].

Psychologists Daniel Goleman and Paul Ekman have identified three components of empathy, that include cognitive and emotional (or affective) and adding "compassionate empathy"— a prelude to Hougaard and Carter's distinction between empathy and compassion [22]. With regard to these three components of empathy [11, 22, 25]:


Denworth [26] has suggested that empathetic concern is "compassion" and includes motivation to help; i.e., to take action. Neuroscientists also are studying empathy and compassion and are seeking to identify neural circuits and specific regions of the brain that are involved in and that distinguish between these constructs [27, 28]. Empathy requires the involvement of neural networks that underlie perception of others' emotions, ability to connect with them emotionally and cognitively, and ability to distinguish between our own and others' emotions [29].

Social neuroscientists have offered two theories of empathy: (a) Simulation Theory and (b) Theory of the Mind. Simulation Theory proposes that empathy occurs because when we see another person experiencing an emotion, we simulate that to know what it feels like. It has been suggested that this phenomenon involves "mirror neurons" that are activated when we observe and experience emotion and that the medial prefrontal cortex is primarily involved. Theory of Mind proposes that we use thought processes to explain the mental state of others. In addition, context and situation affect which of these empathetic responses occur [23, 28, 30].

With regard to compassion, Gilbert [31] has suggested that compassion arose from the evolutionary advantage of caring for others, especially offspring, kin, and in-group allies. Rasmus Hougaard [32] has proposed that compassion is better for humanity than empathy for four reasons:


He also argues that: compassion can be developed; we should have more selfcompassion; and that we should practice compassion daily [32].

Neff has emphasized the importance of self-compassion as well as compassion for other people [33–35]. Hougaard and colleagues [2, 3] went even further and proposed that empathy alone is not sufficient to optimize relationships. Instead, these authors emphasized that compassion is necessary to influence relationships because compassion includes actions. These authors offered a pictorial representation of a continuum of feeling and acting with regard to others, ranging from pity to sympathy to empathy to compassion. We believe that this representation is important and relevant to consider in building relationships, but that it is only part of a broader continuum and additional, related concepts.

### **3. The aggression-compassion continuum**

**Figure 1** depicts nine constructs that we believe are relevant to human relations and well-being (including self, dyads, teams, and organizations): Aggression, Hostility, Animosity, Antipathy, Apathy, Pity, Sympathy, Empathy, Compassion. The four constructs that appear in the upper right quadrant and in the manner presented in **Figure 1** are based on Hougaard and Carter [2]. The addition of the other five constructs with the particular two-dimension labels is new. We have labelled the axes differently from Hougaard and Carter [2] to capture the three key aspects of psychology: cognitions, emotions, and behaviors. The x-axis is labelled "Cognitive and Emotional"

#### **Figure 1.**

*Aggression-compassion continuum.*

ranging from "Opposition" on the far left to "Support" on the far right; the y-axis is labelled as "Behaviors" from "Opposition" on the bottom to "Support" on the top. In addition, each construct appears in **Figure 1** in a location meant to correspond to the relative amount of each type of support or opposition. Each of the nine constructs is defined and differentiated in this section of the chapter following a comment about word meanings.

#### **3.1 A comment about word meanings**

The study of the origin of words and the way in which their meanings change (Etymology) is relevant to understand the distinctions among the concepts along the Aggression-Compassion continuum. Words with the "–ion" suffix (including Aggression and Compassion) are nouns of state, condition, or action. Words with the "–ity" suffix (including Pity, Apathy, Antipathy, Animosity, Hostility) are nouns of condition or quality of being. Words that include "–path" refer to "suffering" and "–pathy" refers to "one versed in" (for example, Apathy, Antipathy) [36]. Based on this information about word origins, Aggression and Compassion are appropriate poles on the Action (Behavior) axis of **Figure 1**.

#### **3.2 The "support" quadrant of the aggression-compassion continuum**

The upper right quadrant of **Figure 1** lists four psychological constructs and can be broadly categorized as the "support" quadrant because all of the constructs that appear in this quadrant provide some sort of support. The support can be cognitive and emotional; it also can be behavioral support. The four constructs that appear in this quadrant increase in amount of all types of support provided from pity to sympathy to empathy to compassion.

*Pity* refers to one's own cognitive response to another's negative experiences or an expression of sorrow. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines pity as "sympathetic sorrow for one suffering, distressed, or unhappy [37]." Pity can be summed up by, "I feel sorry for you [2, 38]."

*Sympathy* refers to one's own thoughts and deep feelings of concern for others. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines sympathy as "an affinity, association, or relationship between persons or things wherein whatever affects one similarly affects the other [39]." Sympathy involves a deeper, more personal level of concern than pity with pity as an expression of sorrow. Sympathy involves understanding from one's own perspective and does not include shared emotion with others. Sympathy can be summed up by, "I feel for you [2]."

*Empathy* refers to cognitive and emotional responses aligned with others' thoughts and feelings*.* It involves a cognitive and emotional connection that assumes the perspective and feelings of others and includes understanding why others feel as they do. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, empathy involves "understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner [8]." Empathy can be summed up by, "I feel with you [2, 40]."

*Compassion* refers to cognitive, emotional, and behavioral responses (or intention to act) in response to others' thoughts and feelings. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines compassion as "sympathetic consciousness of others' distress together with a desire to alleviate it [41]." Compassion can be summed up by, "I am here to help and support you [2, 35]."

### **3.3 The neutral point of the aggression-compassion continuum**

*Apathy* refers to a lack of thoughts or feelings. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines apathy as a "lack of feeling or emotion; impassiveness; lack of interest or concern; indifference [42]." Apathy turns a blind eye to issues, situations, and people. It is, therefore, the "neutral" point on the Aggression-Compassion Continuum and can be summed up by, "I don't care [40]."

#### **3.4 The "Oppose" quadrant of the aggression-compassion continuum**

The lower left quadrant of **Figure 1** lists four psychological constructs and can be broadly categorized as the "oppose" quadrant because all of the constructs that appear in this quadrant provide some sort of opposition. The opposition can be cognitive and emotional; it also can be behavioral opposition. The four constructs that appear in this quadrant increase in amount of all types of opposition provided from antipathy to animosity to hostility to aggression.

*Antipathy* refers to dislike according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary [43]. It includes opposition in feeling, aversion, dislike, repugnance, distaste. Antipathy can be summed up as, "I don't like you [44]."

*Animosity* refers to a stronger dislike. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines animosity as "a strong feeling of dislike or hatred; ill will or resentment tending toward active hostility; an antagonistic attitude [45]." Animosity is violent hatred leading to opposition and active enmity. Animosity can be summed up as, "I strongly dislike you [44]."

*From Empathy to the Aggression–Compassion Continuum DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.106516*

*Hostility* refers to dislike that is so strong that it may include intent to take action against others. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines hostility as "deep-seated usually mutual ill will, conflict, opposition, or resistance in thought or principle [46]." Both animosity and hostility refer to strong dislike and opposition, but hostility includes unfriendliness or opposition that can lead to actions. Hostility can be summed as, "I strongly dislike you and might oppose you [47]."

*Aggression* refers to taking actions to oppose, dominate, or injure others. According the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, aggression is "a forceful action or procedure especially when intended to dominate or master; the practice of making attacks or encroachments; hostile, injurious, or destructive behavior or outlook [48]." Aggression has action associated with the thoughts and feelings and can be summed up as, "I am here to oppose you [49]."

### **4. Psychosocial elements to consider**

With regard to the nine psychological constructs on the Aggression-Compassion continuum, there may be a tendency to think about these nine psychological constructs as involving relationships only between oneself and another individual. In fact, they are relevant to four psychosocial levels: Personal, Interpersonal, Team, Organizational. These four categories have been described as part of the Leader-Follower Framework (LF2) because they refer to and help guide understanding of the individual (personal or self), relationships between two people (interpersonal), interactions within small teams, and consideration of large groups, cultures, systems (organizational). The LF2 also distinguishes among four biopsychosocial aspects of people: character (who we are), competence (what we think, feel, and do), context (when and where we are), and communication (how we express ourselves and seek understanding). Each of these topics is described below [4–7]:

*Character* (Who we are) refers to biological, psychological, and social aspects of each person or group (e.g., physical characteristics, demographics, personality, attitudes, beliefs, values, biases). Character includes integrity, reliability, responsibility, dependability, and moral compass, but also can include the opposite of each of these admirable qualities.

*Competence* (What we know and do) refers to knowledge, skills, and attitudes (KSAs) relevant to a particular role, position, task, or situation as well as to more general KSAs (e.g., critical thinking, decision-making, problem solving, open-mindedness, emotional intelligence).

*Context* (When and Where we are) includes physical (outside and inside us), psychological, social, and cultural environments, such as time of day, climates, nutritional state, sleep, mental and behavioral health, size of group, relationships within a group, societal practices, and belief systems. Context also includes effects of physical and mental stress or misunderstanding that can alter thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.

*Communication* (How we strive for understanding) includes sending and receiving information, verbally and nonverbally.

*Personal* refers to psychological, biological, and experiential aspects of the individual or oneself. *Personal Character* includes demographics, attitudes, values, beliefs, biases, personality, emotions, motivations, and self-awareness. *Personal Competence* includes knowledge, skills, abilities, and actions. *Personal Context* includes physical,

psychosocial, and situational environments outside and within ourself. *Personal Communication* includes abilities to take in and record information (e.g., reading, understanding, notes, reflections, how others perceive us vs how we perceive ourself).

*Interpersonal* refers to dyadic relationships between two people. *Interpersonal Character* includes shared or opposing cognitions and emotions. *Interpersonal Competence* includes shared or opposing actions. *Interpersonal Context* includes physical and psychosocial environments relevant to the dyad. *Interpersonal Communication* involves sharing information and understanding (or lack thereof) between the dyad.

*Team* is a small group of people mutually committed to common goals. *Team Character* refers to shared values and trust among the members. *Team Competence* refers to understanding the KSAs of the members. *Team Context* refers to the environments and situations in which the members exist. *Team Communication* involves shared understanding among the members.

*Organizational* refers to large groups of people, institutions, and systems. *Organizational Character* refers to the large group's values and mission. *Organizational Competence* refers to the large group's KSAs. *Organizational Context* refers to the large group's culture. *Organizational Communication* involves understanding among the members of the large groups.

### **5. Relating the LF2 elements to the constructs of the aggressioncompassion continuum**

We submit that all eight of the LF2 elements should be applied to better understand each of the nine constructs along the Aggression-Compassion Continuum. This type of analysis will likely reveal contributing factors to each of the constructs. Such understanding may suggest how to better work with others.

For example, consider Aggression and each of the LF2 elements. Is the reason an individual acts aggressively because of character (e.g., personality, differing values, mental health), competence (e.g., KSAs to act aggressively or the lack of KSAs to control oneself and to not act aggressively), context (e.g., hunger, tiredness, stress, situation, existential threat), or communication (e.g., the only option to convey intended meaning or lack of options to reach understanding)? Is the individual acting aggressively towards oneself (personal), one other (interpersonal), a team, or an organization/culture system? Also, is the individual acting aggressively because of personal (e.g., self-hate, frustration), interpersonal (e.g., disagreement with a single other person), team (e.g., going along with others or opposing particular others), or organizational (e.g., the culture of the larger group) reasons? A similar analysis can be applied to the other three constructs in the Opposition Quadrant of the Aggression-Compassion Continuum: Hostility, Animosity, Antipathy.

As another example, consider Apathy and each of the LF2 elements. Is the reason an individual does not care, does not express any emotions, and does not take any actions because of character (e.g., personality, perception of hopelessness, physical illness, mental illness, picking their battle), competence (e.g., lacks the KSAs to take any action relevant to the situation at hand, overwhelmed with other things on their plate), context (e.g., lack of necessary resources to act, exhaustion, overwhelming odds or opposition), or communication (e.g., lacking any way to communicate, not receiving any communication that the issue or situation is worth addressing)? Is the lack of caring directed at oneself, one other, a team, an organization? Also, is the reason that an individual does not care because of personal (e.g., lack of self-esteem, lack of self-confidence), interpersonal (e.g., perception that no concern or action will affect the other person, that the other person will do what they want anyway, or that the other person does not matter), team (e.g., lack of respect from or connection with the team, belief that nothing can be done to affect the team), or organizational (e.g., experience or belief that there is no way to alter the organization, culture, or system) reasons? A similar analysis can be applied to the other three constructs in the Support Quadrant of the Aggression-Compassion Continuum: Pity, Sympathy, Empathy.

In addition, consider Compassion and each of the LF2 elements. Is an individual acting compassionately because of character (e.g., personality, understanding their own and others values and beliefs), competence (e.g., having the KSAs to act and perform compassionate acts), context (e.g., the needs of the recipient(s) of the compassionate acts are overwhelmingly heart-breaking, understanding of the stress with the individual, team, or organization), or communication (e.g., the recipient(s) of the compassionate acts effectively expressed need for help, the provider(s) of the compassionate acts can effectively understand and communicate with others to understand what they are saying and discuss what is needed)? Is the individual acting compassionately towards oneself (personal), one other (interpersonal), a team, or an organization/culture system? Also, is the individual acting compassionately because of personal (e.g., acting in accordance with one's own values), interpersonal (e.g., concern for that particular person), team (e.g., commitment to the team), or organizational (e.g., commitment to the particular organization) reasons?

To understand and enhance relationships, we suggest that it is useful to consider which of the LF2 elements contribute to the particular psychological state and which of these elements may be key to modulate (either to increase or to decrease) the given psychological construct. With regard to the nine constructs along the Aggression-Compassion continuum, it is important to consider that there likely is a tendency to think of each construct as relevant especially to relationships and interactions with one other person (interpersonal) or a group of people. But each construct also can be applied to oneself and to organizations. We need to act with compassion and not with aggression towards ourselves as well as consider to whom and in what context we should allow ourselves to experience and exercise each of the nine constructs. In other words, we need to maximize our emotional and social intelligence so that we are aware of motivations and emotions that accompany and underlie our own thoughts and actions as well as the motivations and emotions that accompany and underlie the thoughts and actions of others [50–53].

### **6. Support and oppose are positive and negative, respectively; but positive and negative do not equal good and bad**

Another important point to consider is that although "Support" and "Oppose" can be considered as corresponding to "good" and "bad" poles of the Aggression-Compassion continuum, that type of identity simply is not true. Most if not all publications about pity, sympathy, empathy, compassion imply or state explicitly that these concepts and corresponding actions (in the case of compassion) are, indeed, "good." Conversely, it is implied or explicitly stated that antipathy, animosity, hostility, and aggression are "bad." Neither of these generalizations is correct.

Providing cognitive, emotional, and behavioral support— as is done when exercising the four constructs depicted in the upper right—for kindness, generosity, altruism, open-mindedness, liberty, freedom, democracy, and so on certainly would be

considered as "good." But consider, for example, what it means when one is "supporting" in thoughts, emotions, and actions bigotry, robbery, hatred, dishonesty, cruelty, slavery, authoritarianism; then, exercising and expressing pity, sympathy, empathy, and compassion for these particular thoughts and actions would be considered as "bad."

The same dichotomy of good and bad applies to the "opposing" poles of the Aggression-Compassion Continuum dimensions. Aggression, hostility, and the other constructs on the "oppose" cognitive, emotional, and behavioral poles certainly would be considered "bad" when the opposition is to kindness, generosity, altruism, open-mindedness, liberty, freedom, democracy. Conversely, opposing in thoughts, emotions, and actions bigotry, robbery, hatred, dishonesty, cruelty, slavery, authoritarianism, and so on, would be considered as "good."

So, it is important to recognize that supporting others can be good or bad. And opposing others can be for good or bad. Aggression and Compassion involve actions of opposition or support, respectfully, and, thereby, set the poles of a psychological continuum with regard to self and others, but who and what we are opposing or supporting determines what is good and bad from each of our perspectives and based on each of our values. Generalizations such as "both sides are to blame" and "there are good people on both sides," are not always true.

Additionally, it is important to recognize that the value and accompanying good or bad of each construct along the Aggression-Compassion Continuum also depends on the situation and people involved. For example, empathy can be so powerful that feeling the pain or suffering of another can be damaging to the well-intentioned empath. Also, empathy can be so absorbing that it freezes or prevents the empath from taking action to help others. Compassion, despite providing well-intentioned support, can be counter-productive if provided to someone(s) who does not want the actions of support or who needs to learn to act for themselves. A common dilemma confronts parents who act to help their children with every challenge, even when their children are not in danger and need to learn to handle their own challenges and to accept and to be resilient after experiencing their own disappointments or failures. Conversely, aggression, even when opposing dangers, can be bad if the individuals being helped want to handle the situation themselves or need to learn to handle the situation themselves.

### **7. Conclusion**

The Aggression-Compassion Continuum includes nine psychological constructs that involve different amounts of cognitive and emotional support or opposition and different amounts of action. It is important to understand where you are along this continuum to optimize relationships with others as well as your own well-being. We believe that applying the eight elements of the Leader-Follower Framework when considering relevant points on the Aggression-Compassion Continuum also will help to enhance emotional and social intelligence.

### **Acknowledgements**

The authors greatly appreciate discussions with colleagues about the psychosocial constructs and topics addressed in this chapter.

### **Conflict of interest**

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

## **Disclaimer**

The opinions and assertions contained herein are the sole ones of the authors and are not to be construed as reflecting the views of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences or the Department of Defense.

## **Author details**

Neil E. Grunberg\* and Erin S. Barry Department of Military and Emergency Medicine, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, MD, USA

\*Address all correspondence to: neil.grunberg@usuhs.edu

© 2022 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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## **Chapter 5** Empathy and Dark Personalities

*Anja Wertag*

### **Abstract**

Callousness or low empathy is a key feature of the so-called dark personality traits, in which the interest has been exponentially rising. The most prominent dark personality traits models are the Dark Triad, comprising three distinct, but overlapping traits: Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy, and the Dark Tetrad, with the addition of sadism. Although both theoretical conceptualizations and empirical findings point to impaired empathy as the core of dark personalities, the associations between specific forms of empathy and dark traits are not so consistent. Thus, this chapter aims to provide a critical review of existing findings on the relationship between dark personality traits and specific forms of empathy. Moreover, it aims to offer interesting insights into empathy intervention possibilities in individuals with pronounced dark traits.

**Keywords:** empathy, dark personality traits, Machiavellianism, narcissism, psychopathy, sadism

### **1. Introduction**

In the past 20 years, the interest in the so-called park personality traits in the area of individual differences has been exponentially rising. What is creditable for this is the introduction of the Dark Triad of personality [1], which consists of three distinct, but conceptually and empirically overlapping traits: Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy, while relatively recently sadism was added to this constellation, forming the Dark Tetrad [2, 3]. It is important to note that, although these traits (apart from Machiavellianism) migrated from clinical literature and practice and are similar to respective personality disorders (i.e. narcissistic personality disorder and antisocial personality disorder as defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, DSM-5, by American Psychiatric Association [4], and sadistic personality disorder defined in earlier versions of DSM [5]), they refer to subclinical variants in the Dark Triad/Tetrad constellation (for a more detailed overview of Dark Triad and Tetrad traits, see [6, 7], respectively). Machiavellianism is characterized by duplicitous interpersonal style, manipulation, a cynical disregard of morality and a focus on self-interest and personal gain [8], narcissism by grandiose self-concept and attentioncraving [9], and psychopathy by impulsivity and callous thrill-seeking [10], while sadism is characterized by the enjoyment of other people's suffering [11]. However, although each of the traits has its specific features, they also share a common core of callousness (i.e. low empathy) and antagonism (e.g. [12–14]).

If we look at conceptualizations of the clinical counterparts of the dark traits, it can be noticed that a lack of empathy is one of the essential features of narcissistic personality disorder. More specifically, narcissistic personality disorder refers to a pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy, and one of the criteria for this disorder listed in DSM-5 is "lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others" ([4], p. 670). The essential feature of antisocial personality disorder is a pervasive pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the wishes, rights, or feelings of others, and callousness is one of the DSM-5 criteria for this personality disorder (specifically, "lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another" ([4], p. 659). The sadistic personality disorder was defined by a pervasive pattern of sadistic and cruel behavior and was identified in DSM-III-R as: using physical cruelty or violence to establish dominance in a relationship; humiliating others; treating, or disciplining others harshly; being amused or taking pleasure in the psychological or physical suffering of others; lying to harm others; intimidating others to get them to do what he/she wants; restricting the autonomy of close ones; and/or being fascinated by violence, weapons, injury, or torture [5]. Thus, callousness, lack of empathy, and antagonism are the defining features of each of these three personality disorders.

As noted earlier, Machiavellianism had a different etiology than the other three Dark Tetrad traits. Rather than a clinical syndrome (i.e. a personality disorder), this concept was named after the renaissance philosopher Nicolo Machiavelli and resembles a manipulative and callous character with a cynical worldview, duplicitous tactics, and strategic planning (see [15]). Moreover, it has been noted that the lack of empathy plays a causal role in determining Machiavellian behavior [16]. Analogously to the lack of empathy as the key common feature of dark traits' clinical counterparts, the common feature explaining both the theoretical and empirical overlap between the Dark Tetrad traits is callousness, or lack of empathy toward others [7].

It is important to note that, from the evolutionary perspective, dark traits are adaptive, and the lack of empathy as a central feature of the dark traits may have an evolutionary advantage, enabling the dark personalities to get ahead. For example, in accordance with frequency-dependent selection, a small number of cheaters with exploitative tendencies can flourish in a society where the majority is oriented toward cooperation [17] (see [18] for more details on the evolutionary perspective on the Dark Triad traits). Similarly, fundamental neural mechanisms explaining sadism have been postulated [19–21]. More specifically, sadism can be viewed as a physiological response to, for example, war-induced callousness: an indifference to the suffering of others could be gradually transformed by evolutionary selection into the enjoyment of cruelty, especially if victims are perceived as dangerous outgroups, and the sadistic behavior could promote fitness via the maintenance of personal and social power.

In line with theoretical conceptualizations and clinical observations, empirical findings consistently show that dark traits are related to empathy deficits [22, 23]; however, the associations between specific forms of empathy and dark traits are not so consistent. Furthermore, there are indications that there are individuals high both on empathy and dark traits [24], and that individuals with elevated dark traits can be empathic in certain circumstances [25, 26]. Thus, let us closely explore the findings on relations between dark personality traits and specific forms of empathy.

### **2. Dark traits and specific forms of empathy**

Albeit there are different conceptualizations of empathy, there is a consensus that it comprises two components: a cognitive (i.e. the cognitive assessment of affective experiences of others) and affective one (i.e. sharing and adequately responding to affective experiences of others), which have been confirmed in neuropsychological research [27].

In line with the callous, manipulative, and exploitative nature of dark personalities, it may be assumed that individuals high on dark personality traits should have a good understanding of the affective experiences of others (i.e. have high cognitive empathy) which enables them to manipulate and exploit others, but at the same time, they should not care about the feelings of others (i.e. have low affective empathy) to behave in such a manner. Indeed, research consistently points to deficits in affective empathy in individuals with pronounced dark personality traits [23, 28–34], with psychopathy showing the strongest negative relationship with this form of empathy, followed by Machiavellianism and sadism. However, the situation is not so clear when it comes to cognitive empathy. Namely, while some studies indicate that at least one of the dark traits is linked to impaired cognitive empathy [23, 35, 36], others point to a positive relationship of at least one of the dark traits with cognitive empathy [23, 24, 32, 34], with narcissism most often being that trait.

Given the narcissistic tendency of overestimating their abilities to read and understand the emotions of others [37], a question arises is the positive link between cognitive empathy and narcissism due to this tendency. However, findings are showing that narcissism is also positively associated with emotion recognition tasks [34, 38] that are considered closely related to cognitive empathy, indicating that narcissism is in fact linked to higher cognitive empathy. The plausible explanation of this positive link is that the narcissistic need for admiration and reinforcement of their grandiose view of themselves requires a better understanding of how others see them, implying a need for a slightly superior cognitive empathy.

Similar considerations regarding the empirically observed positive link between narcissism and cognitive empathy can be found in the proposed criteria of narcissistic personality disorder in the alternative DSM-5 model for personality disorders, which states that narcissistic personality disorder can be characterized by being "excessively attuned to reactions of others, but only if perceived as relevant to self" ([4], p. 767). On the other hand, the antisocial personality disorder in this model can be characterized by a "lack of concern for feelings, needs, or suffering of others; lack of remorse after hurting or mistreating another" ([4], p. 764), indicating more serious empathic impairments associated with this disorder. Indeed, psychopathy, observed in the Dark Triad constellation, exhibits the strongest negative relations with adverse psychosocial outcomes, such as emotional deficits (i.e. lack of empathy), aggression, impulsivity, and interpersonal problems (see [39]). Comparingly, some studies on moderation between empathy and psychopathy indicated that, if trait psychopathy is high, then individuals with higher levels of cognitive empathy are more likely to engage in aggressive behavior such as trolling [31, 36]. Moreover, there are findings that the lack of cognitive empathy mediates the relationship between psychopathy and specific forms of prosocial behavior (for details see [40]), highlighting the importance of the psychopathy-empathy relationship.

As one of the characteristics of Machiavellianism is the use of strategic manipulation, it is assumed that Machiavellianism is linked to higher cognitive empathy.

However, some studies failed to find any connection between cognitive empathy and Machiavellianism (e.g. [41, 42]). One of the reasons for inconsistent findings of previous studies may lay in using different measures of empathy, reflecting somewhat different conceptualizations of this construct, such as the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI [43], defining empathy as reactions of one individual to the observed experiences of another [44]), Basic Empathy Scale (BES [45], conceptualizing empathy as the understanding and sharing in another's emotional state or context), or Empathy Quotient (EQ [46], which conceptualizes empathy as the ability to recognize and understand the thoughts and feelings of others, as well as to respond to others' thoughts and feelings with appropriate emotion). Thus, Turner et al. [32] examined the relationship of Dark Triad traits with cognitive and affective empathy using multiple questionnaires for both empathy (i.e. BES, EQ, and one more independent measure) and the dark traits and through simultaneous consideration of all constructs in a single latent variable model, and on a large sample (over 1000) of participants. Their results indicated that dark traits are related more to affective than to cognitive empathy: all three dark traits were related to lower levels of affective empathy, but this relationship was weaker for narcissism, while cognitive empathy was positively related to narcissism and Machiavellianism, but unrelated to psychopathy. Results regarding sadism are following the same pattern, with sadism being more strongly related to affective than cognitive empathy [3, 31, 36].

It should be noted that, although the Dark Tetrad traits share a common core of callousness/low empathy, due to the unique features of each of the traits, the manifestation of this characteristic could be different among each trait [7], as well as the psychological processes beneath the exploitative behavior common for the dark traits [18]. More specifically, individuals high on narcissism might lack empathy for those they step on in their quest for public admiration, and the exploitation of others may be a result of their self-centeredness. Individuals high on psychopathy impulsively reach for what they want, caring little if others will get hurt along the way. Individuals high on Machiavellianism may take care while taking advantage of others and exhibit interpersonal indifference if someone interferes with their goals. Finally, individuals high on everyday sadism will seek opportunities to observe or even induce suffering in others.

Furthermore, a recent meta-analytical finding that empathy and aggression are, despite the assumptions regarding the importance of empathy for aggressive behavior, virtually unrelated [47], indicated that current conceptions of affective empathy could be too narrow, failing to capture the full range of the construct. Thus, Vachon and Lynam [48] proposed a new measure of empathy: Affective and Cognitive Measure of Empathy (ACME). ACME conceptualizes cognitive empathy as empathic accuracy (i.e. the ability to detect and understand what others are feeling), and affective empathy distinguishes between affective resonance, conceptualized as most traditional measures of affective empathy (i.e. empathic concern, sympathy, compassion, involving an emotional response in the observer congruent in valence to the target) and affective dissonance, conceptualized as the experience of a contradictory emotional response (e.g. taking pleasure in others' pain or feeling annoyed with others' happiness). In line with previous findings linking *schadenfreude* (i.e. pleasure and joy derived from another person's misfortune) with dark personality traits [49, 50], dark traits indeed generally exhibit stronger relations to affective dissonance than resonance [48, 51, 52]. The extension of the range of affective empathy from high levels of resonance (i.e. empathy) to low levels of resonance (i.e. indifference and callousness) to include the dissonant responses is especially important for the dark traits research.

#### *Empathy and Dark Personalities DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.107446*

Therefore, including this aspect of empathy in future research is advisable to shed more light on the relationship between dark traits and specific forms of empathy.

Another problem with research on the relationship between empathy and dark personality traits is that most of the previously described findings were obtained using exclusively self-report measures of empathy. Thus, it is advisable to also include some other empathy measures in future research, such as behavioral (e.g. picture viewing tasks and stories [53]), physiological (e.g. heart rate, electroencephalogram (EEG)), and/or neuroscientific measures (e.g. magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)). Namely, including different modalities of empathy measures could provide a comprehensive approach to empathy assessment and enable finer insights into the relationship between dark traits and empathy. In fact, some of the studies [25, 26] using the multi-modal approach to empathy provided valuable insights that will be discussed in detail in the next section.

As there are sex differences in both empathy and the dark traits, with women scoring higher on especially affective empathy [54], and men scoring higher on the dark traits [39, 55], some studies further investigated gender differences in the relations between dark traits and empathy. It has been shown that empathy mediates sex differences in the Dark Triad traits, indicating that underlying sex differences in the Dark Triad traits may reflect individual differences in empathy [22, 35]. Furthermore, the relations between Dark Triad traits seem to be stronger in women than in men, especially for narcissism [22, 56], while the relationship between empathy and psychopathy seems to be stronger in men [22]. The finding that the link between the Dark Triad and limited empathy might be primarily through narcissism in women and psychopathy in men suggests different implications for the development of the dark traits and limited empathy in men and women and links to different outcomes. For example, men with limited empathy and high on psychopathy may pursue risky lifestyle and opportunism, while women high on narcissism may pursue parasitic relationship styles. Thus, it is important to take sex differences into account in future research on the relationship between dark traits and empathy, above and beyond merely controlling for sex, in order to get a better insight into the complexity of these relations.

A further problem with previous research regarding the relationship between dark personality traits and empathy is related to neglecting the multidimensionality of each of the dark traits. Namely, each of the dark traits is conceptualized as a multidimensional construct: Machiavellianism comprises a cynical worldview, manipulative behavior, and disregard for morality [8], psychopathy comprises cunningness, lack of remorse, impulsive, and antisocial lifestyle [9], and narcissism exhibitionism, interpersonal dominance, and need for attention [10], while sadism can have direct and vicarious forms (see [11]), and there are findings on different relations between different dimensions of each of the dark traits and different forms of empathy [36, 57–59]. For example, vulnerable narcissism (characterized by interpersonal coldness, hostility, egocentricity, negative emotions, need for recognition, and entitlement) was negatively related to all aspects of empathy, while grandiose narcissism (characterized by immodesty, self-assurance, exhibitionism, dominance, and aggression; see [9] for a more detailed distinction between these two forms of narcissism) was linked to higher empathy and perspective taking [59]. Similarly, there are findings indicating that Factor 2 psychopathy (characterized by erratic lifestyle and antisocial behavior) is linked to deficits in both cognitive and affective empathy, while Factor 1 psychopathy (characterized by interpersonal manipulation and shallow affectivity; for a more detailed distinction between these

two factors see [10]) was linked to higher cognitive empathy [58]. These findings corroborate the general notion that it is advisable to consider the multidimensionality of dark traits in investigating their relations with other constructs [60].

### **3. Can dark personalities be empathic?**

As described earlier, empirical findings largely point to emphatic deficits linked to dark personality traits. However, the question is do individuals scoring high on dark personality traits lack the capacity (ability) or the disposition (trait) to empathize? Kajonius and Björkman [30] found a very strong negative relationship between Dark Triad traits and dispositional trait-based empathy, and the absence of any relationship with ability-based empathy, indicating that individuals with pronounced dark traits possess a normal ability for empathy but have a low inclination to be empathic.

One interesting paper [25] investigated whether narcissists can empathize with a person in distress in different contexts. In a series of three studies, it was shown that higher narcissism is linked to lower both self-reported empathy and emphatic autonomic arousal (i.e. heart rate) in the context of different vignettes (presented as a written text, video, or audio-recording). However, if instructed to take a perspective of the target person, individuals scoring high on narcissism were capable of reporting higher empathy for a target person and responding to another's distress with the same level of autonomic arousal as individuals scoring low on narcissism.

Similarly, another interesting study [26] used fMRI to investigate vicarious representations (i.e. neural activations in brain regions normally associated with feeling specific emotions that are triggered when witnessing the emotions of others, while witnessing what others do and sense recruits one's own motor and somatosensory cortices) in male psychopaths while watching video clips of two hands in different interactions (neutral, love, pain, and exclusion). The results showed that, although the brain areas associated with vicarious activations to hand actions (i.e. pre-motor cortices), sensations (i.e. primary and secondary somatosensory cortices), and emotions (i.e. anterior cingulate and insula cortices) were under-activated in psychopathy compared to the control group, group differences attributable to vicarious activations were significantly reduced when psychopathic participants were instructed to empathize with the actors in the videos.

Both studies indicate that, although individuals with pronounced dark traits do not seem to lack the ability to empathize, they do not have a spontaneous emphatic reaction to others' distress. Similarly, there are some indications that in Machiavellianism lack of empathy might be due to a lack of motivation to be empathic [42, 61]. It should be noted that, although these studies included only one of the dark traits, due to their common core of callousness [13, 14], empirical overlap [39], and similar nomological networks [60, 62], it could be assumed that the similar principles would work for all the traits. More specifically, it seems that the mere instruction to take the perspective of a suffering person evokes physiological emphatic responses in individuals with pronounced dark traits reducing the deficits in empathy and has the potential to move dark personalities to empathize in the same manner as individuals low on dark traits. Thus, interventions targeting perspective-taking practice, emphasizing its value, and making this skill intrinsically appealing to also enhance the motivation to be empathic seems to be a promising path to boost empathy in dark personalities.

#### *Empathy and Dark Personalities DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.107446*

Finally, a recent finding identified that there are individuals high both on dark traits and empathy, called the Dark Empaths [24]. On a large sample of nearly 1000 individuals, the researchers using the latent profile analysis identified four groups: standard Dark Triad group with high dark traits and low empathy, Typical group with average dark traits and empathy, Dark Empath group with higher empathy alongside high dark traits, and Empath group with low dark traits and high empathy. Dark Empaths had a greater representation of men than women, showed higher extraversion than all the other groups, and used more malicious humor and guilt induction than non-dark groups. Compared to the Dark Triad group, Dark Empaths were higher on agreeableness and grandiosity, lower on exploitativeness and interpersonal aggression, and had better well-being (i.e. lower anxiety), suggesting a more adaptive level in psychosocial functioning. However, the Dark Empath group remained more antagonistic, neurotic, stressed, and self-critical, compared to non-dark groups. Albeit compelling, these findings need to be replicated and extended to distinguish between specific forms of empathy, which is a work in progress but has the potential to shift our understanding of empathy in the context of dark traits.

### **4. Conclusion**

Empathy deficits have been consistently linked to dark personality traits (i.e. Machiavellianism, narcissism, psychopathy, and sadism) both theoretically and empirically, and the findings point to stronger links between dark traits and deficits in affective empathy compared to cognitive empathy [32, 36]. However, due to specific features of each of the dark traits, manifestations of empathic deficits in Dark Tetrad traits may be different. Moreover, there are indicators of gender differences in links between the dark traits and empathy [22, 35, 56], indicating different developmental paths of the dark traits and limited empathy, and links to different outcomes in men and women.

The main issues in previous research on the relations between dark personality traits and empathy include problems with used measures of empathy and relying solely on self-reported measures. Thus, future research in this area should focus on combining self-report and other empathy measures (i.e. behavioral, physiological, and/or neuroscientific measures). Finally, given that individuals with pronounced dark personality traits do not lack the ability to empathize [30], but rather do not have a spontaneous emphatic reaction to others' distress [25, 26], interventions targeting perspective-taking practice seem to be a promising path to boost empathy in dark personalities.

*Empathy - Advanced Research and Applications*

### **Author details**

Anja Wertag Institute of Social Sciences Ivo Pilar, Zagreb, Croatia

\*Address all correspondence to: anja.wertag@pilar.hr

© 2022 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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### **Chapter 6**
