Rhetoric of Truthfulness in the Battle Between Social Attributions and Empathic Emotions - Conflict and Multimodal Communication: Social Research and Machine Intelligence - page 286

15.2 Theoretical Background

15.2.1 Definition, Nature, and Measures of Empathy

Understanding what motivates adults to improve social relations has captivated the
interest of a number of scholars in different fields, including philosophers, psychol-
ogists, and anthropologists. In this framework the study of empathy has recently
become relevant in the analysis of positive (interpersonal and intergroup) relations.
Originally defined by the German einfühlung , this concept was subsequently
systematically investigated by Theodor Lipps (1851-1914), a German philosopher
and psychologist, who developed the theory of einfühlung for psychology “from
a psychological, nonmetaphysical perspective” and through “a phenomenological
method” (Wispè 1987 , p. 39). Lipps believed that people responded to each other
through einfiihlung , which was preceded by projection and imitation , and that as the
imitation of affect increases, einfiihlung increases. According to Lipps, to transfer
our psychic reality to an external object, for example a work of art, the object in
itself needs to have a kind of internal predisposition toward being “emphatically”
perceived. The art object triggers the emotional concern of the person who gaze
at it, creating the empathic relationship when the observer is able to project on it
certain contents of his/her personal psychological life. The English word empathy
was actually coined by Titchener ( 1909 ) as a rendering of Lipps' einfühlung , which
he defined as a “process of humanizing objects, of reading or feeling ourselves into
them” (Titchener 1924 , p. 417).
It is certain, then, that empathy has been a topic of intense discussion since the
years surrounding the birth of phenomenology. Edith Stein, for example, considered
empathy a way to establish contact with others, not only openness towards the
“other,” but also a way to experience the “other” inside the “self.”
One of Stein's greatest merits is to have highlighted the social function of
empathy: socialization among individuals depends on empathy, which is the process
of comprehending others' mental states. Stein considered empathy, in fact, as a
crucial moment in the way from subjectivity to reciprocity, the experience by which
it is possible to carry out intersubjective communication.
Although it has been a concept of interest for a long time, empathy did not
become truly popular within psychology until the work of Carl Rogers and Heinz
Kohut [for reviews, see Bohart and Greenberg ( 1997 )]. Rogers, in fact, started a
new tradition that has given birth to many views and understandings on the concept
of empathy. In particular, he considered it as a fundamental element within the
therapeutic relationship, useful to enter a person's world without judging him or
her ( 1975 ). Also, Kohut (1971, 1977, 1984 ) focused all his theoretical work and
therapeutic practice on the concept of empathy, considering it the instrument by
means of which the therapist is able to enter the patient's psychological reality
(Kohut 1959 ). More precisely, Kohut defined empathy at two different levels,