Topics
Review Empathy Circle with Greg
The confusion around empathy definition - rather overwhelming.
Academic Definitional Confusion - Affective/Cognitive/Concern Model
Academic Empathy Critics - Jesse Prince, Peter Singer, Paul Bloom, Fritz Breithaupt, etc.
Compassion Community Critics - Tania Singer
Political Left wing Radical Empathy and Critics
Political Right Wing Critics as a response
Confused Lay definitions
Empathy Circle as an Exit to the Drama Triangle Presentation
Definition Workshop
Zoom Meeting assets for Edwin Rutsch's Personal Meeting Room are ready!
Meeting summary
Edwin shared his experience managing a disruptive participant in a training program through empathy circles and discussed the challenges of defining and understanding empathy in academic and popular contexts. Jodie and Edwin explored potential collaboration opportunities, including writing a book about their work and conducting research to test their hypothesis about cognitive and affective empathy. They discussed the practical applications of empathy in training facilitation and agreed on the need to operationalize their ideas through empirical research before further developing their theoretical framework.
Jodie to follow up with Greg and Jana after being busy with conference
Edwin to complete 2 more call interviews with empathy experts about definitions
Jodie and Edwin to work on book proposal with literary agent over summer next year
Jodie and Edwin to design and plan empirical research study to test cognitive/affective empathy model
Jodie to forward additional cognitive/affective processes research to Edwin
Edwin to present drama triangle comparison with empathy circle this Saturday
Edwin shared a past experience dealing with a disruptive participant in a training program who exhibited problematic behavior, including aggression and criticism. He described how he handled the situation by implementing empathy circles, which were recorded and made public to address the issues. Edwin emphasized the importance of having methods to manage conflicts and suggested that these strategies could be applied to current challenges in training facilitation.
Jodie and Edwin discussed Jodie's upcoming visit to Southern California in October for a conference, but due to Edwin's location in Northern California, they decided it wasn't feasible to meet. Jodie expressed gratitude for Edwin's facilitation of an empathy circle with Greg, which she found therapeutic and helpful in managing her issues. She also mentioned wanting to continue following up with Greg and Jana, whom she had connected with during the circle, but had been busy with another conference and hadn't had a chance to do so yet. Edwin mentioned he had two more call interviews scheduled.
Edwin expressed frustration over the widespread confusion surrounding empathy's definition and its various interpretations in academia and popular discourse. He highlighted the challenges of engaging with critics like Fritz Breithaupt and the dominance of the cognitive-affective model, while also noting the political dimensions of empathy, including its misuse by the woke culture and criticism from the right. Jodie shared her experience meeting a literary agent at a conference who showed interest in the topic, suggesting potential opportunities for further discussion and collaboration.
Jodie and Edwin discussed the possibility of writing a book about their work, with Jodie expressing her writing abilities and the need to balance it with her academic commitments. They explored the idea of collaborating with a contact at HarperCollins to create a proposal, potentially competing with another author's work. They emphasized the importance of keeping their work practical and accessible to a wider audience, distinguishing it from more academic approaches.
Edwin and Jodie discussed the cognitive and affective aspects of empathy, referencing a professor's view that while cognition and emotion are closely linked, they are not identical and should be understood separately. They explored how emotions and cognition interact in decision-making and the challenge of separating them in practical applications. Edwin suggested conducting an empathy circle to better understand these dynamics, while Jodie mentioned the concept of rational compassion, which attempts to separate emotions from cognitive processes. They also touched on the felt experience of cognitive processes and the potential difficulty of addressing this in theoretical models.
Edwin and Jodie discussed the concept of empathy, focusing on the distinction between cognitive and affective empathy. They agreed that current academic research on the topic is lacking in nuance and clarity. Jodie suggested designing an experiment to test their hypothesis that cognitive and affective empathy are not separate processes. They also discussed the need to operationalize their ideas and potentially conduct empirical research before writing a book on the subject.