Research says, empathic function better developed in Northwest Europeans

[M Winther]

According to research, the empathic function is better developed in
Northwest Europeans than in other ethnic groups:

"In some cultures, natural selection may have increased this capacity in
both sexes and extended it to a wider range of social interactions. This
scenario would especially apply to Northwest Europeans, who have long
had relatively weak kinship. They have consequently relied more on
internal means of behavior control, like affective empathy"
http://evoandproud.blogspot.se/2014/11/we-are-not-equally-empathic.html

"East Asian societies have pursued a similar path of cultural evolution
while having relatively low levels of affective empathy and empathic
guilt. They seem to have done so by relying more on external means of
behavior control (shaming, family discipline, community surveillance)
and by building on cognitive empathy through learned notions of moral
duty.
Meanwhile, Northwest European societies have had their capacity for
empathy pushed to the limit, as seen in the commonly heard term "aid
fatigue." And there is no easy way to turn it off. The only real way is
to convince oneself that the object of empathy is morally worthless.
Was it all an evolutionary mistake? Time will tell."
http://evoandproud.blogspot.ca/2014/09/affective-empathy-evolutionary-mistake.html

M. Winther



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[Thomas]

MW> According to research, the empathic function is better
MW> developed in Northwest Europeans than in other ethnic
MW> groups:

Seems persuasive. It's interesting though that at the level of
reflective cultural ideals the Golden Rule seems pretty much
universal:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule

As high culture ideals trickle down to everyday popular standards
innate tendencies likely have more of an effect. I'm told that
Chinese Americans, for example, have an unusually low rate of
charitable giving. No doubt that has something to do with the
Chinese extended family system.

Also, the most extreme negations of altruism in thought (e.g.,
Nazism) seem to have come out of Northwest Europe. I suppose the
latter could be explained as an attempt to counter aspects of
altruism that seem pathological (e.g., current Swedish immigration
policy).

Food for thought.