Cognitive and Emotional Empathy in Relation to Five Paranormal/anomalous Experiences

Abstract

The term empathy refers to sensitivity to, and understanding of, mental states of others. According to Hogan (1969, p. 308), empathy is the act of constructing for oneself another person's mental state. The term empathy has been used to refer to two related human abilities: mental perspective taking (cognitive empathy) and vicarious sharing of emotion (emotional empathy). Recent research into empathy has emphasized distinction between cognitive and emotional components of construct (Preston & de Waal, 2002). These components assume various definitions. Put simply, however, emotional empathy is commonly regarded as an emotional reaction (e.g., compassion) to another's emotional response (e.g., sadness). This reaction is not dependent on a cognitive understanding of why a person is suffering (Rankin, Kramer, & Miller, 2005), although it may facilitate understanding and action. By contrast, cognitive empathy involves an intellectual or imaginative understanding of another's emotional state, often described as overlapping with construct of theory of mind (understanding thoughts and feelings of others) and used interchangeably by some authors (Lawrence, Shaw, Baker, BaronCohen, & David, 2004). There are few studies on empathy in relation to psychic experiences. There are a number of paranormal/anomalous experiences which seem to be related--even sometimes confused with--empathy. These experiences seem to involve inter-personal traits (i.e., extrasensorial experiences) instead of intra-personal characteristics such as out-of-body experiences, premonitions, past-lives recall, or mystical experiences. Many psychic claimants seem to act more empathic than telepathic. Sanchez (1989) examined empathy and telepathy in natural mother-daughter dyads, consisting of 180 volunteer pairs; mother served as receiver, and child as sender of telepathic messages. Her results indicated that one form of empathy (personal distress) and diversity were significantly related to telepathy. Telepathy is a controversial paranormal phenomenon, while empathy is based not upon paranormal but upon sophisticated processing of what is seen and heard in usual way. The ability to use cognitive and emotional empathy in an integrated way seems important in many circumstances, such as experiences of healing practitioners or in vision experiences. The experiences of healing practitioners have been topic of several investigations. Some healers have empathic ability to feel other people's physical symptoms in their own bodies. An analysis of their cognitive styles indicated that their attention tended to become diffuse, exclusively focused neither externally nor internally, but simultaneously encompassing both outer and inner environments (Krippner & Achtenberg, 2000). There also was a tendency for healers to use mental imagery and become absorbed in process, often to point of feeling that they were merging with client. The types of imagery reported by healers included mythic symbols that supported healers' belief systems, diagnostic information, and treatment process (Cooperstein, 1992). Appelbaum (1993) conjectured that people who benefit most from such healing may have similar or complementary personalities. They, too, may be people who tend to suspend disbelief, who subrnit easily to awe and admiration of others, who are oriented toward having their needs met by others, and who are confident that others have power to help them (see also Borysenko, 1985). Some studies suggest that vision may be related to cognitive processes involving fantasy proneness (Alvarado & Zingrone, 1987; Wilson & Barber, 1983), absorption, and cognitive-perceptual experiences (Alvarado, 1994; Alvarado & Zingrone, 1987; Parra, 2010a). Jordan (2008) examined whether auras seen by those who work with aura-reading are an emotional reaction by aura-reader or an empathetic reaction to emotions of person whose aura is being seen. …