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Dominic Brown

Mrs. ShumaEnglish II

17 May 2017

Can Empathy be Harmful to Others?

For years there have been researches and studies on empathy. And a lot of people didn't

understand empathy and how it works. They mainly didnt know how it affected their life until

they learn about it. Empathy has an affect on so many people's lives, they just don't know it,

empathy can affect your decision making when dealing with something personal. And it can also

affect the way someone interprets something. It is real easy to have empathy and feel it but it is

hard to understand. Empathy can be good, and bad for a person, but it can be harmful if

someone knows that you care about them a lot, and uses that against you.

Empathy allows you to feel for others. (Ibanez, Agustin) Empathy, the ability to

perceive and be sensitive to the emotional states of others, plays a fundamental role in

interpersonal interactions. She said how empathy is not necessary for morality. And

she says how empathy is powerless. The paragraph connects to my book by how it isn't

necessary for humanity because, my book has a guy who takes in people's hurts and

bruises all because of empathy. And if he didn't have empathy he wouldn't get hurt.

(Daryl Cameron)Not only does empathy seem to fail when it is needed most, but it

also appears to play favorites. The article says how people have a choice to feel for

others. And all the research they studied showed proof that empathy is different in many

ways.This quote relates to my book because when the guy in my book picks people to

get close to and actually talks to them and care about them, then he takes their pain

from them, and this relates because this acts as playing favorites.

Empathy is usually not needed only when a person is really close to each other.
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It says how empathy can lead people to forgiveness. And other things like how

empathy is a big influence in the way a person acts towards you when they get hurt.

I think the quote connects to the book by when the guy in my book gets hurt by

someone he loves deeply, he usually forgives and forgets, but a person can only take to

many hurts and pains.(PRINZ, JESSE) Empathy is sometimes regarded as a precondition

on moral judgment.This article explained the definition of Empathy in detail. And it

explained how empathy can be how people judge you and things like that. This quote

relates to my book by how the guy in my book has people all over school judge him and

make up stories about him because he doesn't want to make friends and take their hurt

and pain, cause he already has enough.

Empathy can be harmful to those who do not understand it, but if people actually

learn about it, and see how empathy is used in life they can choose whether to

recognize it or not. Empathy can be a good thing because if you can recognize it you

can see much more, not just about how you feel about someone but, how others feel

about you. I have come to recognize that empathy is a big part of your life but, you

might not recognize it a first.

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Works Cited

Daryl Cameron, Michael Inzlicht and William A. Cunningham. "Opinion |

Empathy Is Actually a Choice." The New York

Hannawa, Annegret F., et al. "Medical Errors: Disclosure

Styles, Interpersonal Forgiveness, and Outcomes."

Social Science & Medicine, vol. 156, May 2016, pp. 29-38.

EBSCOhost, doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2016.03.026.

Ibanez, Agustin, et al. "Intentional Harm: A Proxy for Empathy and Moral."

International Journal of Psychophysiology, vol. 108, Oct. 2016, p. 24. EBSCOhost,

doi:10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2016.07.077.

PRINZ, JESSE. "Against Empathy." Southern Journal of Philosophy, vol. 49, 02 June

2011, pp. 214-233. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1111/j.2041-6962.2011.00069.x.