Indeed, deficits in empathy are thought to be at the heart of dark personality types such as psychopathy, narcissism, sociopaths, and Machiavellianism. But if a certain subset of dark personality types are successful in ascending their careers or becoming community and spiritual leaders, then clearly they have some empathy to charm their way around. These suggest that empathy isn’t the wonder miracle we’ve thought it to be. It is not the antithesis of dark personality types the way we’ve always thought about it as Camp Empath versus Camp Dark. Heym and colleagues found Dark Empaths to be high in both DT and empathy. When compared to Typicals and Empaths, Dark Triads and Dark Empaths are higher in aggression and DT traits and lower in agreeableness. As compared to exclusively Dark Triad personalities, both had similar amounts of grandiose and vulnerable DT facets, and Dark Empaths are higher in extroversion, agreeableness, and well-being, and lower aggression. Even then, Dark Empaths demonstrated higher indirect aggression than Empaths and Typicals, especially guilt-tripping and malicious humor. There is another facet, namely cognitive empathy, which is the capacity to know and understand another’s perspective. Put simply, to intellectually put yourself in someone else’s shoes. Reports from my clients and personal experience have shown that many dark personality types obsessively watch films and television programs in order to learn “normal human responses” for emotional mimicry. In other words, to develop cognitive empathy. This does not mean that they have affective empathy. As Decety and associates2 found, when participants high in psychopathy imagined pain to themselves, brain regions including the anterior insula, right amygdala, anterior midcingulate cortex, and somatosensory cortex showed typical response to pain, suggesting that they are sensitive to the thought of pain. However, these regions did not become active when they imagined others in pain. And this explains why many have reported to me how dark personality types exhibiting the “correct behaviors,” like cuddling after sex or saying the right thing when someone is distressed, always feel off. In other words, the empathy you think you are receiving from people who only have capacity for cognitive empathy is “fake empathy,” or empathy that is potentially weaponized against you. RELATED: Sympathy vs. Empathy: The Key Differences & Social Uses Second, empathy is innumerate, meaning that “it doesn’t attend to the difference between one and 100 or one and 1,000. It’s because of empathy we often care more about a single person than 100 people or 1,000 people, or we care more about an attractive white girl who went missing than we do 1,000 starving children who don’t look like we do or live where we don’t live,” as he tells Vox. What this means in real life is that it skews our decision-making processes. For instance, you can be in a group that fans the flames of empathy toward a certain cause or group. Due to group dynamics such as pressure, your feelings can become polarized, creating an us-versus-them dichotomy. This ultimately can lead you to hate other groups or even engage in atrocities against them. This lack of personal boundaries means that you forget to have empathy for yourself. Just because you understand a person’s behaviors doesn’t mean you should condone them treating you badly. It also does not warrant forgiving everyone who’s hurt you—at least not as a first priority—or going back for more. The problem with not having boundaries is that you will set yourself up for more suffering, and with time, you learn to feel even more helpless. Your life is a deteriorating train wreck, but because you see “being hurt because of my empathy” as part of who you are, you feel justified in seeing yourself as a victim of dark personality types and to keep complaining. Or even worse, we sometimes think that because we are empathic and have gone through a lot, we can use it as an excuse to snap at others or exhibit bad behavior. Either way, victimhood is not a healthy place to live in. Without the boundaries between the self and other, we are likelier to feel personal distress. This actually leads many to withdraw socially to protect themselves from emotional burnout5, meaning that too much affective empathy can reduce prosocial behavior. As for not allowing empathy to be our kryptonite, there is a growing body of research that compassion is a far better practice. This means that just because you see someone in pain doesn’t mean you choose to pick up their pain; you can still care about them and respect their concerns. That, fundamentally, too, is the essence of having boundaries. Because compassion elicits concern and yet allows for enough self-other distinction6 so we don’t get incapacitated by their distress, we’re likelier to engage in prosocial behavior. Compassion also activates the dopaminergic network in the brain, meaning we feel rewarded and are likelier to engage in the same action again. This, to me, is a win-win-win outcome—it benefits you, me, and the community. She has been featured in Elle, Forbes, and Business Insider and has previously worked with Olympians, business professionals, and individuals seeking to master their psychological capital. She works globally in English and Mandarin-Chinese via Skype and Facetime, blending cutting-edge neuroscience, psychology, and ancient wisdom.
