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「同情心」與「同理心」的討論
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0. 前言
我30年前回國定居後，才第一次在報刊上看到「同理心」一詞；當時不解其意。由於在吉悌電信任職，工作甚忙，沒有時間去深究。過了這麼多年，我仍然不解其意。
前幾天建中老友思永兄用電郵寄來一張圖片。圖片上顯示兩條相互垂直的街道；一條街道的標示是 ”compassion way” ；另一條街道的標示是 ”empathy way”。思永兄並做了以下的評論：
「誰引導我走在正確的同情心和同理心的道路上？兩條路是如圖所示，互相垂直的？」
這引起我搞清楚「同理心」到底是個什麼東東的念頭。於是回信給思永兄：
「想聽聽高見。我不是很請楚『同理心』的用法。empathy 跟 compassion 的差別在那裏?那一個英文字跟那一個中文相對應?」
我自己也上網查了《瑪瑞安-韋布斯特字典》(下稱《字典》)；草成此文。
1. compassion、empathy、和sympathy
我先將《字典》對這三個英文字的定義翻譯如下；如果有誤解之處，請指正。下一節再就它們略表拙見。
1.1 compassion
《字典》：
對他人的不幸遭遇感同身受，並試圖加以援手。
網路翻譯：惻隱之心、和藹、同情
我的翻譯：救援心、行善心
1.2 empathy
《字典》：
1) (能夠)了解、知道、感同身受、和間接體會其他人的感受、想法、和經驗。
2) 把自己的觀念、感覺、或態度置於觀察到的外物(如藝術品或自然事件)；將主觀心理狀態投射到一個事物，導致一個我與外物似乎合而為一的情境。
網路翻譯： 同情、同感、共鳴能力
我的翻譯：關懷心、同類感、共鳴能力
此處請注意《字典》的第2)項解釋；以下第2.2小節會再略做討論。
1.3 sympathy
《字典》上一共有8種解釋；摘譯其中3個；此處所用序號對應於《字典》原有序號：
2b) 忠誠感：喜歡和支持的傾向
3a) 能夠進入或分享他人感受或興趣的行為或能力
3b) 上述「感受性」(3a)所導致的感覺或心理狀態
網路翻譯：和藹、同情、恤
我的翻譯：同情心
1.4 empathy 和compassion
兩者的差異：「救援心」和「關懷心」都指示關切他人的不幸遭遇。「關懷心」表達主動感受和了解他人情緒的行為；「救援心」則在「感受」/了解之外，有加以援手的意願。
1.5 sympathy和 compassion
兩者的差異：「救援心」在「同情心」的「了解」他人情緒和/關切他人不幸遭遇外，還有對他人不幸遭遇積極施以援手的意願。
1.6 sympathy 和 empathy
兩者的的差異：「同情心」和「關懷心」都指示「了解」/「體會」他人的情緒狀態；兩者差異在於：「同情心」指了解他人的情感/情緒，和對他人不幸遭遇的誠摯關懷，但未必對他人遭遇感同身受；「關懷心」則指主動去感受他人的情緒。兩者差別的進一步說明請看這篇文章，以及這篇文章的第1節(該文「前言」部分為第0節)。
此外，根據《字典》的解說：compassion初見於14世紀，sympathy初見於16世紀；都是老英文字。 empathy則在20世紀才出現，某人仿效sympathy以它來翻譯德文的Einfühlung。此字在哲學、美學、和心理學中有其特定的「術語」意義。請回顧以上第1.2小節中《字典》的第2)項解釋。
2. 「同情心」與「同理心」
第1節中對相關的英文字做了簡單的翻譯/解說。本節討論我所了解的「同情心」與「同理心」。
2.1 「同情心」
如果我對以上《字典》各個解釋的認知不算過於離譜，則基本上三個英文字都有中文「同情」一詞的意思。三者的差異在「行動」：「『救援』心」相對於「關懷心」和「同情心」；以及「範圍」：「關懷心」/共鳴能力及於人和外物；「同情心」只及於人。
我相信三者基本上來自有意識生物的「同類感」(如「兔死狐悲」之類)；統計上或許至少99.99%的人都有「同情心」和「關懷心」；表現的方式和程度自然因人而異。「救援心」除了基因組合因素外，一大部分可能來自「社會建構」過程。
孟子的「惻隱之心」可以用時下的「同情心」和「關懷心」來詮釋。
2.2 「同理心」
我在網上看到維基百科對「同理心」的解說；第一句是：「同理心(英語：empathy)，或稱 …」。
以「同理心」來翻譯empathy的人，跟以「原野調查」來翻譯field study(「現場研究」)和以「民粹主義」來翻譯populism(「徇眾主義」、「煽動主義」、或「群眾路線」)的人一樣，都是既不懂中文，又不認識幾個英文大字。本文只討論「同理心」的翻譯。
先講中文。
中國人說「情、理、法」，這表示「情」和「理」不是一個道上的。具體的說：「理」是經過大腦思考區塊處理後的產物。中國人還有句話說：「公說公有理；婆說婆有理」；這表示：立場不同或推理前提不同的人，會得到「不同」，甚至「南轅北轍」的「理」。從這個角度看，「同理心」云云有些虛無飄渺。
再進一步分析：中國人的確有句話說：「人同此心；心同此『理』」。此處的「理」，則是經過文化薰陶後，經由「社會建構」和「社會制約」等過程的產物。例如，統計上，中、美兩個社會中人們所「同」的「理」，應該在數目上遠遠低於英、美兩個社會中人們所「同」的「理」。在同一個社會中，不同「次文化」或「次群組」的成員，也會有她/他們各自不同的「理」。
以上分析說明：「同『理』心」是個缺乏一般性的「概念」，也就不具備「指示性」和「指意性」。
再講英文。如第1節所述，empathy講的是對情緒、情感、他人遭遇等等的了解、體會、感受等等。我雖然不是心理學家或大腦神經科學家，但也知道這些反應不是，也不會經過大腦思考區塊的處理。而是直接或本能的反應。「關懷心」/「共鳴能力」可以經過培訓而加強/控制則是另一個話題。
最後，我要說明，雖然我不懂「關懷心」/「共鳴能力」做為「術語」的意義，但我相信：出自張載的「民胞物與」應該和「關懷心」/「共鳴能力」相當。
3. 結論
1) 用「同理心」來表達empathy是個錯誤的翻譯。
2) 「救援心」和「關懷心」/「共鳴能力」並不相左，後者可以說是前者的基礎。
3) 心理系或文學系的研究生，可以考慮用「『民胞物與』和『關懷心』/『共鳴能力』的比較」做為碩、博士論文的題目。
本文於 修改第 2 次
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《動物也可能感同身受》讀後
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前些日子我曾和老同學陳思永兄談到關懷心(開欄文)。在網上看到這篇文章(本欄上一篇)；轉載於此，做為參考，略誌數語於下。
0. 請參考安德易安絲博士對該文的評論(原文倒數第5段至倒數第2段)。
1. 如果即使安德易安絲博士的評論成立，而該文的報導仍然有所依據；則這些研究可以支持我接受的唯物論：情緒無它，血液中化學成分和大腦裏神經訊號相互作用的結果而已。請見註1所摘錄原文。
2. 許多學者常常把「主觀」和「心靈」混同。「個人獨特的」或「個人獨有的」並不支持「唯心論」有立足之地。如果我們接受大腦神經學中的「神經網絡論」，則每個人「獨特」或「獨有」的性質，可以如此解釋：因為「經驗」不同，所以大腦中「神經網絡」的連接也隨之「不同」；這是每個人有「主觀」看法或性質的來源。不必另外「假設」每個人有各自的「心靈」。請見註2所摘錄原文。
以上論點也可以用來反駁恰爾莫斯教授的「經驗本質」概念和「意識研究上的困難議題」說法。
3. 如果「關懷心」來自「情緒」，則該文可以支持我認為：不宜以「同『理』心」來翻譯英文 ”empathy” 的判斷。請見註3所摘錄原文。
附註：
1. “They are related to certain chemicals in the bloodstream, and certain signals in the brain.”
2. “Empathy is a subjective experience. It may manifest in physical ways but is still personal and unique to the individual, …”
3. “… but for there to be evidence of empathy, there always needs to be a change in emotions in the first place, …”
本文於 修改第 2 次
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動物也可能感同身受 -- Sofia Quaglia
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請參看本欄下一篇。
This adorable frog could change everything we know about animal empathy
Poison dart frogs have been observed sharing stress responses with their mates.
Sofia Quaglia, 07/26/24
In her lab, Jessica Nowicki can often be spotted pinching and plucking a small female poison dart frog in the leg. She then returns the frog to her terrarium home alongside her male partner and waits for a sign that he is sharing her pain – a wince, a jolt, a small leap towards his hurting partner, perhaps.
While Nowicki, a neuroethologist at Stanford University, has yet to see such an outright display of concern, she has discovered something similar. The male frog experiences a small spike in stress hormones once he is reunited with his stressed counterparts: inside his body, he matches his partner’s emotional state.
This suggests frogs are capable of the most ancestral form of empathy, according to Nowicki’s new study published in the journal Royal Society Open Science – a finding that could upend how we understand animal feelings, despite the obvious difficulties we face when attempting to test them.
“The first step is to stop assuming empathy is not there,” says Nowicki. “And the second is to be more holistic in how we can measure it.”
Figuring out whether non-human animals feel empathy is extremely challenging for scientists: animals don’t clearly, unequivocally communicate with us, and they cannot self-report their feelings in a test.
To a certain extent, it’s also impossible to confirm whether the happiness one human says they’re feeling is the same happiness another human knows to exist in their body.
“That certainly doesn't mean that emotions don't exist,” says Nowicki. “It just means that empirically they're impossible to prove.” But emotions also have biological markers – they are related to certain chemicals in the bloodstream, and certain signals in the brain. These elements can be empirically tested.
Several studies have already tried to spot these markers of empathy in animals. In 2016, scientists found that prairie voles match the stress hormones of their partners and also console them by grooming them more if they notice they’re stressed.
Birds have been suggested to change their song melodies and match those of partners in stress, and fish can tense up by simply watching other members of their group becoming agitated.
But seldom do scientists pose these queries to reptiles and amphibians. So Nowicki turned to poison dart frogs (Ranitomeya imitator). These frogs are monogamous: males and females rear their offspring together, communicating and helping each other out along the way, so Nowicki figured it would be easier to spot an emotional connection. She used the same experimental setup as the 2016 prairie vole study.
Surely enough, when her team stressed out a random female frog and placed her in a terrarium with a male, nothing much happened. But when they stressed out a female frog and reunited her with her mate, the male frog’s levels of corticosterone, a physiological biomarker of stress similar to cortisol, matched those of his partner.
“It was like, ‘wow!’” says Nowicki. This is evidence of a frog rubbing off its emotional stress on another frog, and is therefore a form of empathy, she says.
The fact the frog only reacts to his partner’s feelings, not simply any other frog, means the transfer of distress is not just automated contagion – like the spread of alarm, a danger signal preparing the frog to deal with a potential threat, says Dr Inbal Ben Ami Bartal, a researcher of pro-social behaviours in animals at Tel-Aviv University.
These findings are “a good example showing that the basic building blocks of empathy are shared across species,” she says.
Though the frog didn’t change his behaviour in the way Nowicki initially hoped, it doesn’t discount the possibility that emotional contagion was there.
The types of responses in amphibians could be very different than those of mammals. “I think we’d need to be open-minded about how to research this question in amphibians,” says Ben Ami Bartal.
Animal welfare researcher Dr Helen Lambert agrees. “Empathy is a subjective experience. It may manifest in physical ways but is still personal and unique to the individual,” she says.
These new findings “may certainly be evidence of something more complex,” but we just need to work out how best to study this in amphibians. “Further research like this is desperately needed,” she says.
However, this type of approach might not be the right one, though. That's according to Jessie Adriaense, a comparative psychologist at the University of Zurich, who in 2020 wrote a paper on the challenges of measuring empathy across the animal kingdom.
Why? She doesn’t think the frog study is measuring what it claims to be. Pinching and poking the female frog in the first place didn’t induce a grand amount of stress in her, according to the findings. So the male frog is matching a stable emotional state, but for there to be evidence of empathy, there always needs to be a change in emotions in the first place, she says.
And the correlation between the female’s and male’s corticosterone levels isn’t very strong at all either.
“I do not think this can confidently say anything about emotion contagion in poison frogs,” says Adriaense.
But it’s still absolutely crucial to continue looking for answers to these questions if we want to truly know if empathy is unique to humans.
Jessica Nowicki is a research scientist based at Stanford University's Laboratory of Organismal Biology where she studies pro-social behaviour in early vertebrates.
Her work has been published in the Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society and Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology.
Dr Inbal Ben Ami Bartel is a researcher based at Tel-Aviv University’s Psychology Department and School of Neuroscience where she studies social neuroscience, pro-social behaviour and empathy.
Her work has been published in the journals Elife, Frontiers in Psychology and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Dr Helen Lambert is an animal welfare scientist and head of Animal Welfare Consultancy.
Her work has appeared in the journals Applied Animal Behaviour Science, Animal Welfare and Animals.
Read more:
Here's how cats use purring to manipulate humans
Why talking to animals could soon be a reality
World's weirdest: Meet the purple frog flaunting nature’s most bizarre backside
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