> In the second part, undergraduates were shown a news story about a controversial speaker from the opposing party visiting a college campus. Students who had scored higher on the empathy scale were more likely to applaud efforts to deny the speaker a platform.
For those interested, here's the story that participants were asked to respond to. You can find it in the supporting documents section of the study linked in the article. Replace 'Democrats' with 'Republicans' for the alternate version.
> College Democrats Shut Down Invited Speaker
Rowdy protests lead university to cancel lecture from controversial speaker
On Monday, campus police struggled to break up a large group of students who were gathered to protest a speaking engagement that was planned for Friday night. The invited speaker is a social media celebrity known for making inflammatory statements about Democrats. His posts frequently mock the intelligence of Democrats and in one recent post said that “there may be nothing more despicable or disgusting than a Democrat.”
Thought the protest, which was organized by the College Democrats was mostly peaceful, it became chaotic as students tried to pass through the protestors and enter the building. Michelle Jones, a junior at the university, said she was struck with a sign being carried by one of the students demonstrating. “I don’t know if he did it on purpose,” said Jones, “but I was pretty annoyed. I just wanted to hear what the speaker has to say.”
Ultimately, the College Democrats were successful in getting the university to cancel the event. But not all are happy with the outcome. A petition on social media is calling for officials to punish those involved and suspend the College Democrats’ ability to hold events for the rest of the school year.
This seems like a poor prompt to generalize from. The premise isn't about some random speaker from the other side. It's about a controversial celebrity known for mocking, inflammatory statements, who practically calls their opponents subhuman. Sounds like an asshole. Maybe highly empathetic people don't like assholes. This headline certainly doesn't seem to be a warranted takeaway.
Perceptiveness is not empathy, or else we wouldn't need another word for it. Hatred and empathy are not on the same ends of the emotional spectrum. The ability to perceive others emotions and simultaneously carry toward them feelings of anger, hatred, or malicious intent is not empathy. It's called something else.
Maybe highly empathetic people are the ones who feel for the people on the receiving end of the meanness most, so dislike the assholes most. The point is it could be many things, not just politics, so the external validity is questionable.
For those interested, here's the story that participants were asked to respond to. You can find it in the supporting documents section of the study linked in the article. Replace 'Democrats' with 'Republicans' for the alternate version.
> College Democrats Shut Down Invited Speaker
Rowdy protests lead university to cancel lecture from controversial speaker
On Monday, campus police struggled to break up a large group of students who were gathered to protest a speaking engagement that was planned for Friday night. The invited speaker is a social media celebrity known for making inflammatory statements about Democrats. His posts frequently mock the intelligence of Democrats and in one recent post said that “there may be nothing more despicable or disgusting than a Democrat.”
Thought the protest, which was organized by the College Democrats was mostly peaceful, it became chaotic as students tried to pass through the protestors and enter the building. Michelle Jones, a junior at the university, said she was struck with a sign being carried by one of the students demonstrating. “I don’t know if he did it on purpose,” said Jones, “but I was pretty annoyed. I just wanted to hear what the speaker has to say.”
Ultimately, the College Democrats were successful in getting the university to cancel the event. But not all are happy with the outcome. A petition on social media is calling for officials to punish those involved and suspend the College Democrats’ ability to hold events for the rest of the school year.