The dark side of empathy: the spotlight effect

Empathy as a spotlight: it illuminates one space and leaves the rest in the dark

Empathy is a powerful force, but it also has a dark side.

Empathy works like a spotlight: it illuminates a specific point intensely, makes us feel the suffering of a person and mobilizes us to help.

But the problem lies in what it leaves in the dark.

The case of Baby Jessica vs. the Darfur genocide

Our empathy is activated very selectively. We are much more moved by the story of an individual person.

The case of the girl Jessica, trapped in a well, captured the world's attention and generated enormous empathy.

However, at the same time, genocides were occurring in places like Darfur, where hundreds of thousands of people were dying.

Why we are more moved by an individual tragedy close to us than by a massive one far away

These massive and distant tragedies do not activate our empathic focus. They are numbers, statistics, they have no concrete face that moves us.

This is the great bias of empathy. It's irrational and shortsighted.

The spotlight's vulnerability to our biases and preferences

It makes us worry a lot about a visible, nearby problem and ignore much larger but more abstract or distant problems.

Furthermore, empathy can blind us to long-term consequences.

Knowing this limitation is crucial so we don't rely solely on our empathic instincts and instead use reason.

Summary

Empathy acts like a spotlight: it shines brightly on a specific story but leaves many others in the shadows. This effect limits our ability to see the bigger picture.

We are more moved by a close-up tragedy, such as the case of a trapped girl, than by massive crises like distant genocides. This shows how selective and emotionally biased our empathy can be.

This bias leads us to prioritize the immediate over the important. Knowing this limitation helps us balance empathy with ethical reasoning, avoiding impulsive or disproportionate decisions.