The end of the semester is drawing near, which means we are about to receive a few emails that pull out all the stops. Drama! Intrigue! Crisis! As professors, there are a few things that are guaranteed in our lives, but the last-ditch effort email to raise a grade is one of them.
Opening a message filled with anguish from a student who we know has been struggling all semester tugs at our heartstrings. Our empathy is piqued, and it makes us want to fix it for them.
But we don’t. Why? No, it’s not because we are heartless monsters. It’s because we know that empathy is tricky.
Two Kinds of Empathy
All humans experience two types of empathy: Affective and Cognitive. Affective empathy makes our motor neurons fire, mimicking the feelings of the individual in distress. If we lean into affective empathy with every email, we face several issues.
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Biological self-sabotage: Affective empathy makes us literally feel the student’s pain as our own. Our brains don’t differentiate between “their” pain and “our” pain, so this can be draining, heavy, and laden with guilt. It also releases the stress hormone cortisol, which can lead to empathetic distress. A state in which your nervous system becomes exhausted from viewing every email as your own crisis.
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Burnout: Without guardrails, an inbox full of distress can lead to burnout. As a result, we may indiscriminately shut down our affective empathy just to protect ourselves. But then our empathy is AWOL when it’s actually needed, like when a loved one is really struggling. You don’t have to be a professor to run into empathic burnout; just reading the news (or your social feeds) can be enough to pop your affective circuit breaker.
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Negative Reinforcement: The distress that affective empathy causes can push us into fix-it mode to relieve it. While a quick fix (like adjusting a grade) can make us feel better, it can trigger a vicious cycle where our brain learns to compromise our standards as a means to eliminate discomfort. Sometimes, the right thing is uncomfortable.
Interestingly, research has found that this type of empathy is a biological reflex based in tribal survival. Affective empathy has the potential to bias us towards those we perceive as similar (e.g., tribe members) and makes us susceptible to strengthening biases against those outside of the tribe; otherwise known as the Minimal Group paradigm. Even something as small as a student mentioning they also love your favorite niche hobby (boomerangs/embroidery) can be enough to trigger empathic bias.
Affective empathy can also convince us that changing a grade is the “right” thing to do because empathy gives us tunnel vision. As one well-known experiment highlighted, this tunnel vision showed how empathy for one specific person leads people to violate their own principles of fairness and justice. For us, that could mean indifference to the rest of the class, each of whom likely had their own trials and tribulations throughout the semester.
That is where the second form of empathy helps. Cognitive empathy is about perspective-taking. It allows you the intellectual understanding of the situation, but doesn’t let you be absorbed by feelings and forget the bigger picture. When you utilize cognitive empathy, you are gathering information and creating a mental map of the situation.
Different from sympathy, which leads us to feel sorry for another person, cognitive empathy treats the situation as if you were more of a neutral observer. With this perspective, you are able to gather information and make choices that don’t prioritize similar others to the detriment of everyone else.
The Shift
We recognize that shifting from affective to cognitive empathy is hard. In fact, this isn’t going to work unless you can recognize when your feelings are driving your choices. Wondering how you can tell? Here’s a hint: your feelings are always driving your choices. This doesn’t mean you are powerless, though. Start here:
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Establish the facts of the situation. Step away from the feelings and determine what is really going on. Will the student really lose their scholarship, job, future house, and the ability to love if you don’t increase their grade? Likely not. With some perspective, the choice becomes a bit easier.
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Engage in equanimity. This is a state of psychological composure and stability where you are aware of the distress of the other person but remain non-reactive. When you are in equanimity, you are able to read the email and remain composed because you have not been absorbed by the feeling. Instead, you act with rationality and stability.
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Consider everyone else. When you feel a strong empathetic pull towards one person, stop and ask, “If I do this, how does it impact everyone else in the class, team, group, etc.?” This helps shift from impulsive kindness to a more systematic approach.
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Utilize rational compassion. Don’t use the sad story as a justification to change the grade because that is really just a band-aid. Instead, consider how you can support the student and make it a teaching moment. This is more effective because it helps contribute to lasting change. Don’t deprive someone of an opportunity to build resilience.
We know we aren’t the only people dealing with these sorts of situations. So, the next time you are faced with your version of the last-ditch effort email, remember that your greatest asset is seeing beyond their pain. Don’t forget that what you are feeling is a biological urge that doesn’t require action. Instead, take a moment. Acknowledge their predicament with cognitive empathy, stick to your guidelines with equanimity, and act with rational compassion.
This shift saves your nervous system, maintains your standards, and hopefully helps us make it to graduation with our well-being intact.