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#2734290 06/08/13 12:22 PM
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Forgive my nerdiness... but I always find it amusing when concepts here are confirmed elsewhere (even in non-marriage settings).

From a private forum post here;

Originally Posted by Dr. Harley
I mentioned during MBW that women have more connections between neurons than men. And the band of fibers connecting the right and left hemispheres of their brain is much larger in women. It gives women a greater awareness of their surroundings, and empathy has a great deal to do with awareness. One negative aspect of this trait is that they often "care too much" and seem to be worried about how everyone in their lives are doing, including animals. The positive, of course, is that they bond with their partners much more quickly, and understand the value of the POJA more readily than men.

There are exceptions, however. Some of the couples we see consist of a husband with greater empathy than a wife. So it's not true that all women are more empathetic than men. And some men have a greater lack of empathy than the average man.

Men with a long history of thoughtlessness struggle with the changes that make them compatible with a woman. They usually feel that they are making progress by taking one small step at a time, while the woman in their life usually feels that the progress is way to small and too slow.

We'll try to speed things up in your case, but it will leave your husband feeling like a failure most of the time. He seems to lack the empathy you feel, but that doesn't mean that his behavior can't become thoughtful.

Summary; Empathy can be learned.


News article on a psychology study;

Quote
"It's kind of like weight training," Weng says. "Using this systematic approach, we found that people can actually build up their compassion 'muscle' and respond to others' suffering with care and a desire to help."

Compassion training was compared to a control group that learned cognitive reappraisal, a technique where people learn to reframe their thoughts to feel less negative. Both groups listened to guided audio instructions over the Internet for 30 minutes per day for two weeks. "We wanted to investigate whether people could begin to change their emotional habits in a relatively short period of time," says Weng.


...


Compassion, like physical and academic skills, appears to be something that is not fixed, but rather can be enhanced with training and practice. "The fact that alterations in brain function were observed after just a total of seven hours of training is remarkable," explains UW-Madison psychology and psychiatry professor Richard J. Davidson, founder and chair of the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds and senior author of the article.

http://www.news.wisc.edu/21811



In this study, the "training" was a focused meditation - thinking of people suffering, and then thinking about easing their suffering, or thinking compassionately about them.


Or - we could think about our spouse's emotional needs, or their reactions to Love Busting behaviors, to increase our empathy for our spouse.



"An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field." - Niels Bohr

"Smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they arrived at for non-smart reasons." - Michael Shermer

"Fair speech may hide a foul heart." - Samwise Gamgee LOTR
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Adam Carolla penned a book a few years ago entitled In Fifty Years, We'll All Be Chicks!

It appears the scientific community cares not to wait that long!

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Originally Posted by NeverGuessed
Adam Carolla penned a book a few years ago entitled In Fifty Years, We'll All Be Chicks!

It appears the scientific community cares not to wait that long!

Carolla, huh?

Didn't have you pegged as a "Man Show" fan there, NG!


"An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field." - Niels Bohr

"Smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they arrived at for non-smart reasons." - Michael Shermer

"Fair speech may hide a foul heart." - Samwise Gamgee LOTR
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Didn't have you pegged as a "Man Show" fan there, NG!

YUP! There was a long dry-spell after The Benny Hill Show was pulled from syndication!

*edit

Last edited by MBSeasons; 06/09/13 05:08 PM. Reason: Personal attack
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I stick with Top Gear. Just as much fun, but without all the misogyny.


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