the paradox of empathy in public relations and implications for the curriculum Panel Presentation Exploring parallels and linkages in international public relations and intercultural communication theory development and implications for education ID: 577773
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Slide1
Imagining the lives of others: the paradox of empathy in public relations and implications for the curriculum
Panel Presentation:
“Exploring parallels and linkages in international public relations and intercultural communication: theory development and implications for education
”
EUPRERA Congress 2016Slide2
What is empathy? “an affective response that stems from the apprehension or comprehension
of another’s
emotional state or condition and is similar to what the other person
is feeling
or would be expected to
feel” (Eisenberg et al, 1994 in Eisenberg, 2000, p. 671 )
Put
simply: stepping into another person’s
shoes. Slide3
Empathy as contemporary concerntoday, empathy seems to be of greater concern than ever before, as researchers from multiple disparate disciplines have become convinced of its relevance to a wide range of issues, such as the nature and conditions of morality and moral judgments, how we understand one another, what makes certain political candidates appealing, how and why we engage with works of art, what characterizes psychopaths and bullies, how medical workers should interact with their patients, and the recipe for successful psychotherapy
.
(
Coplan
, 2011, p. 41)Slide4
Paradox of empathy: self/other orientations
Self
-orientated
empathy is a form of perspective-taking
(pseudo-
empathy; fake)
:
This
is subject to ego-centric bias
- we
cannot always predict how a person different
from
us, or even similar to us, might
feel -
and is therefore unreliable
. (
Coplan
, 2011).
Also relates to ‘role-taking’ (Mead, 1934)
True (authentic) empathy
is
‘other’
orientated and operates at the level of feeling
: suppresses our own perspectives in order to focus on the ‘other’ and their feelings in their particular situation. (Calloway-Thomas, 2010;
Coplan
, 2011). Slide5
Types of empathyCognitive empathy
: high level perspective-
taking or “recognition of another’s difficulties, coupled with some understanding about the nature and causes of these difficulties”.
Physical empathy
: “experiencing the distress of another at a physical level”. [also known as ‘emotional contagion’; ‘catching’ emotion]
(Clark, C. 1997, cited in Turner and Stets, 2005).
Emotional
or affective empathy
: feeling what other people might feel or “actually having an emotional reaction to a person’s plight.” It is also culturally regulated (what people
should feel
and
how this should be displayed
)
.
Marks out
true
empathetic skill (Calloway-Thomas, 2010)
.
Moral empathy
: also known as a ‘social emotion’ (Eisenberg, 2000). Associated with feelings of guilt and shame in relation to another person’s emotional state.Slide6
The business discourse of empathySlide7
Empathy in the public relations literatureEmpathy is considered to be a
key principle of dialogue
in
organisation
-public relationships.
Provides “an atmosphere of support and trust” (Kent and Taylor, 2002, p. 27)
Windahl
and
Signitzer
(1992, p. 21) cite empathy and
social perspective taking
(Reardon,
1987
) as valuable competencies of the communication planner, especially as planners have “no direct contact with the people with whom they communicate”.
Related to
role-taking
(Mead, 1934) which is identified as an important part of the public relations process for the practitioner to understand the position of the ‘other’ (Culbertson, 1991; 2009)Slide8
Empathy as a personal attribute in public relations literature
Among
the top three
‘
personal attributes
’
in four specific professional communication
roles:
chief communication officer, crisis communication manager, internal communication manager and social media
manager, according to the ECOPSI study (
Tench
and
Moreno, 2015).
A US
survey found that transformational leadership and empathy
[
as a personal attribute
] were
significant predictors of PR
leaders’
competency
in gaining
employees
’ trust, managing employees’ frustration and optimism, taking stances toward employees and top management in decision-making
conflicts (Jin, 2010).
Slide9
Empathy in PR consultancy relationships: PR executives
A key
skill in public relations agency work which is
learned on the job
to
manage the feelings and expectations
of clients, journalists and colleagues
Linked to
the process of
educating
the client about the value of PR work to their business
Linked to
the process
‘selling-in’
stories to journalists
Helps practitioners
to
manage upwards
(with agency directors/managers)
to ensure that confidence in their account-handling skills are maintained.
Some
empathising
strategies suggest ‘deep acting
’
(emotional empathy)
techniques that could be considered harmful to one’s sense of self; however in
my study
empathising
was considered as ‘part of the job’.
Learning
more about the other person’s situation enabled practitioners to
take control
of the professional
relationship
(cognitive empathy)
.Slide10
Empathy in PR consultancy relationshipsSenior level perspectivesSlide11
‘Client alignment’ strategies to understand the client’s situation
“So
we do try to understand what pressures they are under because the pharmaceutical industry’s not doing well at the
moment.”
(participant 5)
“So
we suggest things like
‘go
and hot
desk’; ‘go
and actually sit and work in the client’s office so you can see what’s going
on’,
because that sort of chemistry, that relationship I think is terribly important to do
.” (participant 2)
Slide12
Developing empathy among junior team members“all
the accounts will have regular internal
meetings;
it’s a point that you can just say, look guys, you just need to
be on it
a bit
more;
remember, always think in their shoes, wear your client’s shoes, what does it feel like
?” (participant 3)
“I’ll
need to win him round to make him reflect on how, if he’s going to develop a career and become a very senior consultant, maybe a little bit more empathy and therefore what are you going to do about it then
?” (participant 4, r
eferring
to
a junior
entrant who loudly
complained about a ‘stupid’ client
)Slide13
Understanding client relationships beyond the immediate
contact
“We
delivered a campaign for them which got outstanding national coverage and we thought,
wow […] the
next day that client sacked us and the reason why is because what we didn’t
account
for is the chairman of that company totally disagreeing with the whole news angle that we had come up
with. Even
though that had been discussed at length with marketing
director […]
he never checked with his
chairman”. (participant 1)Slide14
Conclusions
Intercultural communication theory (Calloway-Thomas, 2010) presents empathy as ‘other’ orientated practice based on authentic feelings and imagination.
But, there is a paradox within a business context where empathic skill is framed as a route to career-enhancement and profit, suggesting an instrumental, self-orientation, This particularly applies in a high-pressured PR ‘sales/selling’ environment.
I argue for clear
distinctions to be made between ‘empathy’, ‘role-taking’ and ‘social perspective taking’ in
the PR literature and
for empathy teaching in the curriculum to prepare students for interactions where culturally-sensitive ‘other’ related skills are deemed as essential, while
recognising
the commercially-driven motivations for empathy
. Slide15
ReferencesCalloway-Thomas, C (2010) Empathy in the Global World: An Intercultural Perspective
.
Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Clark, C. (1997)
Misery and company: sympathy in everyday life
. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Coplan
, A. (2011) Will the real empathy please stand up? A case for a narrow conceptualization.
The Southern Journal of
Philosophy
, 49
,
pp. 40
–65.
Culbertson
, H.M. (1991
) Role
-taking and sensitivity:
keys
to playing and making public relations roles.
Public Relations Research Annual
,
3,
pp. 37
-65.
Culbertson, H.M. (2009) Role-taking: an important public relations process.
Malaysian
Journal of Media
Studies
,
11 (1), pp.
1-
8.
Eisenberg, N. (2000) Emotion, regulation and moral development.
Annual Review of Psychology
, 51, pp. 665-697.
Hochschild, A. R. (1983)
The managed heart: commercialization of human feeling
. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Slide16
ReferencesJin, Y
(2010) Emotional leadership as a key dimension of public relations leadership: a national survey of public relations leaders.
Journal of Public Relations Research
, 22 (2) 159-181.
Kent
, M. and Taylor, M. (2002) Towards a theory of dialogue in public relations.
Public Relations Review
, 28, pp. 21-37.
Olson
,
G.
(2013) The neoliberal state and the state of empathy. In:
Empathy
Imperiled
: Capitalism, Culture and the Brain
.
SpringerBriefs
in Political Science 10, pp. 43-51.
Mead
, G. H. (1934)
Mind, self and
society
. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Tench
, R. & Moreno, A. (2015).
Mapping communication management competencies for European practitioners.
Journal of Communication Management,
19
(1), 39 – 61
Turner
, J. and Stets, J. (2005)
The sociology of emotions
. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Windahl
, S. and
Signitzer
, B. (1992)
Using communication theory
. London: Sage.