Responsive dynamics of empathic activity

Rapid changes in human life initiated by changes of technological modes, by the development of processes specific for the information-oriented society accompanied by "depersonalization of communication" in social networks, by the development of "virtual identity", with blurring the boundaries between people and their environment, brought to the fore the aspects of the problem of compatibility (incompatibility, isolation, alienation, etc.). In this trend the issue of boundaries for empathy and identity - that is the issue of empathic activity - became very significant. The timeliness of posing this problem is not only connected with the social significance of the spectrum of problems centered by the phenomenon of "empathy", but also with the development of theoretical, methodological and paradigm mindsets reflecting the development of the psychological science. The potential of these methodological approaches and the existing state of knowledge of the phenomenon of empathy allows setting the task of creating the psychological system-anthropological model of empathy, adding to the existing understanding the component of self-development. We assume that empathic activity exists in two forms. It is always present in the total activity of a person associated with the selective interaction with the world in the form of some empathic potential. The model of empathic experience in our study is represented in the consistent conforming algorithm: TRANSFORMATION - FORMATION - IMAGINATION. At the same time empathic activity consists of a set of modalities: empathic initiative, empathic reactivity and empathic reflection. Empathic initiative sets semantic boundaries for interaction, empathic reactivity - boundaries for values, the content of the reaction, and reflection sets the boundaries for selfidentity, it determines the identity of a person in this empathic interaction. On the basis of our data we can speculate that professional orientation affects the formation of empathic competence in respect of transformations of empathic potential into empathic activity. Empathic activity has a responsive character and it appears to be a transformation of potential psychological tension that determines the selectivity of perception into the actual activity that determines the dynamics of identity.

Keywords

Authors

References