Empathy vs Antipathy
Antipathy is the active counterpoint to empathy: feeling against another rather than feeling with. The distinction matters in conflict, prejudice, and recovery from broken relationships.
Three different opposites of empathy
Empathy has at least three different opposites, each with different implications:
| Concept | Greek root | Direction of feeling |
|---|---|---|
| Empathy | em- (in) + pathos | Feeling into the other |
| Apathy | a- (without) + pathos | Absence of feeling |
| Antipathy | anti- (against) + pathos | Feeling against the other |
| Schadenfreude | German, pleasure in another’s misfortune | Positive affect at the other’s suffering |
Antipathy and in-group bias
Antipathy is closely connected to research on in-group vs out-group dynamics. Empathy reliably extends to people we perceive as in-group; antipathy reliably appears toward people perceived as out-group, particularly in contexts of intergroup conflict. See Cikara, Bruneau, & Saxe 2011, Current Directions in Psychological Science, doi:10.1177/0963721411408713.
The same neural circuitry that produces empathic distress at in-group suffering may produce muted or even pleasurable response at out-group suffering. This is one of the strongest arguments for cultivating compassion deliberately, rather than relying on spontaneous empathy: the spontaneous response is reliably biased.
Moving from antipathy back toward empathy
Conflict resolution research suggests that perspective-taking exercises (a component of cognitive empathy) can reduce antipathy toward out-group members. The Galinsky and Moskowitz work in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology showed that taking the perspective of an out-group member reduced stereotype use and expressed prejudice. See doi:10.1037/0022-3514.78.4.708.
Notably, these effects are reliable but modest, and they may not transfer cleanly to entrenched real-world conflicts. Antipathy hardened by sustained intergroup grievance is harder to shift than antipathy in laboratory conditions.