The double empathy problem
No problem, pt 7
A few years back I did some reading on the Double Empathy problem in autism.
It was a term proposed by Damian Milton to explain that autistic people don’t lack empathy. It’s more that they experience the world and express their emotions differently to non-autistic people.
The theory of the double empathy problem suggests that when people with very different experiences of the world interact with one another, they will struggle to empathise with each other. This is likely to be exacerbated through differences in language use and comprehension.
You may be aware that ND people often mask their personality to fit in with an NT world.
Speaking to an autistic friend about this we speculated that masking is about understanding the rules of engagement in society, unconsciously breaking these down into principles and applying them contextually to a given situation.
Can you imagine how tiring that is?
I think this almost algorithmic approach to life is also why a lot of the copywriters I follow have spoken about being or identify as autistic.
The same ability to artificially behave in ‘acceptable’ ways to receive an appropriate reaction, allows an understanding of metalanguage and its rules, to apply them in the same way.
Speaking the language of the people they want to appeal to.
IIRC it was around 2016 when I first read about Double Empathy and I didn’t really think of it again until a couple of years later.
Around the time my eldest daughter started secondary school, she went from being a child to someone who wanted to find her own personality and interests, while separating herself from what she felt was the child she used to be.
Of course, this wasn’t something I noticed, so stuck in the trenches was I in parenthood, it was something I read in the marvellous book Untangled by Lisa Damour.
If you have daughters, I strongly recommend it. It’s also a lesson in leadership.
What became clear reading it though, was that it describes the Double Empathy Problem.
My experiences and hers were so different, when we spoke we had two completely different conversations.
Perception and intent.
As my mind often does, I started thinking about other areas of double empathy.
“We had it much tougher in my day” “Music these days is rubbish”
Or indeed anywhere that has an ism.
But then I realised I knew about the Double Empathy problem objectively as early as 2006.
It was at the time a candidate was offered a role, and the (fortunately overcome) issue of her start date came up.
She tells me she had said to them at interview “I won’t be able to start any sooner than three months notice, due to managing a site closure”.
Somehow they heard “I can start in a month”.
They were both adamant they were right.
We agreed that what Julie meant to say, what she said, and what they heard, were all slightly different.
Perception and intent.
It’s fundamentally true that what an employer and a candidate want from a recruitment process is different, even though the outcome they want is often similar.
How they intersect is a manifestation of the Double Empathy Problem.
I’m sure if you’ve regularly interviewed you’ll have noted that the person who gets the job is often the one who interviewed best, not necessarily the best candidate.
It’s because they’ve learnt the rules of the game and given their audience what they think they need.
This is one reason ‘job search coaching’ is such a simple career to develop.
Once you’ve learnt the rules of the game, you can teach others the same.
And the one skill most job seekers haven’t learnt, when they start a job search, is how to look for work.
However a good job search coach is rare, and the rest rely on the sale of hope.
Even good ones fall back on flim flam like the ‘hidden jobs market’. Have at thee!
But of course, there’s another side to this, which is that job seekers who haven’t learnt the rules of the game may encounter worse examples of the double empathy problem than others.
Their candidacy is stuck in their head, with insufficient skill to interpret it with meaning.
Not just at interview, but in their CV, in their requirements, and even in which jobs they think they should be applying for.
This is an opportunity in recruitment when we can see that good candidates are hidden by how they’ve expressed themselves.
This means the onus should be on us to create an experience that enables them to show us how they can fulfil our needs.
This, for me, lies at the heart of what good candidate experience is.
Employers suffer from their own double empathy problem.
Replace what I’ve said about candidates with job descriptions, adverts and every touchpoint in recruitment.
Typically it’s about the employer and their needs, unable to articulate with the meaning ideal candidates need.
Inside out.
When the opportunity to solve double empathy lies in starting with the experience candidates need.
Outside in.
Double empathy is a neurologically built-in issue that can be harmful for autistic people.
As opposed to how it presents systemically in recruitment.
Another reason why process is the opportunity for improvement, rather than just technology.
I find this a fascinating topic to discuss, and I hope this doesn’t do injustice to people who genuinely suffer from a society built against them.
If you disagree with anything I’ve said, I’d love to hear from you. Perhaps we can both learn something.
Thanks for reading.
Regards,
Greg
p.s. I should be available for further projects from the end of next week. Get in touch if you’ve a recruitment problem that needs attention.