Coping seems to be one of the most important aspects of getting over a tragedy and an apathetic reaction may be expected. Being able to "shrug off" disappointments is considered an important step in moving people forward and driving them to try other activities and achieve new goals. The cure for apathy is comprehension."Īpathy is a normal way for humans to cope with stress. In 1950, US novelist John Dos Passos wrote: "Apathy is one of the characteristic responses of any living organism when it is subjected to stimuli too intense or too complicated to cope with.
Soldiers who lived in the trenches amidst the bombing and machine gun fire, and who saw the battlefields strewn with dead and maimed comrades, developed a sense of disconnected numbness and indifference to normal social interaction when they returned from combat. The modern concept of apathy became more well known after World War I, when it was one of the various forms of " shell shock". Clemens Alexandrinus used the term to draw to Christianity philosophers who aspired after virtue. This interpretation of apathy is also referred to as Sloth and is listed among the Seven Deadly Sins.
History and other views Ĭhristians have historically condemned apathy as a deficiency of love and devotion to God and his works. In the Philokalia the word dispassion is used for apatheia, so as not to confuse it with apathy. In contrast to apathy, apatheia is considered a virtue, especially in Orthodox monasticism. Also meaning "absence of passion," "apathy" or "insensibility" in Greek, the term apatheia was used by the Stoics to signify a (desirable) state of indifference towards events and things which lie outside one's control (that is, according to their philosophy, all things exterior, one being only responsible for one's own representations and judgments). 4 Medical aspects | Pathological apathyĪlthough the word apathy was first used in 1594 and is derived from the Greek ἀπάθεια ( apatheia), from ἀπάθης ( apathēs, "without feeling" from a- ("without, not") and pathos ("emotion")), it is important not to confuse the two terms.Although many patients with pathological apathy also suffer from depression, several studies have shown that the two syndromes are dissociable: apathy can occur independently of depression and vice versa. Pathological apathy, characterized by extreme forms of apathy, is now known to occur in many different brain disorders, including neurodegenerative conditions often associated with dementia such as Alzheimer's disease, and psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia. An extreme form of apathy may be someone being numb to different stressful life events such as losing a job.Īpathy should be distinguished from reduced affect display, which refers to reduced emotional expression but not necessarily reduced emotion. This type of common apathy is usually felt only in the short term, but sometimes it becomes a long-term or even lifelong state, often leading to deeper social and psychological issues. As a response, apathy is a way to forget about these negative feelings. Apathy is something that all people face in some capacity and is a natural response to disappointment, dejection, and stress. the challenge is irrelevant to them, or conversely, they have learned helplessness). It may also be a result of perceiving no challenge at all (e.g. In positive psychology, apathy is described as a result of the individuals' feeling they do not possess the level of skill required to confront a challenge (i.e. They may also exhibit insensibility or sluggishness. People that suffer from severe apathy tend to have a lower quality of life and are at a higher risk for mortality and early institutionalization. The apathetic may lack a sense of purpose, worth, or meaning in their life. Apathy can also be defined as a person's lack of goal orientation. An apathetic individual has an absence of interest in or concern about emotional, social, spiritual, philosophical, virtual, or physical life and the world. It is a state of indifference, or the suppression of emotions such as concern, excitement, motivation, or passion.
Apathy is a lack of feeling, emotion, interest, or concern about something.