Reading Radical Candor by Kim Scott made me think a lot about empathy. By means of introspection and from re-reading situations where I, or people I have watched, merged too fully with an image of someone else’s mind, I examine a pattern of communication failures where empathy can crowd out candid judgment. That pattern is slightly different in mechanism than what Scott describes in the book.
Empathic Blurring, as I am going to call this mechanism, does not map onto the distinctions Scott draws between withholding challenge to spare feelings and the political, pliant behavior she labels manipulative insincerity.
I find an instructive notion to understand how our minds work when we are empathic in narrative theory. I argue that being in the mode of empathy is exactly what we experience when our mind is immersed in the alternate reality of a fictional story. Thus, studying the mechanisms of fictional literature can be a way to understand how we are able to merge with someone else’s reality.
This understanding of empathy gives raise to my argument that confidence, not less empathy, is the antidote to empathic blurring.

Entering Another Mind

Fictional literature allows us to inhabit minds that are not our own, to experience a reality that is not ours. Psychologists call this ability to represent another person’s beliefs and intentions Theory of Mind. Sometimes it is also called empathy – the ability to understand how a different person sees the world (not to be confused with sympathy which is feeling what the other person feels). It is the feature that makes humans intelligent social beings (sometimes).

Reading fictional literature is an exercise in empathy. Thus, literature theory helps us analyze the mechanisms of empathy. When we look at the techniques used by authors to immerse the reader in a character’s worldview and belief system, we can understand how our mind works when it operates in the mode of empathy.

In now classic essay from 1972, the narratologist Gérard Genette calls a cluster of these techniques focalisation: the question of through whose consciousness the story is filtered, as distinct from who speaks (the narrator’s voice). A single sentence can hover between an external report and a character’s inner conviction. Consider, for instance: “Life was good.” It reads like a plain statement of fact, yet it only works as someone’s verdict on events; this ambiguity is similar to a sleight-of-hand in a card trick. It makes the reader begin to accept something as objective which is, strictly speaking, just a perspective. As readers, we then start to accept the focalised perspective as our own perspective (as we are used to confounding our own perspective with objective reality¹). By calling this focalisation, Genette highlights that the shift in focalisation is often subtle and smooth, like a camera zoom. Often, focalisation shifts do not come as a sudden hard shift, but our minds are gradually made to zoom in into a character’s perspective.

How this technique works tells something fascinating about the social nature of our minds. Novels have gone much farther, demonstrating how we are able to suspend whole belief systems while reading. A striking example is the literature genre of Magical Realism. Magical Realism is a genre in which fantastical or supernatural elements appear in an otherwise realistic setting and are treated as ordinary parts of everyday life, and where it is kept ambiguous whether the magical events are actually real, or just being perceived by a character (perhaps having a pathological mind). Stories often begin in familiar settings, and gradually introduce elements that feel strange or improbable. This slow unfolding allows the unfamiliar to settle into the familiar, so that by the time the extraordinary occurs, it is coherent and immersive.

As a rationalist reader, one will consider a world where objects respond to thought impossible, yet the story’s internal logic and the character’s convictions can make one understand how it feels to live in a world where magic is real, and how it feels to rightfully believe in magic.

One important means to evoke this reality in the reader’s mind is to include events in the narration that appear as confirmations of the magical reality. As a rationalist reader, we can accept the occurrence of a seemingly magical event (like when a curse plays out consistently) as a coincidence. At the same time, as the story validates the character’s way of magical belief, we start to accept that believing in magic makes perfect sense in the reality of the narration.²

This is a noticeable difference between reading fictional literature and watching a movie. Reading is not merely perceiving a fictional world, it is rehearsing another way of thinking and sensing, inhabiting the world according to someone else’s framework.

Fading Away Under the Spell of a Different Mind

The capacity to adopt another person’s mental framework is extremely powerful. Immersing ourselves in someone else’s thoughts requires temporarily suspending the frameworks that guide our own judgment. In fiction, this suspension can be liberating, and it can broaden our horizon: we explore perspectives without consequence, rehearsing what it feels like to inhabit someone else’s reality. The book cover defines clear boundaries. When we close the book, we end this excursion and return to our “real” reality.

If boundaries between our own reality and the one we are imagining in an act of empathy are becoming blurry, empathy can have adverse effects. In situations where another person has power over us, i.e. we are needy to be validated by them, the lines between what we perceive and what the other person perceives can become blurry, and our own reality can begin to fade away. Then, empathy can become a self-fulfilling spell, if we submit our thinking to the framework of the other person without even noticing it.

A friend once described a problem at work which made him angry. His anger stemmed from the fact that he clearly saw the problem, but felt unable to resolve it, partially because it involved a different department. Part of this helplessness was the fact that he saw that his own manager willfully turned a blind eye towards the problem. When I suggested he bring it up with his manager, he immediately rebuffed this idea: “But my manager will ignore this problem. It is not important to him. He has no time for this.”

In that instant, my friend had already inhabited his manager’s mind and, in doing so, had removed himself from his own. The question of whether the problem was real was replaced by the question of whether it would be accepted. Believing the answer to that second question was negative, he discounted the value of the first question. In that moment, his own perspective quietly faded into the perspective of his boss.

This is a subtle danger of empathy: When we are too attuned to another person’s perception, we may begin to treat it not as one viewpoint among many, but as the measure of reality itself. We start editing, suppressing, or reshaping our experience to align with what we anticipate someone else will recognize.

I see the underlying logic as analogous to the principle behind gaslighting: In gaslighting, one person undermines another’s perception through manipulation, leaving them doubting what they see or know. The pattern I am describing is a subtler version of the same dynamic, but self-imposed. When we feel the need for social alignment, we may internalize the authority of someone else’s perception without any explicit external coercion. The spell is not necessarily forced, it can also be willingly accepted, or even accepted in anticipation.

Empathy is a door into another mind, but without the counterbalance of confidence, it can also be the path along which we disappear. We fade, piece by piece, replacing our own judgments with the anticipations of others, until what we see and know feels provisional, contingent on someone else’s approval.

The Need for Validation

I call the antidote to this kind of blurring confidence. I can clearly define what I mean by that: Confidence, as I understand it here, is the absence of a need for external validation.

Confidence is the absence of a need for external validation.

In literature, one of the most compelling ways authors immerse us in a character’s reality is by showing events that confirm the character’s beliefs. In fiction, “what is true” for the reading experience is usually shorthand for “what the text treats as operative” – what it lets count because it shapes events. It seems that our mind operates on the premise “True is what has an effect on reality.” That way, in a novel of Magical Realism, an occurrence whose most straight-forward explanation is a magical belief can validate the character’s magical belief and draws the reader’s mind fully into that mindset.³

In life, a similar mechanism subtly governs how we relate to others. We may recognize what is true, but we also understand that its relevance is determined by someone else’s framework: a partner, a manager, a parent, or a social group. Marking this difference between “what is true” and “what matters” to others requires confidence.

Anticipating how others will receive what we notice, we may hesitate to utter what we see, edit it (by “sugar coating” our message), or remain completely silent. In doing so, we validate their framework (or rather: what we think their framework is) over our own.

Navigating the perspectives of others without being overwhelmed requires a quiet steadiness of judgment. Confidence allows us to maintain a sense of what is real while engaging with the perceptions of others.

It is not a shield that blocks understanding, but a frame that allows insight to pass through without displacing our own experience. We can acknowledge the realities others inhabit while retaining the authority to speak from our own. Without that steadiness, the empathy that connects us becomes the force that silences us.

The Trap of Untested Assumptions

There is a hidden danger here. Believing we know how others will respond can feel protective, but if we don’t test this assumption, the spell continues unchallenged. Speaking out by voicing our thoughts and observations is the only way to discover whether our perceptions hold relevance or might even expand someone else’s understanding. Besides being the most direct way to resolve misunderstandings, it also gives our partner the chance to correct our belief about their worldview, and an actual chance to change.

Withholding preserves the anticipated judgment. It also perpetuates the disconnect in our partner’s world view. If what we see is real, but our counterpart thinks it doesn’t matter, perhaps they are wrong and would benefit from our perspective expanding their frame of relevance?

Expressing our view allows expectation to meet reality. Without this step, we risk reinforcing the very framework that undermines our confidence, leaving the authority of our perception perpetually deferred.

Responsibilities in the Workplace

In teams at work, these dynamics are subtle but persistent. People begin to anticipate reactions before speaking, modulating their contributions to align with what they believe is expected. That can result in harmony, but also in distortion.

As Manager: Provide Psychological Safety

Managers who wish to counter this effect must cultivate an environment in which ideas can be expressed without immediate judgment. This is the core idea of psychological safety. It is not enough to encourage honesty; the consequences of speaking must be decoupled from agreement. When people can voice observations and questions without fear that divergence will be punished, the integrity of perception is preserved, and the group benefits from the full range of perspectives.

As Employee: Confidence Without Dependence

On the other side, employees also have a responsibility. It is easy to get confused and intimidated by hierarchy. Similar to how partnerships are stronger when partners don’t depend on each other, a working relationship will be stronger when the employee does not feel needy for their boss’s approval. The best way to achieve this, is probably to have a financial cushion that makes it affordable to spend some time looking for another employer.

Even if you are in the very privileged position to be able to be between jobs for a while, there is a risk of falling for this trap. But confidence is not rudeness or entitlement; it is part of the responsibility of being a good partner in any relationship. A boss is easy to misread from a distance. A hurried remark, a missed reply, or a decision that looks cold from your seat can stand in for a whole person; add a few ambiguous signals, and you may assemble a picture that is coherent, plausible, and wrong. Once that picture hardens, empathy stops enabling contact with another mind and becomes a private screenplay: you react less to your manager than to the character you have cast them as.

The way out is uncomfortable, because the asymmetry of power is real. I believe that in the long term, it is necessary, if you want to keep the relation. Here is how:

You test your idea of your counterpart against reality: you ask, you summarize what you understood and invite correction, you say what you see rather than what you assume they will want to hear. When you present an opinion of which you are afraid it is deviant from what your counterpart will accept, ground your statements in common sense, and deliver them as such; use the tone you would use when you say the most normal things in the world. Anxiously anticipating (and mentioning) that your point of view will not be taken well turns your statement into one about the relationship between you and your counterpart. In my own experience and in observing others, I have found that the kind of “dry” delivery that talks about the “hot” topic in a way one would talk about good weather sucks out the drama from potential dissent and makes it easier to disagree with you.

Notice that this description of the rhetorical aspects of confident delivery includes some guidance for how to be confident. Confidence is, to a degree, a decision. Of course, the question how big the risk of confident behavior is, is based in facts that are beyond our control. Nonetheless, if we never dare to dare, no external guarantee can help us. Following the principle of dry delivery helps you understand how you will look when you act confidently. Having this image of yourself in mind can do a great deal of help for acting confident.

Looking back at my own history, I can name more than one stretch where I lacked that confidence: I held back because I was sure speaking up would change nothing, and the cost of that silence was borne by the work, by colleagues, and by me.

The antidote is not bluster; it is the quiet habit of realizing that your empathy should be guided by confidence.