10 | New Scientist | 16 November 2019
THE sun glints off this rare display of
“ice eggs” spread along 30 metres
of Finland’s Marjaniemi beach on
Hailuoto Island.
Amateur photographer Risto
Mattila stumbled upon the sight
during a stroll and told journalists
it was unlike anything he had ever
seen. Luckily, he had his camera to
hand. The ice balls range from the
size of an egg to a football. People
flocked to the area, hoping to catch
a glimpse before they melted.
Waves are key to the ice
structures forming, says Walt Meier
at the National Snow and Ice Data
Center in Colorado. You need
enough motion to prevent the
ice from freezing into a sheet,
but not enough that it prevents
any ice forming.
Once the ice balls start to form,
water washes over them and
freezes, increasing their size and
smoothing the surface, he says.
The ice balls then wash ashore. ❚EnvironmentYOU might think that a little
extra empathy would help
to heal the split in US politics
at the moment, but it could
actually worsen the situation
by increasing polarisation.
Elizabeth Simas at the
University of Houston, Texas,
and her colleagues surveyed
1000 people in the US and found
that those with a disposition
for “empathic concern”, one
of several traits that make up
general empathy, seem to be
more politically polarised.
People with more empathic
concern held a more favourable
opinion of their own preferred
party, whether Republican or
Democrat, along with a moreunfavourable opinion of the
opposing one.
To explore this further, the
researchers surveyed around
1200 students, randomly splitting
them into two groups. Each
participant was shown a different
version of an article about a
protest on a university campus,
which told the story of a public
event with either a Democrat or
Republican speaker that is halted
by protests from the other side.
When the police try to move in, a
bystander is struck by a protester.
In answering questions about
the story, those with low empathic
concern took the same view on
whether the speech should have
been stopped, irrespective of thespeaker’s party. Students who
were more empathic, however,
were happier for those they
disagreed with to be censored.
“It’s like an emotional
contagion to a certain degree,”
says Simas. “I’m sharing the pain
with somebody I connect with,so I don’t like the cause of the pain.
“We’re certainly not claiming
that empathy is horrible and
bad,” he says, rather that empathy
“is a complex thing”.
The team also found that peoplecared overall about the bystander’s
welfare, but that concern showed
a partisan bias too, being less
sympathetic if the bystander
wanted to hear a speaker from
the side the student disagreed
with (American Political Science
Review, doi.org/ddzh).
Evolution may explain why
empathy and polarisation are
linked, says Eric Groenendyk
at the University of Memphis,
Tennessee. “Moral emotions
evolved to help us navigate
a world where tribal solidarity
likely offered a huge advantage
in survival. Thus, it makes good
sense that empathy might be
in-group oriented,” he says. ❚Social scienceEmpathy may worsen political divisions
Gege LiSpectacular ice balls
Strange frozen spheres have covered a beach in Finland
RISTO
M
AT
TILANews
“ Students who were more
empathic were happier for
speakers they disagreed
with to be censored”Leo Benedictus