Information empathy

Why should we say that someone has "information empathy" instead of saying they possess a "theory of mind"?

Possible reasons: "theory of mind" is an unwieldy term, it might be useful to distinguish in fewer words a theory of mind with respect to beliefs from a theory of mind with respect to preferences, you want to emphasise a connection between empathy and information empathy.

I think if there's established terminology for something we're interesting in discussing, there should be a pretty compelling reason why it doesn't suffice for us.

Yeah, I think this is an important concept. I have a longer post that's been brewing for years about this, tackling some of the ramifications of this for group coordination.

The Sally Anne test is the thing you're thinking of.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally%E2%80%93Anne_test

… the primary reason for their anger seems to be neither that X happened to them nor that my doing X was careless, but rather that I did X knowing full well what the consequences were… even when they could see that that was not true.

There is, however, another possibility. Now, I do not mean to gainsay your account of any situations you have actually found yourself in, but rather to note the possibility of a superficially similar, but critically different, scenario—namely, one in which your accuser knows, indeed, that you did not apprehend the consequences of your action… but believes that you should have known, and that the fact of your ignorance itself constitutes a blameworthy act of negligence.

A special case of this pattern is the idea that “ignorance of the law is no excuse” (that is, ignorance does not absole an offender of liability).

The reason for holding, and enforcing, a norm like this, should be obvious: because to do otherwise would create an incentive to be ignorant of whatever facts that, if known by a perpetrator, would cause them to be knowingly transgressing. This, in turn, incentivizes (or, more precisely, fails to properly disincentivize) wrongdoing, by removing the usual penalty.

Anger, then, stems from the sense that someone is trying to “get one over you”—to evade responsibility, and to be able to act wrongly without fear of punishment—by cultivating ignorance, and by failing to make the effort to learn the rules/consequences/etc.

It is important to distinguish between such cases, and cases of mere lack of “information empathy” (a.k.a. “theory of mind”); in the former sort of case, the accuser is in the right, and the transgressor (though unwitting) is in the wrong.

Reminds me of people getting mad at their partner for something said partner did in a dream the person had. Never underestimate human capacity of ignoring logic and evidence.

Jokes aside, I feel like there have been actual occasions where somebody has been angry at me after I did X, where the primary reason for their anger seems to be neither that X happened to them nor that my doing X was careless, but rather that I did X knowing full well what the consequences were… even when they could see that that was not true.

Upvoted for the term, but how do you know lack of information empathy was the primary cause, not something such as a subconscious motivation to blame someone for X (either to deflect attention away from their own contributions to X, or to put you in social debt to them) and "you did X knowing full well what the consequences were" allows them to blame you more than "you did X because you were careless"?

You already had the theory of mind link