sympathy

                Dr. Arthur I. Gates said in his splendid book Educational Psychology: “Sympathy the human species universally craves.  The child eagerly displays his injury; or even inflicts a cut or bruise in order to reap abundant sympathy.  For the same purpose adults … show their bruises, relate their accidents, illness, especially details of surgical operations.  ‘Self-pity’ for misfortunes real or imaginary is, in some measure, practically a universal practice.”