Big Think

Empathy is a useful tool that allows humans (and other species) to connect and form mutually beneficial bonds, but knowing how and when to be empathic is just as important as having empathy.

Filmmaker Danfung Dennis, Bill Nye, and actor Alan Alda discuss the science of empathy and the ways that the ability can be cultivated and practiced to affect meaningful change, both on a personal and community level.

But empathy is not a cure all. Paul Bloom explains the psychological differences between empathy and compassion, and how the former can "get in the way" of some of life's crucial relationships.

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TRANSCRIPT:

0:00 Intro

0:30 Bill Nye on the evolution of empathy

1:15 Alan Alda’s empathy exercise

4:52 Empathy in virtual reality

5:55 How empathy backfires

7:36 Empathy vs. compassion

​- Why are we empathetic?

- It's something that we can foster and cultivate.

- But if you sink into that feeling and get lost in it then it's no longer a tool. It's something that's working against you.

- Empathy is exhausting. It is unpleasant. It is difficult. And it makes you withdraw.

BILL NYE: Why are we empathetic? Just consider what a tribe would be like, a tribe of humans, would be like without empathy, without ability to feel what someone else is feeling, without ability to see it from another person's point of view. You probably wouldn't be a very successful tribe. You wouldn't take care of each other. You probably wouldn't divide up tasks. You do this and I'll do that. I know that's hard for you, I'll do this. Well, I'm good at this. I know you're good at that, so you do that and I'll do this. I mean, imagine a tribe without empathy. So my claim, which is extraordinary at first, is not only are size and shape determined by the process of evolution but so are our feelings, and empathy is part of that. Our ancestors without empathy were not as successful.

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You know Steve-O. Now meet Steve Glover, as the professional stuntman talks to us about pain, insecurity, and never finding contentment.

In this deeply personal and revealing interview, Steve Glover, better known as Steve-O, the daredevil entertainer known for his jaw-dropping stunts and unflinching willingness to face pain, shares the untold story of his journey from a childhood craving for attention to becoming an icon of wild antics and extreme performances.

Opening up about his struggles with alcoholism, the relentless pursuit of fame, and his battles with feeling 'not good enough', Glover offers an introspective look into the complexities behind the laughter and the screams.

With raw honesty, he discusses the pivotal moments that shaped him, the drive to document his existence through stunts, and the liberating power of sharing the secrets he once vowed to take to his grave.

This interview is not just a glimpse into the life of a professional idiot; it's a candid exploration of human vulnerability, the cost of fame, and the ongoing quest for self-acceptance.

We created this video in partnership with Unlikely Collaborators.

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About Steve-O:

Steve-O (a.k.a. Stephen Glover) was willing to do whatever it took to become famous, even if it meant stapling his ball sack to his leg. After failing miserably at the University of Miami and couch-surfing with friends, he decided that in order to further his goal of becoming a stuntman he would enroll in Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Clown College. But it was his relentless attention whoring that ultimately led to working with Johnny Knoxville on a new stunt-based reality show called Jackass.

In 2000, MTV aired the first season and the rest, as they say, is history. Since then, he's had continued success, as a New York Times best-selling author with the release of his memoir, 'Professional Idiot', as well as establishing himself in the world of stand-up comedy. With fourteen years of sobriety under his belt, Steve-O shows no signs of slowing down...

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When someone says thank you, who is it for? According to Dr. Sara Algoe, expressions of gratitude have a positive effect on the person receiving the message, the person delivering it, and even those who witness the exchange. These types of social interactions are crucial for building lasting relationships with romantic partners, friends, and coworkers.

"When we say 'thank you,' we're sending a message to the person who just did something nice for us, that they are valued, that they're seen, that the thing that they did for us was worth doing in the first place," Algoe says.

Expressing gratitude is easy, and the research shows that the benefits far outweigh the effort.

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SARA ALGOE:

Sara Algoe is an associate professor of social psychology and the director of the Emotions and Social Interactions in Relationships (EASIR) Laboratory at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Algoe's research focuses on themes of emotions, relationships, and health psychology. She is particularly interested in how high-quality relationships contribute to the survival of our species, and the role that social interactions—such as giving, gratitude, and laughter—play in the bonds we form with partners, friends, coworkers, and acquaintances.

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TRANSCRIPT:

SARA ALGOE: When we get into a romantic relationship, it's all sparks, and flowers, and hikes, and coffees. But over time, the romantic couple gets into routines. And so what we've argued is that the moments of gratitude still matter, because when we say "thank you," we're sending a message to the person who just did something nice for us, that they are valued, that they're seen, that the thing that they did for us was worth doing in the first place.

NARRATOR: Thank you. We often take the power of it for granted, but it's fundamental to keeping your relationship healthy. And letting your partner know that you appreciate them can resonate throughout whole communities.

ALGOE: I'm Dr. Sara Algoe, and I study the emotions and social interactions that are at the heart of our very best relationships.

We do have really cool evidence from hundreds of video-recorded conversations where we had romantic couples in the lab. One person just picks something that their partner had done for them recently, and we had them express gratitude to their partner.

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Modern males are struggling. Author Richard Reeves outlines the three major issues boys and men face and shares possible solutions. Boys and men are falling behind. This might seem surprising to some people, and maybe ridiculous to others, considering that discussions on gender disparities tend to focus on the structural challenges faced by girls and women, not boys and men. But long-term data reveal a clear and alarming trend: In recent decades, American men have been faring increasingly worse in many areas of life, including education, workforce participation, skill acquisition, wages, and fatherhood. Gender politics is often framed as a zero-sum game: Any effort to help men takes away from women. But in his 2022 book Of Boys and Men, journalist and Brookings Institution scholar Richard V. Reeves argues that the structural problems contributing to male malaise affect everybody, and that shying away from these tough conversations is not a productive path forward.

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0:00 intro

1:35 Men in education

7:26 *Class matters

7:53 Men in the workforce

10:54 Men in the family

13:00 Deaths of despair

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About Richard Reeves: Richard V. Reeves is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, where he directs the Future of the Middle Class Initiative and co-directs the Center on Children and Families. His Brookings research focuses on the middle class, inequality and social mobility. Richard writes for a wide range of publications, including the New York Times, Guardian, National Affairs, The Atlantic, Democracy Journal, and Wall Street Journal. He is the author of Dream Hoarders (Brookings Institution Press, 2017), and John Stuart Mill – Victorian Firebrand (Atlantic Books, 2007), an intellectual biography of the British liberal philosopher and politician.

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The abstract numeral that changed everything, according to mathematician Talithia Williams.

Before the introduction of zero, mathematics was a tangible subject, where numbers held weight and substance. With zero came the concept of a mathematical “nothing;” it turned our solid understanding of values into something theoretical.

This development, the addition of zero, led scientists to begin exploring more conceptual ideas, like dark matter and black holes. Without zero, we wouldn’t have discovered equations like E=mc², which fundamentally rely on the concept of nothingness and balance to describe the relationship between energy and mass.

Including zero and other abstract numerals like negative numbers, gave us the framework to think about the absence of things. This “nothing number” gave us access to a new layer of understanding, potentially even leading us to new solutions for problems that were unapproachable beforehand.

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About Dr. Talithia Williams:

Talithia Williams, PhD, is a Professor of Mathematics and the Mathematics Clinic Director at Harvey Mudd College. She develops statistical models focused on environmental issues, including a cataract model for the World Health Organization to predict surgical rates in Africa.

Known for making complex numerical concepts accessible, Williams inspires others through her dedication to STEM education. Williams has worked with NASA, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), and the National Security Agency (NSA).

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About The Well

Do we inhabit a multiverse? Do we have free will? What is love? Is evolution directional? There are no simple answers to life’s biggest questions, and that’s why they’re the questions occupying the world’s brightest minds.

Together, let's learn from them.

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Ed Yong explores the hidden features that make dog noses so incredible.

Many animals, from sharks to elephants, are champions of olfaction (smelling).

Dogs are the most famous. Through their sense of smell, dogs can tell which direction a person traveled and even can distinguish between identical twins.

Dogs can be trained to detect just about anything, including electronic devices.

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About Ed Yong:

Ed Yong is a Pulitzer Prize–winning science writer on the staff of The Atlantic, where he also won the George Polk Award for science reporting, among other honors. His first book, I Contain Multitudes, was a New York Times bestseller and won numerous awards. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, National Geographic, Wired, The New York Times, Scientific American, and more. He lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife, Liz Neeley, and their corgi, Typo.

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Expert Michael Spitzer explains how culture can “tune” your musical taste. Do humans have something like an instinct for music? The musicologist Michael Spitzer thinks so. As he points out, every person is born with an innate ability to recognize rhythm, beat in time to it, and to recognize and recall melody. Music-related abilities may be universal, but musical preferences and styles can differ greatly from culture to culture. In this Big Think video, Spitzer explores why cultures interpret music differently, and also whether the internet will have a homogenizing effect on music.

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Chapters

0:00 The musical instinct

1:13 How music is colonized and counter-colonized

3:58 Why music will never homogenize

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About Michael Spitzer: Michael Spitzer is the author of The Musical Human and professor of music at the University of Liverpool, where he leads the department’s work on classical music. A music theorist and musicologist, he is an authority on Beethoven, with interests in aesthetics and critical theory, cognitive metaphor, and music and affect. He organized the International Conferences on Music and Emotion and the International Conference on Analyzing Popular Music and currently chairs the editorial board of Music Analysis Journal. About Big Think | Smarter Faster™ ► Big Think The leading source of expert-driven, educational content. With thousands of videos, featuring experts ranging from Bill Clinton to Bill Nye, Big Think helps you get smarter, faster by exploring the big ideas and core skills that define knowledge in the 21st century. ► Big Think+ Make your business smarter, faster

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The traditional measure of evolutionary success is a population's ability to continue, adapt and grow. By that measure, humanity has been a huge success: our population is only getting bigger, and for a lot of countries, so is our average life-span. Biological anthropologist Agustín Fuentes takes issue with this measurement. In his view, the sheer number of humans living on the planet doesn't necessarily equate to success. In fact, the argument that humans are doing better than ever before is problematic, because it only considers a narrow perspective of Euro-American societies, ignoring other vast cultures and populations. Instead, Fuentes argues, evolutionary success for humans should be measured by our capacity for flourishing, which includes health, security, interaction, and well-being — and importantly, how this flourishing is distributed across our species.

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chapters:

0:00 The overpopulation myth

1:20 Niche construction, explained

4:06 Human nature: Amazing and awful

5:46 The “it’s just nature” myth

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This interview is an episode from ⁠@The-Well⁠, our publication about ideas that inspire a life well-lived, created with the ⁠@JohnTempletonFoundation⁠. Get Smarter Faster, With Daily Episodes From The Worlds Biggest Thinkers

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6 ways to heal trauma without medication, from the author of “The Body Keeps the Score,” Bessel van der Kolk Conventional psychiatric practices tell us that if we feel bad, take this drug and it will go away. But after years of research with some of the top psychiatric practitioners in the world, we’ve found that drugs simply don’t work that well for many, and our conventional ways of healing trauma need to change. In recent years, experts in the study of trauma have been experimenting with ‘new age’ healing mechanisms that are making massive waves for trauma patients. Some of these new healing methods include EDMR, yoga, theater and movement, neural feedback, and even psychedelics. Many of these methods have proven to be more effective than conventional pharmaceuticals. But just like any other health regimen, what works for you might not work for your friend or neighbor. New age trauma therapy is all an experiment, and after enough experimenting, something can eventually work, healing your trauma in a unique and effective way. About Bessel van der Kolk: Bessel van der Kolk is a psychiatrist noted for his research in the area of post-traumatic stress since the 1970s. His work focuses on the interaction of attachment, neurobiology, and developmental aspects of trauma’s effects on people. His major publication, Traumatic Stress: The Effects of Overwhelming Experience on Mind, Body, and Society, talks about how the role of trauma in psychiatric illness has changed over the past 20 years. Dr. van der Kolk is past President of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, Professor of Psychiatry at Boston University Medical School, and Medical Director of the Trauma Center at JRI in Brookline, Massachusetts. He has taught at universities and hospitals across the United States and around the world, including Europe, Africa, Russia, Australia, Israel, and China. Check out Bessel van der Kolk's latest book, “The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma”

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Washington University professor John Inazu tells us how we can make peace inside a raging culture war. What explains the high levels of political polarization in American society today? To writer and law professor John Inazu, the answer is not necessarily that the media has become more biased — there has always been bias in the news, after all. The more likely answer is that the “volume” of the information we encounter has been turned way up, thanks to technology. For example, while we used to have limited access to the news through the newspaper and nightly broadcasts, we can now get constant updates on social media, email, and news apps. Often, the result is that we seek out information that confirms our beliefs and we have trouble connecting with people whose opinions differ from our own. Inazu suggests we can break out of our ideological bubbles through “confident pluralism,” which he describes as a framework that uses the values of tolerance, patience, and humility to help people better engage with each other.

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About John Inazu: John Inazu is the Sally D. Danforth Distinguished Professor of Law and Religion at Washington University in St. Louis. He teaches criminal law, law and religion, and various First Amendment seminars. His scholarship focuses on the First Amendment freedoms of speech, assembly, and religion, and related questions of legal and political theory. He is the author of Liberty’s Refuge: The Forgotten Freedom of Assembly (Yale University Press, 2012) and Confident Pluralism: Surviving and Thriving Through Deep Difference (University of Chicago Press, 2016), and co-editor (with Tim Keller) of Uncommon Ground: Living Faithfully in a World of Difference (Thomas Nelson, 2020). Inazu holds a B.S.E. and J.D. from Duke University and a Ph.D. in political science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He clerked for Judge Roger L. Wollman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit and served for four years as an associate general counsel with the Department of the Air Force at the Pentagon.

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Adam Grant's #1 phrase to unlock potential

The science of super longevity

Beat anxiety with the most addictive experience on Earth

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Discover Big Think | Smarter Faster™

Your top destination for expert-driven, educational content. Featuring thousands of episodes and insights from renowned figures like Bill Clinton to Bill Nye, Big Think accelerates your learning by delving into the pivotal concepts and essential skills shaping knowledge in the 21st century...

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