In a world where empathy is in decline, how can we learn to care more?

If you’re sensing that people are less empathetic today than decades ago, your instincts would be right. We are. Though human beings are wired to care about each other, we need the right conditions for those feelings to grow.

Jamil Zaki, author of the book, The War for Kindness: Building Empathy in a Fractured World, argues that an increase in online interactions and urban living has made relationships more “…narrow, transactional, and anonymous.” He explains that in this kind of environment, it’s “…really not great soil for empathy to grow.”  

His research reveals that empathy is a skill we can develop through training and that this training can leave people feeling not only more empathetic, but also kinder. In addition, Jamil shares that this kind of training can change the brain, that it can grow “…parts of the brain often associated with the experience of empathy.”

Jamil is Professor of Psychology at Stanford University and Director of the Stanford Social Neuroscience Lab. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, and The Atlantic.

The Host

You can learn more about Curious Minds Host and Creator, Gayle Allen, and Producer, Rob Mancabelli, by visiting @CuriousGayle and www.gayleallen.net.

Episode Links

@zakijam

The Influential Mind by Tali Sharot

Carol Dweck

Tania Singer

London taxi drivers and brain science

Gordon Allport

Contact hypothesis

Emile Bruneau

Nicholas Epley

When Cops Choose Empathy by Jamil Zaki

Jason A. Okonofua

Elizabeth Levy Paluck

Jeremy Bailenson

Intensive Care Nursey UCSF

Eve Ekman, Ph.D., MSW

Kari Leibowitz

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