How is our lack of social empathy affecting millions of people in surprising, unexpected ways?

To maintain and deepen our relationships with other individuals, we need empathy. To craft policies that effectively serve entire groups, we need what Elizabeth Segal, author of the book, Social Empathy: The Art of Understanding Others, refers to as social empathy.

Yet for most of us, social empathy is a blind spot, one with often devastating consequences when it comes to public policies in areas like, education, healthcare, and politics. For example, Elizabeth points to Hurricane Katrina as an example of how a lack of social empathy delayed fixing the collapsed levees: “The public policies were never put in place because the people who had the power to make those policies didn’t live in those neighborhoods, particularly the poorest neighborhoods.”

To counter this blind spot, Elizabeth explains that we need to understand what social empathy is and how it operates. In this interview, she shares how our biology and experiences influence and shape this capacity, along with what we can do to cultivate it. For example, she describes a teaching experience that sparked social empathy in her students: “They started to learn in a small way that life is different when you’re poor than when you’re not.”

Elizabeth is Professor of Social Work at Arizona State University. She’s also author of the book, Social Welfare Policy and Social Programs: A Values Perspective, and co-author of Assessing Empathy.

The Team

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

Outgroup Bias

The Power of Human by Adam Waytz

The War for Kindness by Jamil Zaki

How Toyota Turns Workers into Problem Solvers by Sarah Jane Johnston

Social Empathy Center

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