One thing I struggle to understand is how to teach the value of empathy to those who don’t see its importance. One statement from the reading that I found on page 263 of our book is: “People are fundamentally interconnected beings who shape each other’s lives in loving and harmful ways” (Hocker, 2021, p. 263), and this sums up my personal thoughts on how our interactions have lasting effects on others and why empathy, care, and compassion is important.

This paper was written in 2014, yet states “that self-reported empathy has declined over the last 30 years, and the decline is substantial” (Schumann et al., 2014, p. 475). If we follow this trend, that means future generations may become even more disconnected from one another. Considering how mimicry is common in how we communicate with one another, i.e., the way we often reflect the emotions and behaviors of those around us, I found it interesting that the paper linked empathy to an innate human trait rather than something that is taught. I think it might be better to say that empathy is both innate and learned; it’s something we are naturally capable of, but it also needs to be cultivated and nurtured through our experiences and interactions. 

Given the rise of the online world we live in today, I can understand the difficulty of understanding another person’s emotions when one cannot physically see how someone is reacting. In face-to-face interactions, it’s easier to pick up on non-verbal cues, such as body language, facial expressions, and tone of voice. However, in digital communication, those cues are often absent, which can create barriers to true empathy. I partly attribute the decline in empathy to this shift toward online interactions, where the absence of immediate emotional feedback makes it harder to connect with others on a deeper, more compassionate level. 

This paper gives me a little more hope because the authors found that participants are open to a malleable mindset regarding empathy, meaning that they are open to the idea that empathy is not a fixed trait but something that can be developed and strengthened through effort. I’m still struggling with how exactly to develop empathy, so I’m taking the subheaders of this article, “Cultivating empathy’ on the American Psychological Association site, and pasting them below:

• “Be willing to grow”
• “Expose yourself to differences”
• “Read fiction”
• “Harness the power of oxytocin”
• “Identify common ground”
• “Ask questions”
• “Understand your blocks”
• “Second-guess yourself”

Abramson, A. (2021, November 1). Cultivating empathy: Psychologists’ research offers insight into why it’s so important to practice the “right” kind of empathy, and how to grow these skills. American Psychological Association. https://www.apa.org/monitor/2021/11/feature-cultivating-empathy

Schumann, K., Zaki, J., & Dweck, C. S. (2014). Addressing the empathy deficit: Beliefs about the malleability of empathy predict effortful responses when empathy is challenging. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 107(3), 475–493. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0036731