Empathy in the News

We're hard-wired for empathy. But are some more hard-wired than others? According to recent studies: yes. NPR's "Science Friday" features Dr. Sarina Rodrigues-Saturn, assistant professor  of psychology at Oregon State University, discussing recent discoveries about our genetic predisposition for empathy.  With program host Ira Flatow and guest callers, Dr. Rodrigues-Saturn explores the implications of having an "empathy gene" that manifests in different ways for different individuals.

In this deeply insightful essay on empathy and leadership US Army Col. Eric Kail draws out the differences between someone who is charge and leads for themselves, and someone in charge who leads with a deep understanding of others. Leadership, he reminds us, is a two-way relationship, and "empathy," he writes, "is far more critical to good leadership than any technical knowledge, skill or ability."

Yale's Dr. Marc Brackett, the pioneer behind the RULER approach, realized early on that having teachers develop social emotional learning (SEL) in their students wouldn't work unless teachers possessed the skills, knowledge, and attitudes necessary to practice those behaviors themselves. His RULER approach thus trains teachers to be more empathic toward their students, and in turn offers students the tools they need to regulate their own behavior, and to understand that of others'. Finally, he helps teachers to integrate those lessons across all subject matter. The result is as much as a 60% reduction in behavioral problems, and improvements in students' overall performance.  

Jason Marsh, editor in chief at the University of California, Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center, responds to David Brooks' provocative op-ed. Drawing from the scientific research on the topic, Marsh emphasizes that empathy is a "vital first step" for moral action.