Who: You and me (@NeuralCorrelate).

What: Tweeting about empathy.

When: January 25th 7PM EST (that’s today!)

Where: On Twitter using the hashtag #EMOT. (if you go here you can watch the whole discussion on Tweet Chat).

Why: To learn more about what empathy is, how today’s technology affects our empathic concern, and ways we can use empathy in the 21st century to create positive relationships and a healthy society.


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Materials


1

Economist, author, and political activist Jeremy Rifkin investigates the evolution of empathy and the profound ways that it has shaped our development and our society.



Excerpts:

  • Once a toddler can identify themself [usually around the age of 2] then they know that if they’re observing someone else have a feeling, they know if they are feeling something they are feeling it because someone else has it. They are two separate beings. Self-hood goes together with empathic development. Increase self-hood, increase empathic development.

  • Empathy is the invisible hand. Empathy is what allows us to stretch our sensibility with another so that we can cohere in larger social units. To empathize is to civilize, to civilize is to empathize.

  • We have the technology that allows us to extend the central nervous system and to think viscerally as a family, not just intellectually. When that earthquake hit Haiti, within an hour the Twitters came out, and within two hours cellphone videos, YouTube, and within three hours the entire human race was in an empathic embrace coming to the aid of Haiti. If we were, as the enlightened philosophers suggested, materialistic, self-interested, utilitarian, pleasure-seeking…we wouldn’t have had that response to Haiti.


2

Three Kinds of Empathy: Cognitive, Emotional, Compassionate
by Daniel Goleman.

Excerpts:


  • Cognitive empathy is simply knowing how the other person feels and what they might be thinking. Sometimes called perspective-taking, this kind of empathy can help in, say, a negotiation or in motivating people. A study at the University of Birmingham found, for example, that managers who are good at perspective-taking were able to move workers to give their best efforts.

  • Emotional empathy is when you feel physically along with the other person, as though their emotions were contagious. This emotional contagion, social neuroscience tells us, depends in large part on the mirror neuron system. Emotional empathy makes someone well-attuned to another person’s inner emotional world, a plus in any of a wide range of callings, from sales to nursing – let alone for any parent or lover.

  • Compassionate empathy (which I’ve written about using the term “empathic concern” in Social Intelligence)…is the kind of empathy where we not only understand a person’s predicament and feel with them, but are spontaneously moved to help, if needed.

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FAQ

1. How do I participate?

Just tweet with the hashtag #EMOT at the end. You can watch all the action by signing in at our Tweet Chat Room.


2. How long will it be?

About an hour.


3. Do I have to check out the materials before joining?

No, it’s not necessary – but it is recommended if you want to get the most out of the conversation.


4. How does it work?

I will be asking questions, answering other people’s questions, and giving various food for thought regarding empathy.


5. Will there be a transcript?

Yes, I plan to get a transcript of the whole conversation and then share it with others who may have missed the discussion.


Send a tweet about this event by clicking here.

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