The Parent Advocacy Coalition for Educational Rights launched an online curriculum on October 1, 2013, for students to learn how to address and stop bullying.
Children and teenagers who bully others exhibit “a lack of appropriate concern for the other, commonly considered a lack of affective empathic concern” (Borgwald & Theixos, 2013).
Various efforts have been launched over the years in an attempt to eradicate bullying behaviors and rehabilitate those who engage in it. Some are more effective than others. In a recent article published in Social Influence, the authors argue that the federally instituted “zero-tolerance policies,” which involve systematic punishments and expulsions to deal with bullying are “ineffective, counterproductive, and unjust” (Borgwald & Theixos, 2013). They instead suggest the implementation of “inclusion and empathy training” as an effective approach for integrating those identified as bullies in the school system and community at large.
In recent months, I’ve been taken aback by things I’ve seen online that referred to empathy as both a sin and a weakness, an idea that has gained traction in some parts of the church. This is astonishing and deeply disturbing to me, as I have always believed, in the words of the Charter for Compassion, developed by acclaimed religious scholar Karen Armstrong with the contribution of thousands of people worldwide, that “The principle of compassion lies at the heart of all religious, ethical and spiritual traditions, calling us always to treat all others as we wish to be treated ourselves.” I have always believed that compassion and the associated principle of empathy are an essential part of Christianity.
Such empathy can help overcome the fear of acting as the white saviors, because people are then coming from a place of alignment rather than privilege. In the 19th century, colonizers believed it was the white man’s burden to ‘civilize’ the rest of the world. Today, scholars argue that this mindset still shapes Western humanitarian aid—which often ends up helping oligarchs and oppressive leaders rather than the people who actually need support.
Join us in an experiential workshop with Lisa Blankenship (Baruch College (CUNY)), co-author of Enacting Empathy: Stories and Strategies From the Writing Classroom (Utah State University Press, forthcoming) and Changing the Subject: A Theory of Rhetorical Empathy (Utah State University Press, 2019), on supporting students and navigating challenging conversations in the classroom.
Empathy is seemingly either everywhere or nowhere, perhaps a reflection of our divided times. In broader society, the current lack of empathy is causing increasing division, misrepresentation and conflict.
In the research and insight sector, the desire for empathy is in the foreground, often driving attitudes, behaviours, methodologies and approaches. But is our embrace of empathy causing or exacerbating some fundamental problems?
I've been thinking a lot about the importance of empathy, how it connects us with one another, and how its absence can imperil us. An old quote from Hannah Arendt, the late philosopher and scholar of totalitarianism, has been rattling loose in my head: “The death of human empathy is one of the earliest and most telling signs of a culture about to fall into barbarism.”
I also recall that Charlie Kirk made it abundantly clear that he had no use for empathy. In his words, “Empathy is a new-age term that's done a lot of damage.”
Hence my personal challenge: Feeling empathy for a person — trying to understand him, trying to walk in his shoes — when that person feels no empathy for others.
No empathy, especially, for Black professionals (“If I see a Black pilot, I'm going to be like, ‘Boy I hope he's qualified.'”). Or for Black women (“You do not have brain processing power to otherwise be taken seriously, you have to go steal a white person's slot”).
According to social dominance theory, intrapersonal and interpersonal mechanisms reciprocally influence social hierarchy through institutional behavior and social structure. The relationship between self-compassion and intergroup attitudes such as social dominance orientation (SDO), or the preference for inequality among social groups, remains unclear.
Empathy as an interpersonal construct could represent the bridge between intrapersonal concern and broader social attitudes. This study explored the relationship between self-compassion, empathy, and SDO using psychometric network analysis in diverse college student samples collected before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, a major social disruption that intensified intergroup tensions
On an October 12, 2022 episode of his podcast, he stated his dislike for the concept of empathy. “I can’t stand the word empathy, actually. I think empathy is a made-up, new age term that—it does a lot of damage.”
Immediately after the shooting, people on social media began circulating some of Kirk’s more incendiary comments, including his dismissal of gun violence and his criticism of empathy. The most extreme posts suggested that his death was to be celebrated or somehow coming to him because of his political views.
What happened to Charlie Kirk was a tragedy. But the popularity of his ideas, as well as the online posts after his death, point to a very real problem in U.S. society: We have an empathy problem.
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"It's a way for us to bring our life experiences and share with each other, and to reach a common ground with each other," Riley said.
There's a direct link between empathy and commercial success, according to research conducted by the Harvard Business Review. The most empathetic companies outperform peers in the stock market by at least 50%.
"If we don't talk together, we can't work together," said Ann Kowal Smith, Reflection Point's founder.
Kowal Smith chooses the short stories for discussion, focusing on those matching issues and challenges faced by the team.
In the wake of Charlie Kirk's assassination i wanted to talk about Idubbbz and fake empathy of the left. Your boos mean nothing ive seen what makes you cheer.
I also recall that Charlie Kirk made it abundantly clear that he had no use for empathy. In his words, “Empathy is a new-age term that’s done a lot of damage.”
Hence my personal challenge: Feeling empathy for a person – trying to understand him, trying to walk in his shoes – when that person feels no empathy for others.
In recent months, I’ve been taken aback by things I’ve seen online that referred to empathy as both a sin and a weakness, an idea that has gained traction in some parts of the church.
This is astonishing and deeply disturbing to me, as I have always believed, in the words of the Charter for Compassion, developed by acclaimed religious scholar Karen Armstrong with the contribution of thousands of people worldwide, that “The principle of compassion lies at the heart of all religious, ethical and spiritual traditions, calling us always to treat all others as we wish to be treated ourselves.”
I have always believed that compassion and the associated principle of empathy are an essential part of Christianity.
Empathy is a fundamental tool in clinical practice, but despite its importance and benefits, it is often underrepresented in medical curricula. This study explored the evolution of medical students' empathy longitudinally across six years of undergraduate training following the introduction of a curriculum with 4-hour workshops during each of the six clinical rotations from Years 4 to 6, complemented by self-reflections after each rotation.
A much-needed book in the current political climate, Changing the Subject charts new theoretical ground and proposes ways of integrating principles of rhetorical empathy in our everyday lives to help fight the temptations of despair and disengagement. The book will appeal to students, scholars, and teachers of rhetoric and composition as well as people outside the academy in search of new ways of engaging across differences.
8th Annual Designing for Empathy Summit and Workshops
2025 Theme: Kinship
October 23-24, 2025 | 1–5 pm John E. Reeves Great Hall
The School of Graduate Studies and department of Exhibition and Experience Design invite you to attend the 8th annual Designing for Empathy summit and workshops. Sessions feature a diversity of transdisciplinary, multicultural experts and practitioners of empathy in the arts and sciences. The event is an incubator for empathy-building, presenting effective, relevant, and meaningful experiences and perspectives that foster empathy toward the interconnectedness of all humanity and our planet.
The Canadian and American research team published their findings in Current Biology. Previous studies have shown that the ability to feel or share someone else’s pain is not something unique to humans. Mice can feel empathy too. But in both species, empathy is stronger between those that recognise each other and all but absent between those unfamiliar with each other. Stress levels have also been shown to rise in both mice and people in the presence of strangers. Of mice and men
There is always a moment after tragedy when the public is told to summon empathy. Last week the ask for empathy was for someone who many felt didn’t deserve it and who wouldn’t have offered in return. Many people bristled, asking why they should care about someone who actively promoted damage in an already damaged world.
That recoil reveals something important in our culture. Extending compassion to someone who shows none feels like surrender. It can feel like letting them off the hook or even betraying those they harmed.
Yet empathy is not absolution. It is not forgiveness. It is a refusal to allow another person’s cruelty to set the boundaries of our own humanity. And empathy, despite the weight it carries, is a testament to our personal strength. It asks us to carry a burden that does not feel like ours to bear.
The request feels heavy because extending empathy toward those who inflict suffering seems to violate our sense of fairness. Offering it to the cruel feels like a violation of justice. Fairness, though, has never been the point of empathy. If compassion is reserved only for those who earn it, then it ceases to be empathy at all. It becomes partisanship disguised as morality.
“We’ve seen the impact of a lack of empathy causing significant problems - the scandals of Robodebt in Australia and Dutch childcare payments are two examples that come to mind.
“Both have led to reputational and financial damage for their governments,” Einfeld shares.
While there are metrics and tools like SERVQUAL’s empathy dimension and the Toronto Empathy Scale, Mussagulova explains that there is no single metric designed specifically for this field.
Most studies also focus on how frontline public officers practice empathy, leaving empathy’s role in policymaking underexplored.
“What we are arguing for is a more holistic model that demonstrates how empathy is practiced in different policy contexts.
When public figures are attacked, our collective instinct often divides us further. This week’s shooting of Charlie Kirk has already prompted predictable waves of outrage, blame and political weaponization. Some call it an assault on democracy, others a deserved outcome of polarizing rhetoric. In the rush to explain, condemn or capitalize, we risk losing sight of something more fundamental: our shared humanity.
As a research psychologist who has spent years in a lab that studies empathy and prosocial development, I urge us to try to see this moment differently. Empathy is not just a lofty ideal, it is a deeply ingrained human tendency, observable even in children. Toddlers will spontaneously help others in distress, and by the preschool years, children begin to insist on fairness and co-operation. These are the building blocks of our social fabric, the glue that allows communities to function.
"In Procurement, we’ve often been seen as the 'bad cops,' relishing our power tactics. But Tactical Empathy® changed the game. It’s not just about winning now; it’s about building long-term trust. I thought I understood it from books and podcasts, but this workshop revealed new insights and areas for improvement. For anyone in Procurement, this course is essential for elevating your skills and transforming your approach." :
There is always a moment after tragedy when the public is told to summon empathy, usually for the person who caused the tragedy. But this week the ask for empathy was for someone who many felt didn't deserve it and who wouldn't have offered in return. Many people bristled, asking why they should care about someone who actively promoted damage in an already damaged world.
Through the discourse surrounding Kirk’s death, I’ve become familiar with the term “selective empathy,” a succinct phrase that covers a concept with which many of us are familiar. At their worst, President Trump and even Kirk engaged in this type of moral relativism, condoning actions against their opponents that they would condemn if done to their allies. And those of us who reject the MAGA ideology are at our worst when we tolerate, excuse, or even celebrate, violence against those who oppose us or who hold us in disdain.
Hence my personal challenge: Feeling empathy for a person – trying to understand him, trying to walk in his shoes – when that person feels no empathy for others.
No empathy, especially, for Black professionals (“If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, ‘Boy I hope he’s qualified’.”). Or for Black women (“You do not have brain processing power to otherwise be taken seriously, you have to go steal a white person’s slot”).
Or for the victims of America’s gun violence epidemic, including schoolchildren (“I think it’s worth the cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights”). Or for single women (“the most depressed, suicidal, anxious, and lonely in America’s history…so they start to lash out at the rest of society”). Or for Jews (“Some of the largest funders of cultural Marxist ideas… Jewish communities have been pushing the exact kind of hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them”). Or for gay people (who are “corrupting your children”).
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