Graham Bodie is an internationally recognized expert on listening and has published over 90 monographs, book chapters, and encyclopedia entries. His most recent co-edited project, The Handbook of Listening, is the first comprehensive and interdisciplinary resource on the topic. Graham is professor of Media and Communication at University of Mississippi.
Research from Wharton professor Rebecca (Becky) Schaumberg and PhD student Zhiying (Bella) Ren reveals how disagreement in a conversation is often mistaken for bad listening, regardless of how engaged the listener is. Schaumberg explains their findings.
Empathy is popularly defined as "the ability to understand and share the feelings of another." Research indicates that it is a vital force in creating better relationships and having a positive impact on our well-being and society. However, when viewed from an ecological perspective, empathy becomes much broader. It can provide a more in-depth understanding of our interdependency with others and the resources with which we coexist.
There is no doubt that empathy can have a transformational impact on our world. Helen Riess, author of The Empathy Effect, stresses that in this era "the ability to connect empathically with others—to feel with them, to care about their well-being, and to act with compassion—is critical to our lives, helping us to get along, work more effectively, and thrive as a society."
What Is Empathy, Anyway? Empathy is a broad term that can mean a lot of different things in different contexts. “The empathy we often think about is sharing in another person's feelings,” Daryl Cameron, PhD, says. “So if I see someone, or read about someone who's sad, I catch that sadness myself, and I'm in the same emotional place.”
Cameron is an associate professor of psychology at Pennsylvania State University whose research explores the psychology behind empathy and how it guides our decisions. H
Three years ago, I moved from London to Australia to work with Small Giants Academy on a program called the Mastery of Business and Empathy. It was a leap, personally and professionally. The program was drawing in leaders from all walks of life: activists to entrepreneurs, global executives and policymakers. Lorna Davis, former Chair and CEO of Danone North America, and Dane O’Shanassy of Patagonia were among the many speakers on the program who model what it looks like to lead with conviction, care, and courage.
Having graduated my MBA at Oxford University’s Säid Business School, I knew this program was what the leaders of our world needed. An alternative to traditional business education that prepares curious leaders for the ‘next economy’.
That’s why empathy is considered a superpower in relationships, especially among our rich and quality singles who desire meaningful connections.
What Is Empathy? Empathy is the ability to understand and share another person’s feelings. An empathetic person doesn't just listen—they genuinely care, connect, and respond with compassion. Whether it's celebrating success or offering comfort during a challenge, empathetic individuals bring emotional intelligence and balance into relationships.
Why Is Empathy So Important in Love?
Deepens Emotional Bond: Empathy allows couples to communicate on a deeper level.
You feel heard, seen, and truly understood.
Reduces Conflict: When both partners are empathetic, arguments don’t escalate. They resolve disagreements with understanding and grace.
Increases Trust: When someone senses your feelings and cares, you naturally open up more, building a foundation of trust.
Fosters Supportive Partnerships: Empathetic singles know how to give support without being asked. They tune into your needs, emotionally and mentally.
Builds Emotional Resilience Together: Life’s ups and downs are easier to face when your partner feels what you feel.
Former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was one of the youngest elected leaders in history, one of only two premiers to give birth while in office and the only one to take her infant into a session of the United Nations.
She's written a memoir about her life and time in office. It is full of surprises, including the story of how a shy sensitive person, full of self-doubt could succeed in such a tough job - modern professional politics.
In this episode of “The Opinions,” the Times Opinion politics correspondent Michelle Cottle speaks to the columnists Jamelle Bouie and David French about the rise of “toxic empathy” and how the right has turned compassion into weakness.
Ben Garrett, a podcaster and pastor, tweeted a photo of Budde in a miter and said, in part, “Do not commit the sin of empathy.” Garrett went viral, though his rhetoric was not original. His initial claim — that empathy can be sinful — has long percolated among a loose network of far-right writers, pastors, and theologians whom some critics call TheoBros.
Evangelicals as I knew them loathed abortion and women in the pulpit and the prospect of same-sex marriage, but that is not enough for Garrett and his peers. They want a Christianity with teeth, a fighting religion that will not only vanquish but eradicate their foes. When Garrett spoke of sinful empathy, he merely echoed writers like Joe Rigney, who helped popularize the idea years before publishing The Sin of Empathy: Compassion and Its Counterfeits in February.
Hojat et al introduced the concept of empathy in the context of patient care, suggesting that empathy is primarily a cognitive (rather than affective or emotional) attribute that involves understanding patients’ experiences, concerns, and perspectives (rather than feelings), the ability to convey this understanding, and a willingness to help.2 Research shows that empathy helps improve patient satisfaction, thereby promoting their compliance, reducing patient anxiety and depression, and is associated with improved clinical outcomes.3 In addition, empathic physicians are more likely to achieve job satisfaction, psychological well-being, and make better clinical decisions.4–6
Graham Bodie is an internationally recognized expert on listening and has published over 90 monographs, book chapters, and encyclopedia entries. His most recent co-edited project, The Handbook of Listening, is the first comprehensive and interdisciplinary resource on the topic. Graham is professor of Media and Communication at University of Mississippi.
I’m new to the “empathy is sin” debate, which has been bouncing around for years in the rightwing Christian echo chamber.
It’s gained new traction in the wider culture recently as rabble rousers such as Elon Musk and JD Vance have pushed variations of it.
“I believe in empathy, like, I think you should care about other people, but you need to have empathy for, for civilization as a whole, and not commit to a civilizational suicide,” Musk said on Joe Rogan’s podcast in February. “The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy.”
New research shows customers don’t want as much empathy as we think they do and apologizing too much can hurt CX more than no apology at all. How much empathy do you really need? And what role should AI play?
What do you feel as you watch the video of the young woman walking on the streets of Somerville MA as a masked group of men and women circle her, grab her hands, pin them behind her, and lead her away as she screams? If you can imagine her feelings of horror and fear, and then couple those feelings with the knowledge that she is Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish doctoral student who merely wrote about saving lives in Gaza in her college newspaper, you are engaging in empathy.
Empathy is the intertwining of feeling and thinking when imagining the lives of others. In this instance, we imagine Ozturk’s fear and connect this feeling to the reasoned idea that there is no longer due process in our country.
Consider also the evangelical turn against empathy. There are now Christian writers and theologians who are mounting a frontal attack against the very value that allows us to understand our neighbors, that places us in their shoes and asks what we would want and need if we were in their place.
Caring for others is empathy. Empathy’s not sympathy, which is good, but incomplete, just feeling bad for someone. Empathy is openness to others and more. Generally, it’s when people identify with, try to understand and share others’ situations and feelings, to “sense the hurt or the pleasure of another.”
But recently, there’ve been critics. Cynics, I’d say, complaining that empathy is dangerous or old-fashioned.
Northwestern University researcher Kevin Waldman in April warned of “radical empathy.” He didn’t adequately explain, but “radical” is a loaded word with connotations, intentional or not. It’s like saying a woman’s “only” 5-foot-2, which implies she should be taller. (Maybe, if she’s in the WNBA.)
Failing to listen has become one of the most concerning problems society faces. Proper communication is the core of interactions at work, in schools, and personal relationships, yet listening is treated as a passive or secondary skill. Even when people appear to listen, they typically do so poorly. They are distracted, tune out, or prepare their responses while the speaker is still talking.
Christine Miles, the CEO of EQuipt and an expert in listening, asserts that the issue lies in how individuals are wired and educated. “We’re told to listen instead of taught to listen,” she explains. Unknown to many, listening is a complex skill that requires focus and intentionality, and most people lack the tools to develop it.
Her book is more about subjective self-doubt and empathy. She doesn’t critically examine her own policies. Nor does she express empathy for those who felt disadvantaged or excluded by them – granting as always that emergency measures had been necessary. And, as she heads further into an international career, there’s no expression of empathy for those who now need it most, be they children in Gaza or refugees in South Sudan.
It’s disappointing Ardern doesn’t define key words: empathy, leadership or power, for example. There are different ways to understand them, and definitions carry assumptions.
It is these unglamorous moments of her time in office — which she sprinkles throughout the book — that lend credence to her thesis: Leading with empathy and kindness is a choice anyone can make.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
We’re sitting so close to Harvard, which has been at the center of heated debates, and now you’re releasing a book about kindness and empathy in leadership. How does this all fit together?
I started writing it after I left office — early to mid-2023, and look, though there was a lot of difficulty in the world, now feels vastly different from then. So it’s not lost on me, the environment it’s going into. But I would have written the same book regardless. Because, even then, ideas of empathy and compassion and kindness in leadership were treated as if there was a naïveté there, and probably even more so now, and I just push back on that.
Why Empathy Is More Important Than Ever As algorithmic interaction increases, customers are hungry for something real. They want to be heard – not as data, but as human beings with emotions, needs, and experiences.
A Motista study showed that customers emotionally connected to brands have a 306 per cent higher lifetime value (5.1 years) than satisfied customers (3.4 years).
Empathy-driven brands, through thoughtful messaging, proactive support, or co-creative design, establish trust and longevity. Take the example of body care campaigns challenging beauty stereotypes or a shoe’s legendary customer service going the extra mile despite AI being able to close the ticket with ease
Clinical empathy is one of the cornerstones of Healthcare Bioethics, a novel theoretical-normative framework within Clinical Bioethics proposed as an alternative to Principlism. Methodologically, this paper consists of theoretical research aimed at examining the foundational role of clinical empathy on Healthcare Bioethics and its implications on care. In the first part of the paper, we present the theoretical-normative foundations of Healthcare Bioethics, arguing that clinical empathy’s moral role derives from its epistemic and motivational functions. Its epistemic function enables professionals to understand the mental and emotional states of patients, ultimately promoting care aligned with Patient-Centered Care and Shared Decision-Making models.
The “politics of empathy” might not be in vogue, but Ardern remains committed to it. Is it a strong enough weapon against authoritarianism? Elon Musk recently said that “the fundamental weakness of western civilisation is empathy”. She snorts. “What does that even mean?”
Attacking empathy is all the rage with the right, I point out, especially in the US. There are popular books called Against Empathy and The Sin of Empathy. “Well, in that environment, saying loudly and proudly that you believe in empathy and that you’ll govern in that way is an act of strength.”
But public life today is so horrible, so brutal. Why would anyone go into politics? “I think the rehumanisation of people in public life is really important,” she says.
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