In a book just published, Zero Degrees of Empathy, professor Simon Baron-Cohen suggests that evil is best understood as being a lack of empathy rather than the presence of something else. In an interview in the New Scientist, he explains how he set out to understand how people could do terrible things to each other. After years of study, he’s concluded that it’s partly down to cultural norms that tell you what’s okay to do to someone else and partly down to how about 10 circuits in the brain that he calls the ‘empathy circuit’ work.
by Jonathan Gordon For those readers that are in Santa Barbara we hare having a in person two day training at our Las Canoas Road campus on November 2nd & 3rd, 2024. Please visit our website for registration information: https://www.bestempathytraining.com/
The interfaith leadership conference was conducted as part of the Empathy Center’s out reach program to attract local Santa Barbara organizations to use the campus to host their events.
I’m pleased to announce that the Empathy Center has just received its “not for profit status” and this will be used to solicit donations from foundations so that the Empathy Center can continue to offer its programs for free. Currently both our in person training and online training are free, and have been running on voluntary donations from the participants, but it is costing a small fortune to maintain and repair the campus.
Empathetic leadership Being an empathetic leader means understanding the experience of one’s team. An ability to connect with employees on a human level has proven to have a significant positive impact on team dynamics, organizational culture and ultimately on positive business outcomes.
Studies show that empathetic leadership enhances employee engagement and increases employee satisfaction, both of which lead to increased productivity. A survey conducted by the Center for Creative Leadership found that leaders who engage with empathy tend to have employees who are more committed to their work. To me, this makes perfect sense; people want to feel understood, valued, seen and supported, especially in high-pressure environments.
Empathy and insight CEOs who lead from the inside out, on the other hand, and who systematically cultivate personal growth, are equipped to lead with empathy and insight.
The result is a better, more responsive company, characterized by decentralized decision-making and innovation at all levels. And this has a direct relationship to performance: companies with excellent organizational health deliver three times the total shareholder returns of those in poor health.
In this piece, Roshan shares the valuable lessons she learned about embracing empathy as a future doctor. Her essay on this experience was first published in in-Training, an online platform created by and for medical students. The piece was also published as part of the Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine's Student Voices series.
During my family medicine clerkship, I worked with a free mobile primary care clinic dedicated to serving uninsured patients. Parked outside a church in a large city, the clinic, which is part of FIU's NeighborhoodHELP program, was a large blue bus standing in stark contrast to the gray asphalt parking lot around it. It was often surrounded by families and people of all ages. The same parking lot hosted a food bank every other week, too. Here was a hub of essential services for the community.
The weekend of 9/21/2024 was busy for the Santa Barbara Empathy Center. Saturday was the unveiling of the sand mandala created by five traveling monks from the Ngari Institute of Buddhist Dialectics in Village Saboo in India. And in the same space as the sand mandala was being displayed the Empathy Center held an interfaith leadership conference.
Sunday the monks participated in an empathy circle and the sand mandala was ritualistically destroyed. An the public was invited to watch the release in the nearby ocean.
For Erika Sinner, empathy is more than understanding another person’s perspective—it’s about creating environments where people feel seen and valued. Growing up in a household marked by instability, she also learned how important it is to create spaces where people feel safe.
Today, as the founder of Directorie®, an Inc5000 pharmaceutical marketing agency, and the CEO of TinySuperheroes®, a mission-driven organization empowering children facing critical illness by activating their superpowers through courage, strength, and hope, she is committed to building workplaces centered on empathy, fueling a sense of meaning and purpose in the workplace.
Laying the Foundation for Her Empathy-First Culture
The Beckley Police Department is hosting an empathy training program in an effort to provide better service to the community.
This training is designed to foster a deeper understanding of the diverse experiences and challenges faced by community members, through numerous workshops, role-playing, discussions and exercises. Officers are learning skills that emphasize active listening, emotional intelligence, and cultural awareness.
Empathy and insight CEOs who lead from the inside out, on the other hand, and who systematically cultivate personal growth, are equipped to lead with empathy and insight.
The result is a better, more responsive company, characterized by decentralized decision-making and innovation at all levels. And this has a direct relationship to performance: companies with excellent organizational health deliver three times the total shareholder returns of those in poor health.
In this context, knowing one’s own strengths (and weaknesses) is not an indulgence; it’s a strategic necessity. Only through such introspection can leaders bring out the best in others. .
Empathy is a Muscle Alison Jane Martingano Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay (UWGB). Her research on empathy has been published in various academic journals, and she also regularly shares psychological insights with the general public via her Psychology Today blog and Psychology & Stuff podcast
. As head of the Social Research Lab at UWGB, she mentors students to conduct cutting-edge empathy research, often using virtual reality. Alison Jane's research challenges the misconception that empathy is a fixed trait and offers hope and practical strategies for individuals seeking to broaden their empathic capacity.
Empathy can be transferred. This means that people can acquire or lose empathy by observing their environment. This is shown by a new study by Würzburg neuroscientist Grit Hein
Prof. Dr. Grit Hein's latest assessments of empathic abilities once again challenge the old adage "you can't teach an old dog new tricks." It seems that not only children but also adults can adopt empathic responses from close caregivers, in addition to their genetic predispositions. Adults, too, are malleable and can learn to be more or less compassionate through observing others.
The professor of Translational Social Neuroscience at the Center of Mental Health of the University Hospital Würzburg (UKW) has managed to capture this complex social phenomenon through mathematical models, a procedure known as Computational Modeling, and has plastically mapped it in the adult brain using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI).
Her findings, published in the scientific journal PNAS, provide a computational and neuronal mechanism for the social transmission of empathy, explaining changes in individual empathic responses within both empathic and non-empathic social environments. Grit Hein has, in a sense, formalized the process by which empathy is transmitted.
Good leadership characteristics are being rethought in today's corporate world. There is a growing consensus that empathy is a key leadership quality, alongside more conventional ones like decisiveness, strategic thinking, and resilience. As the CEO of a thriving company, I have witnessed firsthand how empathy can transform not only the workplace culture, but also the overall organization’s success.
The capacity to identify with and experience another person’s emotions is fundamental to empathy. Understanding and appreciating team members’ feelings, viewpoints, and life experiences is an important part of being a good leader. Empathetic leaders listen to their staff and address their issues in a way that makes everyone feel heard, valued, and respected.
There is a persistent stereotype that people with autism are individuals who lack empathy and cannot understand emotion. It’s true that many people with autism don’t show emotion in ways that people without the condition would recognize1.
But the notion that people with autism generally lack empathy and cannot recognize feelings is wrong. Holding such a view can distort our perception of these individuals and possibly delay effective treatments.
We became skeptical of this notion several years ago. In the course of our studies of social and emotional skills, some of our research volunteers with autism and their families mentioned to us that people with autism do display empathy.
Empathy Health Technologies founder and CEO Chris Thompson said: “Relapse, overdoses, and suicides typically do not happen in clinics or therapy sessions, they happen when people are alone in their darkest moments.
“Sober Sidekick exists to be a light in their darkest moments as they overcome generational curses to create their epic comeback stories of recovery.”
In addition, the company has successfully closed two pilot programmes with an international insurance provider.
This takes the idea of “feeling your feelings” in a whole new direction.
You know what empathy feels like. Now imagine that dialed up to the max. That’s how empaths feel. They’re like mind readers: They feel other people’s feelings and take them on as their own, sometimes to an unhealthy degree (so much so that it’s sometimes called “hyperempathy”). On the less extreme end of the spectrum, being an empath means you’re a great listener and often incredibly caring. Think about a friend who always, always understands what you’re going through, or your aunt who always seems to know when something’s wrong.
Conclusion Balint groups are effective for empathy training among doctors, nurses, and medical students. Future research should incorporate patient-led measurements to evaluate empathy and ascertain the long-term impact of Balint groups on empathy training
From the oxytocin perspective, human world gets divided into “us-and-them” that scientists refer to as in-group and out-group model. This model gets extended to deal with everything that we interact with ranging from in-grou
The significance of empathy and the ability to understand those who differ from us, captures global conversation, prompting discussions on its role in politics and business beyond.
Empathy, a fundamental trait of effective leadership, is essential in today’s dynamic landscape and, as we face a new era ahead, it is arguably the most critical skill for rallying a nation behind a new chapter.
A centre which is pioneering medical education that creates compassionate doctors and nurses for the NHS is expanding its team.
The Stoneygate Centre for Empathic Healthcare, based at the University of Leicester, is at the forefront of world-leading research into empathic healthcare education for medical staff and how it benefits healthcare professionals and leads to better outcomes for patients.
Its award-winning team has developed a range of courses which are driving forward empathic healthcare training for medical students and established healthcare professionals across the UK.
Fellow officers that worked alongside Laufenberg said that he has exemplified humanity and care for his community in his work and made lasting impacts.
“People like Mike show the humanity of policing and the care and there is nobody better in our agency that showed empathy and care for the community as Mike,” Evansville Police Chief Patrick Reese said. “Mike has trained everyone who is currently employed including myself the lieutenant and everyone underneath us.”
By Patricia Martellotti September 30, 2024 10:39 am Published September 30, 2024 11:28 am
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. - The Empathy Center located high in the foothills on Las Canoas Road near Skofield ark overlooks Santa Barbara's scenic landscapes.
This venue was known as St. Mary's Catholic Seminary for decades. Now, it’s getting a major makeover.
“We’re turning it into an open retreat center that anyone can take part," said director Edwin Rutsch of The Empathy Center.
In this episode of The James Altucher Show, I discuss the profound impact of anger on our cognitive skills and energy levels, and delve into fascinating topics with a renowned negotiation expert. We explore the significance of tactical empathy, managing manipulative calls on suicide hotlines, volunteer burnout, and the intricate dynamics of hostage negotiations.
The expert shares captivating anecdotes from his FBI career, illuminating the psychological tactics behind thwarting terrorist activities and the essence of understanding human behavior in high-stakes scenarios. We wrap up with actionable advice on improving employee relations and effectively asking for raises, always mindful of anger's long-term repercussions on negotiations. Tune in for invaluable negotiation insights from one of the field's finest!
EMPATHY NOW Empathetics helps healthcare organizations decrease employee turnover. By teaching empathetic connections that allow your workforce to feel seen and heard, we help you build an organization where people want to work.
Proven Methods, Significant Savings
Empathetics methods are proven to increase workforce retention rates by 1700%. This significant improvement resulted in millions of dollars saved.
Empathy is up to us. And it’s on the decline. We have reason to be worried, certainly here in the United States, and I assume around the world as well, if the news is to be believed. I was thinking about the endangered status of empathy on a long drive to visit family on the holiday weekend. Traffic rudeness is on the upswing, as we’ve all noticed, post-pandemic, and some of the acts of road rage we saw on our (east coast) drive betrayed a complete lack of empathy – cutting someone off, failing to yield on entering the freeway, tailgating, and other such thoughtlessness. Let’s call that petty rudeness. It shows that the driver, at least in that moment, is cut off from the milk of human kindness
The classic definition of empathy is to understand and share the feelings of someone else. Someone who is capable of cutting off another drive shows a lack of empathy because they presumably can’t understand the terror, fear, or irritation that they themselves have called up in the hearts of the people in the other car.
At a deeper level we witness the lack of empathy in ourselves and our opposite numbers in the other party as we display the inability to understand and share the feelings of Democrats or Republicans – whichever side you favor. That has clearly become worse as we have become more polarized – and it is more than just petty rudeness. But why? What are we doing wrong? How did we become so convinced in the lack of humanity (and their emotions) in the other side?
Design Thinking as a Step-by-Step Process The step-by-step approach of design thinking serves as a road map that clarifies what you're doing and why. The actions and methods are specific, non-abstract steps you can take to move through the process successfully.
Step 1: Empathize with those who are having the issue in order to get an understanding. Step 2: Define the issue from a human perspective. Step 3: Create human-centered solutions. Step 4: To learn quickly and obtain new understanding, viable prototype solutions often. Step 5: Test solutions with actual users/customers to learn fresh information about the problem and the solution.
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