Empathy Movement Magazine

by Vladimir Hedrih

A study conducted in Switzerland examined changes in empathy among depressed individuals following a single dose of psilocybin. Participants who received psilocybin demonstrated substantial improvements in emotional empathy compared to the control group, which received a placebo. These improvements lasted for at least two weeks after treatment. The paper was published in Molecular Psychiatry.

Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of others. It can be categorized into two types: cognitive empathy (understanding another person’s perspective) and emotional empathy (feeling what others feel). While empathy is essential for forming emotional connections, research suggests that excessive empathy—particularly emotional empathy—can contribute to emotional distress, especially in individuals who frequently absorb others’ negative emotions. As a result, heightened emotional empathy has been linked to an increased risk of depression and burnout.

When reading a poem or novel, we are participating in an act of empathy, suggests Chantel Acevedo, author and professor of English in the University of Miami College of Arts and Sciences.

“We’re stepping into the life of someone else, which naturally makes one think of our shared humanity,” said Acevedo, also the senior associate dean for Academic Affairs. “It’s the opposite of divisiveness, the opposite of antagonistic response, which seems to be the primary mode of much of our other media today.”

John Nosta

Imagine a world where artificial empathy surpasses our own.

AI empathy shifts from mimicry to rival, offering tireless, ego-free emotional presence beyond human limits.

As AI’s compassion outperforms ours, we may prefer it—risking the erosion of real human connection.

The "empathy algorithm" doesn’t feel, yet it may outshine us, reshaping what emotion means in a digital age.

by John Nosta

AI companionship transforms empathy into a product, offering programmed responses that simulate reciprocity.

Companies could monetize emotional engagement through subscriptions and valuable psychological data.

As AI empathy scales, we need to decide if it supplements human connection or replaces it.

When empathy becomes a commodity, what exactly are we paying for?

In the Anthropocene, there is no nature without humans, no phenomenon on Earth unimpacted by our activities. “Dancing with All: The Ecology of Empathy,” the 20th-anniversary exhibition at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa, centered on this conception of a “new ecology”—a holistic formulation that seeks to position humanity’s existence as interdependent with other species’ survival. Led by the museum’s director, Yuko Hasegawa, with philosopher Emanuele Coccia, and co-curators Ayumi Ikeda and Jin Motohashi, “Dancing with All” presented more than 20 contemporary artists—some of whom are also scientists or work with researchers—utilizing a range of media as “sensory learning experiences” to build emotional connections and understandings of the nonhuman. 

Do such design assignments cultivate design empathy in students? Empathy starts with awareness. Architectural education must create scenarios in which students are exposed to the unfamiliar, even the uncomfortable. These experiences won’t necessarily be replicated in a student, who comes to them with her own history, but they can inform the student of the breadth of other lives lived, which are just as authentic and valid as their own. Pallasmaa has pointed out that architects know how to design and build walls, but the lives behind those walls often remain an abstract mystery. Fostering empathy in the design studio through awareness of the social/cultural history and context is an invitation for the student to look behind the walls, and design accordingly. 

“Today is not about Wesley,” Christina Sowinski, the vice president of the Wesley Foundation at Purdue, said through a megaphone. She’s a junior studying planetary science, but right now she’s about to lead the "March for Empathy." “It’s about you all and us coming together as a community to make it clear to the larger campus that we will not be divided. That we are here to stand in solidarity with Purdue’s cultural centers and organizations that work tirelessly to uphold diversity, equity, inclusion and empathy.”

In response, Jonathan Worthington has written “Navigating Empathy,” a careful analysis of the concept of empathy that is both thorough and thoroughly useful. I’ve copied some key quotations from the article below. If you’re struggling through the question of whether or not it is appropriate for Christians to practice attitudes of empathy, take the time to read this entire article. (HT: Michael A.G. Haykin)

Jane Fonda is urging Hollywood to confront these fraught times with empathy.

“What we, actors, create is empathy. Our job is to understand another human being so profoundly that we can touch their souls,” said Fonda, who was honored on Sunday night with SAG’s life achievement award. “And make no mistake, empathy is not weak or woke. By the way, woke just means you give a damn about other people.”

How to do the tiniest Self-Empathy Breath?
Start by breathing in through your nose and observe:

What state are you in? What are your thoughts at this moment?
What do you sense about the air that you’re breathing in?
Is it warm or cold? Humid or dry?
When your breath enters your chest, check the quality of your breath. Is it shallow or deep? What do you sense in your body? Are there any tensions? How is your posture? How do you feel at this moment?

Connect with your needs: When the breath reaches your belly area, connect with life energy. What is life longing for in this moment? What do you need? 

And then, at the tipping point of your breath, bring it down to your feet, your soles, your toes. This is the moment to feel your connection with the earth, your roots, your next steps. How would you like to care for this moment? What life energy would you like to take forward into the next moment of your day?

It’s that simple! And I know, it’s not, because it’s so easy to forget. So, what do you need to remember?

The terminology used in discussions on mental state attribution is extensive and lacks consistency. In the current paper, experts from various disciplines collaborate to introduce a shared set of concepts and make recommendations regarding future use.

Our daily social interactions crucially rely on our ability to understand what other people think, believe, feel, intend and perceive. Such mental states, unlike others’ overt behaviors, are not directly observable. The last several decades have witnessed a growing interest in understanding the cognitive and neural bases of mental state attribution, both in order to gain a deeper understanding of social cognition broadly and to improve our understanding and treatment of clinical conditions characterized by differences in social interaction in particular. However, fifty years into social-cognitive research, the very structure of social cognition is still poorly understood.

Empirical and theoretical progress in this research domain is largely impeded by the extremely heterogeneous taxonomy currently used to describe key constructs. Sometimes a specific term is used to describe different constructs (e.g., ‘theory of mind’1, ‘empathy’2) and sometimes different terms are used to describe the same construct (e.g. ‘theory of mind’, ‘mentalizing’, ‘mindreading’).

By David French

At the same time, hard-right Christians began to turn against the very idea of empathy. Last year a popular right-wing podcaster, Allie Beth Stuckey, published a best-selling book called “Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion.” This month, a right-wing theologian, Joe Rigney, is publishing a book called “The Sin of Empathy: Compassion and Its Counterfeits.”''

These attacks are rooted in the idea that progressives emotionally manipulate evangelicals into supporting causes they would otherwise reject. For example, if people respond to the foreign aid shutdown and the stop-work orders by talking about how children might suffer or die, then they’re exhibiting toxic empathy.

by Hannah Romero

Unfortunately, a negative view of empathy isn't entirely new in certain Christian circles, but is becoming even more mainstream in how it is presented. A 2019 article on the website Desiring God is titled "The Enticing Sin of Empathy." Christian content creator Allie Beth Stuckey published her book "Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion" last October.

These types of writings present the idea that empathy is simply an emotion that is not connected to the actions of love or kindness, that it just means feeling what someone else is feeling, and that it can lead to sympathizing with wrong ways of thinking and promoting or condoning what the writers believe to be sinful choices, therefore making the feeling sinful as well. 

I believe this perspective towards empathy is dangerous. For one thing, writers like Stuckey twist words like "empathy" and define them in their own way. However, their complicated definitions and ideas get conflated with the idea of empathy as a whole, to the point that people begin to refer to empathy itself as a sin.

When health care workers have higher levels of empathy and compassion, it improves the quality of patient care and decreases the likelihood of practitioner burnout.

New research has shown how improv performance can help.

The study, conducted by Rocky Vista University, Edith Cowan University (ECU), and Midwestern University, involved 165 students studying health care professions. They participated in an improv session and were tasked with several improv activities. Their self-reported empathy scores were assessed at three time points (pre-improv, post-improv, and end of semester).

Take, for example, recent studies claiming AI expresses empathy better than human doctors and therapists. In these studies, researchers asked OpenAI’s ChatGPT to generate written responses to posts on Reddit about physical and mental health struggles. Next, they compared the chatbot’s responses with those of human doctors and therapists responding to the same Reddit posts. Across these studies, the chatbot’s responses were rated as more empathetic than those of the human doctors and therapists.

The UX process is a lot like navigating traffic merges— it’s about balancing efficiency with empathy. Letting a driver in is usually the right thing to do. But then you let another one in. And another. Suddenly, you’re ushering an endless procession of grateful commuters while the guy behind you is laying on his horn, questioning your life choices. What started as a small act of kindness has now made you the villain of rush hour.

The same effect can happen in UX. It starts with good intentions — making products smoother, more intuitive, and aligned with user needs. But at some point, the effort to accommodate every preference starts working against both the product and the team.

Empathy has become a cornerstone of effective leadership. Leaders are expected to be emotionally intelligent, actively listen to their teams and create inclusive work environments. However, this increased emotional labor comes at a cost: empathy burnout. Unlike traditional burnout, which stems from excessive workload, empathy burnout is an emotional exhaustion that results from prolonged exposure to the struggles, emotions and challenges of others.

Empathy has become a non-negotiable leadership trait in recent years. A growing focus on DEI initiatives has further reinforced the need for leaders to be more emotionally attuned. However, while empathy has become a leadership requirement, few leaders receive guidance on balancing it without depleting themselves.

The decorated Hollywood veteran and activist received the Life Achievement Award at the SAG Awards in Los Angeles on Sunday for her decades-long career, taking her big moment to express that actors must "resist," while emphasizing the importance of empathy. 

“What we, actors, create is empathy. Our job is to understand another human being so profoundly that we can touch their souls,” said Fonda. “And make no mistake, empathy is not weak or woke. By the way, woke just means you give a d**n about other people.”

A whole lot of people are going to be really hurt by what is happening—what is coming our way. And even if they’re of a different political persuasion, we need to call upon our empathy—not judge, but listen from our hearts and welcome them into our tent. Because we are going to need a big tent to successfully resist what’s coming at us,”

Empathic healthcare experts have four weeks left to put together poster and abstract submissions which will showcase their work on the international stage.

The Global Empathy in Healthcare Network Symposium: ‘Rehumanising Healthcare in a Divided World’ will attract healthcare professionals, researchers, educators, and advocates from around the world to Leicester in September.