Given the tone-deaf comments a wealthy political figure recently made while addressing some equally affluent donors, you’d almost think money makes a person less able to relate to the feelings of others. And, according to newly published research, you’d be absolutely right. “Financial incentives lead individuals to see themselves as less interdependent with others, and consequently render them less able to accurately infer what others are feeling,” report psychologists Christine Ma-Kellams and Jim Blascovich. Specifically, they found people judged the emotional states of ... Read More
Why She Cries at Movies, While He Snores
September 17, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
Think back to the first time you saw West Side Story. Didn’t you feel for Tony and Maria, the racially mixed couple whose poignant love story ends in tragedy? If your answer is “no,” chances are you are a man. Let us stipulate immediately that this does not prove men are unfeeling pigs. Rather, the impulse to sympathize with a fictional character seems to be triggered in different ways for males and females. At least, that’s the conclusion of a new study by psychologists Thalia Goldstein and Ellen Winner, which tracked reactions to Leonard Bernstein’s musical theater ... Read More
Making Music Together Increases Kids’ Empathy
April 23, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
Music education produces myriad benefits, strengthening kids’ abilities in reading, math, and verbal intelligence. New British research suggests it may also teach something less tangible, but arguably just as important: The ability to empathize. In a year-long program focused on group music-making, 8- to 11-year old children became markedly more compassionate, according to a just-published study from the University of Cambridge. The finding suggests kids who make music together aren’t just having fun: they’re absorbing a key component of emotional intelligence. The research ... Read More
The Best Fiscal Stimulus: Trust
August 9, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
The neuroeconomist Paul Zak is driving west along Interstate 10 on a gorgeous Southern California morning. As we pass emerald hillsides, glowing from recent rains, and the snow-blanketed ridges of the San Gabriel Mountains, Zak talks about how standard economics neglects the biological mechanisms of trust that underlie myriad human interactions. "Why people cooperate — why people are altruistic — is a huge question," he says. "When you think about how much of the world works on a handshake or on holding a door open for somebody in an airport, all that kind of falls through the cracks in ... Read More
Expecting Justice and Hoping for Empathy
June 20, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
What kind of justices do the American people want on the U.S. Supreme Court? As the country awaits the Senate's decision on whether Elena Kagan should replace Justice John Paul Stevens on the nation's highest court, discussions about the desirable attributes of judges have been reignited. This debate is particularly important at this point in history because the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court have become an unusually homogeneous bunch. Hailing from Harvard or Yale, having served on the lower federal judiciary, but also having precious little experience in any politics but the politics ... Read More
Today’s College Students Lacking in Empathy
May 31, 2010 • By • 3 Comments
While recent books have espoused the virtues of Millenials at nearly every turn (see: Millenials Rising and Generation We), research hasn't been kind to an age group cocooned by social-networking sites and helicopter parents. From documenting a decline in personal responsibility for the environment to finding a link between Facebook and narcissism, data-crunchers are beginning to paint a less rosy picture of the next "great" generation. The newest such study, conducted by researchers at the University of Michigan, finds a precipitous decline in the past 30 years in the percentage of college ... Read More
Whipping Up Kindness in the Lab
April 10, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
Scientists have known for more than 50 years that a hormone called oxytocin plays a critical role in stimulating uterine contractions during labor and delivery, and that afterward, it helps a nursing mother to release milk for her infant. Men also produce oxytocin, it turns out, although at lower levels than women. Released during sexual arousal, it appears to promote feelings of contentment and attachment in both sexes, which accounts for one of its cuter nicknames: "the cuddle hormone." But these days, scientists know oxytocin does so much more. Made in a region of the brain known ... Read More
The Limits of Empathy for Outsiders
April 7, 2010 • By • 1 Comment
The ethnic makeup of an area changes due to increased immigration, and support for social welfare programs declines. As “outsiders” move in, high-minded notions of compassion and equality give way to an every-man-for-himself ethos. What is it with those Swedes, anyway? That’s right: Swedes. A new study finds the link between race, ethnicity and lowered support for a social safety net — previously documented in the United States — can also be found in what is widely considered the world’s most egalitarian nation. Writing in the European Sociological Review, University of ... Read More
