Maya Angelou says empathy is a muscle that can grow with hard work and perseverance. She says tribal thinking gets in the way of being empathetic, but there are ways to overcome it. We often have gross misconceptions of what the other side is like, she says; we need to understand who's really out there.
For a long time, scientists believed our capacity for empathy remains more or less fixed throughout our lives. But research by Jamil Zaki, a psychology professor at Stanford, shows that empathy is actually a skill we can cultivate. Jamil explains that there are different types of empathy — three, to be exact! — and we can learn to be more discerning about when we apply them. Maya and Jamil also discuss the dangers of caring too much, and how we can show compassion for others while avoiding burnout.
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