Teach Empathy

Learn more about empathy, and how empathy can enrich your life.

Posts Tagged ‘articles’

Organizational Empathy

December 8th, 2009

An excerpt from Larry Marturano’s blog on inContext, more anecdotal substantiation for the value of empathy in business organizations:

The big lesson for me was that to cross organizational boundaries, I needed to encourage my researchers to truly understand – to empathize – with the way other departments thought, acted and worked. Lending people out to other groups turned out to be a happily coincidental way to develop organizational empathy in my team. It wasn’t just about the bribe – it turned out to be about changing the culture of my own organization.

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Posted in Articles

Tags: articles business empathy workplace

Are Humans Hard Wired for Empathy?

November 3rd, 2009

Frans de Waal, a professor of primate behavior in the psychology department at Emory University, is the author of “The Age of Empathy.”

Ardi casts doubt on the notion that we have an innate killer instinct

By FRANS DE WAAL

Are humans hard-wired to be ruthlessly competitive or supportive of one another?

The behavior of our ape relatives, known as peaceful vegetarians, once bolstered the view that our actions could not be traced to an impulse to dominate. But in the late 1970s, when chimpanzees were discovered to hunt monkeys and kill each other, they became the poster boys for our violent origins and aggressive instinct.

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Posted in Articles, Research

Tags: Ardi articles empathy evolution Frans De Waal

Baby steps toward a more peaceful world

October 1st, 2009

From thestar.com in Toronto, Canada.

A Toronto educator’s parenting-for-kids program has morphed into a plan to make all humanity more empathic. Pie in the sky? Its been working.

Editor’s Note: I must mention for clarity the first sentence of the article: “Mary Gordon wants to change humanity by rewiring a child’s brain — one child at a time.” The author mentions Frans de Waal’s work showing cooperation and care for others is intrinsic to our nature, and since Mary Gordon is helping children develop those qualities, Ms. Gordon is developing innate qualities. Rewiring suggests changing an innate quality rather than learning from our naturally endowed tendencies.

Even as an adult, I have violent or disconnected conditioned reactions that I unlearn rather than rewire, in my experience. And that innate compassionate nature is nutured and developed just as it would be in a child. This is pycho/social/spiritual development, not rewiring.

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Posted in Articles, In the News

Tags: articles empathy nature

Incivility: The Root Cause Is Lack of Empathy

September 27th, 2009

From the Huffington Post, Lisa Earle McLeod, expert in leadership, conflict management, and how to get what you want without compromise, writes:

Outbursts in Congress, cursing on the tennis courts, and grabbing the mic from a young award winner; everyone is lamenting our loss of civility as more and more public figures continue to behave badly. To quote my grandmother, “I think someone has forgotten their manners.”

Editor’s Note: In this article, Lisa mentions the International Day for Empathic Action, an October 2nd event we’re co-sponsoring to spread empathy awareness and competency around the globe.

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Posted in Articles, Events, In the News

Tags: activism articles empathy politics

Empathy: Does It Belong in the Workplace?

September 23rd, 2009

In Dr. Judith Orloff‘s book, Emotional Freedom: Liberate Yourself from Negative Emotions and Transform Your Life, she discusses the benefits – and dangers — of being empathic in the workplace. Here, we talk with her about how to best harness empathy for personal and professional success.

Why does empathy belong in the workplace?

In the book Emotional Freedom, my message is that empathy is the most beautiful quality in human nature. It means that you can put yourself in someone else’s shoes. It’s about having a gut feeling and intuition for how to communicate with others.

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Posted in Articles

Tags: articles empathy workplace

Psychology Today: Raise Self Esteem with the Lifeblood of Empathy

September 14th, 2009

“Shared sorrow is half sorrow, shared joy is double joy.” -Unknown

“The most dangerous enemy of mental health is isolation. Our needs for connection are hard-wired.” Susan Johnson, PhD

Sometimes we forget the importance of the mutual empathy that friendships offer for our wellbeing and self esteem.

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Posted in Articles

Tags: articles definition empathy

The Age of Empathy: Nature’s Lessons for a Kinder Society.

September 7th, 2009

A Book Review from the Economist:

The Age of Empathy: Nature’s Lessons for a Kinder Society. By Frans de Waal. Crown; 304 pages; $25.99 and £19.99.

EVERY day the world seems more like Aesop’s “Fables”. Rooks are found to use ingenious tools; dolphins are overheard talking to whales; and pigs, while not yet flying, play a passable game of football—at least according to the BBC. As for apes, they would hardly make headlines any more if they were found to be adept at composing limericks.

Frans de Waal, a primatologist in the psychology department of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, is perhaps best known for his studies of bonobos—the so-called “politically correct” apes who are somewhat feminist, often resolve disputes by making love instead of war, and with whom humans share as much of their DNA as they do with chimpanzees. His new book, “The Age of Empathy”, looks at altruism and sympathetic fellow-feeling in both humans and other animals.

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Posted in Book Review, Research

Tags: articles book empathy nature

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Tweets about Empathy

@ChuckHorton Five Lessons in Human Goodness from “The Hunger Games”: The dystopian tale is really about compassion, empathy, ... http://t.co/PD8ILHyg
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Living NVC – Daily
- Living in the Observation as a Daily Practice April 12, 2012
  Everything someone does or says is an attempt to meet a need …. Really? The other day, I was in a gathering and I ran into a woman two times. What I mean is, I looked up and she was right there and we were standing so close that I was startled. After an hour at […]
- Warmest Holiday Wishes and an Inspiration from John Lennon December 26, 2011
  Happy Holidays! This song / message from John Lennon and Yoko Ono was inspiring and lovely for me to receive. I hope you enjoy it as well. It reminds me that peace starts with me and it’s possible if I am committed to it in my life. It takes true commitment, even a kind of […]
- Occupy Movement – Clarity and Warmth November 22, 2011
  I found the following short video very touching and enlightening. It helped me feel more connected to the Occupy Movement and to appreciate their efforts. Take a few minutes to watch it and i hope it will be inspiring to you as well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRtc-k6dhgs&feature=share&mid=532910 […]
- The New NVC Multimedia Library May 19, 2011
  If you haven’t taken a few moments to look at the NVC Academy’s new NVC Multimedia Library, I would HIGHLY recommend that you do. The Multimedia Library contains 150+ trainer resources (more will be added on an ongoing basis!) that include: Recorded telecourses on a variety of topics MP3 and MP4 downloads Videotaped trainings Trainer Tips for living NVC Arti […]
- Killing of Osama Bin Laden – Inject the Situation with Love May 11, 2011
  I have been feeling very sad about the killing of Osama Bin Laden – how it was handled and the joy with which people are responding to it. I have been doing some personal work of late on forgiveness and atonement and so my way of dealing with the situation is to be honest with […]

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