It doesn’t often feel as if we’re living in empathetic times.
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That increase in empathy can be undermined by our cynicism toward each other, according to Jamil Zaki, a professor of psychology at Stanford University who is also director of the Stanford Social Neuroscience Lab.
People often believe that “their craving for a more empathetic community is theirs alone when other people all around them also want the same thing,” said Zaki, author of “The War for Kindness: Building Empathy in a Fractured World.” This mistaken belief weakens conversations by creating biased views before you even start talking.
People sometimes have an inaccurate sense of what other people think.
That’s why “gaining a more accurate perspective on who is surrounding us right now can make us more hopeful about how we can build a better future together,” Zaki said.