More and more, we live in bubbles. Most of us are surrounded by people who look like us, vote like us, earn like us, spend money like us, have educations like us and worship like us.The result is an empathy deficit, and it’s at the root of many of our biggest problems. It’s because of how homogeneous people’s social circles have become, and also because humans naturally hold biases. But researchers have discovered that far from being an immutable trait, empathy can be developed.

Empathy Deficit

So what is empathy? It’s understanding how others feel and being compassionate toward them. It happens when two parts of the brain work together, neuroscientists say — the emotional center perceives the feelings of others and the cognitive center tries to understand why they feel that way and how we can be helpful to them. Empathy makes people better managers and workers, and better family members and friends. But it’s bigger than just its personal effect. We’re all in this together, and researchers say that connection and compassion are crucial to a sustainable and humane future.

Practice Empathy

<ul><li>Start conversations with strangers or invite a colleague or neighbour you don’t know well to lunch. Go beyond small talk – ask them how they’re doing and what their daily life is like.</li><li>Follow people on social media with different backgrounds than you have (different race, religion or political persuasion). </li><li>Put away your phone and other screens when you’re having conversations, even with the people you see every day, so you can fully listen and notice their facial expressions and gestures. </li></ul>

Talk to New People

Don’t just stand in someone else’s shoes, as the saying goes, but take a walk in them.Attend someone else’s church, mosque, synagogue or other house of worship for a few weeks while they attend yours, or visit a village in a developing country and volunteer. Spend time in a new neighborhood, or strike up a conversation with a homeless person in your community.

Try Out Someone Else’s Life

Working on a project with other people reinforces everyone’s individual expertise and humanity, and minimizes the differences that can divide people.<ul><li>Work on a community garden.</li><li>Do political organizing.</li><li>Join a church committee.</li><li>If you have experienced grief or loss, join with others who have experienced something similar.</li></ul>

Join Forces for a Shared Cause

We’re all biased. Acknowledging that is the first step. The second step is taking action to overcome it.Bias is a natural part of the human condition. This is adaptive for us to take mental shortcuts and make conclusions about the people around us. Actively working to combat that is what matters.

Admit You're Biased

The flip side of bias is privilege. Bias puts certain groups of people at a disadvantage in our society, while privilege puts other groups at an advantage. Your privileges are things that give you special status that you didn’t earn and don’t necessarily realize you benefit from. One example is when white people, unlike African-Americans, don’t worry about police violence during a routine traffic stop. Another is when someone raised with enough money has never thought about whether they can afford to eat.

Be Honest With Yourself: Check Your Privilege

One of the most important ways to confront bias and privilege in your life is to hear from others about their everyday lives, and consider how they’re different from yours.It can be as simple as having lunch with a colleague and asking about their routines, she said. Maybe you’ll learn that they leave early to care for a family member or drive a different commute because they’re afraid of interacting with the police. Perhaps they never feel heard in meetings, or struggle to find a time and place to pump breast milk during the day.

Again, Talking to People Helps

Empathy should drive us to act compassionately toward others. The next step, after acknowledging your privileges, is to put them to use on behalf of groups who don’t have them.Donate money to causes that help people in need or attend a rally in support of them. Speak up when someone makes a discriminatory comment or interrupts. This is especially important to do when you’re not part of the community that is being undermined.

Stand Up for Others

<ul><li>Remember that you don’t need to understand everything about someone to make them feel respected.</li><li>Advocate for things that will help others, even if they don’t directly affect you.</li><li>Don’t make assumptions about people based on what your life is like.</li><li>In workplaces, women and people of colour do more of what researchers call office housework – unglamorous chores like getting coffee for a meeting or arranging a colleague’s goodbye party.</li></ul>

It's Not About You

Reading is one of the best ways to open your mind to the experiences of others.Reading literary fiction requires people to enter characters’ lives and minds – and by doing so, it increases people’s capacity to understand other people’s thoughts and feelings, researchers at the New School<a href="https://www.newschool.edu/pressroom/pressreleases/2013/CastanoKidd.htm"> have found</a>. People who read literary fiction performed better on tests of empathy and emotional intelligence afterwards. Read and watch first-person accounts of the experiences of others in magazines and newspapers, on social media and in podcasts and documentaries.

Read Books

Ask children what they think characters in books or during imaginative play are feeling, based on their facial expressions or what’s happening to them in the story.Don’t instruct your kid to say sorry. Instead, ask questions like: “How do you think he’s feeling? What could you do to help him feel better?”Help your children name their emotions. When they’re crying in frustration or anger, or don’t want bedtime to come or school to start, give them words for their feelings.

Raise Empathetic Kids

Many parents, especially those who are white, try to avoid talking about race, gender identity, income level or other differences among people, believing that if they expose their children to diversity without making a big deal about it, their children will grow up without prejudice. But research has shown that’s not true. Even preschoolers see differences – and also hold biases. When adults don’t talk to children about it, it can make it worse – children end up absorbing societal stereotypes or assuming it’s a taboo topic.

Talk About Bias

Researchers say children are aware of stereotypes by age 3. Counter them by encouraging children to do a wide variety of activities and spend time with a range of friends. Model the same in your own life — starting with sharing the chores at home. Teach them what to do if they experience discrimination or see someone else experiencing it, and role play with them. Teach them to say, “Stop” or “That’s unkind,” or to stand next to the person who’s being targeted, or to find a trusted adult.

Teach Them to Fight Stereotypes

the<a href="https://changemyview.net/subreddit/"> Change My View subreddit</a> is a discussion board with a twist. People have<a href="https://www.wired.com/story/free-speech-issue-reddit-change-my-view/"> described it</a> as the most civilized place on the internet, where people respectfully discuss controversial topics and are open to <a href="https://www.npr.org/2017/06/29/534916052/change-my-view-on-reddit-helps-people-challenge-their-own-opinions">changing their minds</a>.The goal is not to be comfortable. It’s to stretch ourselves and expose ourselves to others’ points of view. You can compare it to yoga – getting comfortable by being uncomfortable. If you are comfortable, you probably aren’t doing it right.

Change My View: Twitter Without The Trolls

If you’re uncomfortable with the topic of conversation, or if someone has told you that you said something that was offensive, the first step is to listen. Some common errors, experts say, are:<ul><li>focusing on your own feelings instead of the other person’s</li><li>making the conversation about you</li><li>blaming the victim or denying that their experiences happened. </li></ul>

Hard Conversations

<ul><li>Step One: Don’t say anything. Just listen.</li><li>Step Two: If you offended someone, apologize (and apologize earnestly).</li><li>Step Three: Do your research. Read articles written by people who have had firsthand experiences with what you’re discussing.</li></ul>

The Three Steps

<ul><li>Don’t be rude or hostile.</li><li>Don’t create echo chambers: Express opposing views, and explain the reasoning behind them.</li><li>Engage in the conversation: Don’t state your position and walk away.</li><li>If no one has changed their mind after three rounds of going back and forth, consider agreeing to disagree.</li><li>If you change your mind, be proud of it and tell people you did so. </li></ul>

Be Open to Changing Your Mind

Use your body language to show that you’re open to listening: uncross your arms, lean slightly forward, and make eye contact. Pay close attention to the speaker’s facial expressions and body language, which can convey more emotions than their words. <ul><li>Don’t interrupt.</li><li>Ask open-ended questions.</li><li>Put away your phone. </li></ul>

Learn to Listen

More and more, we live in bubbles. But there are steps people can take to acknowledge their biases and move beyond their own worldviews to try to understand those of other people. 

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How to Be More Empathetic - A Year of Living Better Guides

We hide stuff from other people because we are afraid of intimacy, ashamed of our past, and what does secrecy cost us?Michael Slepian, a psychologist at Columbia University, has spent a decade studying secrets and has a lot to say about what they are and what motivates them.

Secrets and Lies

The hardest part of keeping a secret isn’t hiding it in conversation, it’s having to live with the secret alone and being unsure whether you’re doing the right thing.Most common secrets include romantic desire, money and finances, family secrets, secret ambitions, and violating another person’s trust.

I Know A Secret

We hold secrets back for the right reasons.Sometimes it's just too soon to reveal something, but like a week later, it's better to reveal it.The question is, when is that the right thing to do?Is this a one-time issue and it's not going to come up again, there are folks who advise you to say, yeah, don’t reveal it because this is not some larger problem. If this is something that's continuously happening, then it's a much bigger deal to be holding this issue back.

Keep Or Not To Keep

What keeping secrets does to you

Give honest, sincere appreciation. Be hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise, and people will cherish your words and treasure them and repeat them over a lifetime - repeat them years after you have forgotten them.

• Be warm and radiate high energy(especially when making introductions and goodbyes)• Give positive and honest feedback. People are most likely to improve when encouraged.• Sincere appreciation can only be displayed if you are genuinely interested in the other person. Be interested in learning from the other person.• Shift your mental awareness away from yourself (ego) to the other person (true appreciation)

Genuine Appreciation

Everyone you will ever meet knows something that you don't

Listening is a skill we can all work on.Be an active listener to truly learn from others and find out the other person's perspective.• Put yourself in the other person's shoes, look at things from the other person's perspective • Show that you are actively engaging in listening to what is said, one way to achieve this is " back-channeling".

The Art of Listening 

• Back channeling is providing short and encouraging responses to the speaker to show that you are actively listening to what is said, this also encourages the speaker to continue • Examples include: "mm-hmm", "totally", "yeah", nodding or shaking of the head, etc.• Ask questions about the given information

Back-Channeling

Everyone you meet feels they are special in some way and we all have insecurities.Rather than always telling stories of your highlights also share your mistakes to be relatable. Nobody is perfect and people are more receptive to those who aren't afraid to point to their shortcomings. • It's okay to be vulnerable.• Be honest as this will free you and other people from any shame of who you are.

Be human 

LAW 46Never Appear Too Perfect Appearing better than others is always dangerous, but most dangerous of all is to appear to have no faults or weaknesses. Envy creates silent enemies. It is smart to occasionally display defects, and admit to harmless vices, to deflect envy and appear more human and approachable. Only gods and the dead can seem perfect with impunity.

• We usually remember the first and last parts of interaction this is why it's important to have high energy when you introduce yourself and as you end an interaction.• Assume that you will see the other person again Credit:Brielle (ga_brielle)

Ending on a good note 

Credit:Brielle (ga_brielle) Tips on how to connect with your fellow humans

A GOOD CONVERSATION

The popular belief that a friendship shouldn’t make you uncomfortable and that you should cut someone off at the first sign of tension or disappointment has seeped into the collective consciousnessRelationship experts agree: That’s not real friendship.<ul><li>Honing your ability to work through conflict in a long-term platonic relationship is no different than learning to do so in a committed romantic partnership.</li><li>Open, non-blaming conversations lead to deeper intimacy.</li><li>When the challenge arises, don't run from the chance to deepen your bond.</li></ul>

Real Friendship

Coping with conflict is the goal, but that doesn't mean you have to confront your friend every single time they do something that bothers or annoys you.A helpful way to assess if it's worth going to them about it is if it is a recurring issue or a situation that has continued to affect how you perceive your friend and how you show up in your friendship.

Examining The Problem

Your level of closeness to the person is a factor worth considering when deciding whether to bring up an issue with your friend.Conflict isn't automatically an indicator of incompatibility; it may simply be the sign of differing preferences that can be bridged with communication.

Assess the Relationship

<ul><li>Timing is everything</li><li>Consider if you have the immediate capacity for it.</li><li>Carve out an entire afternoon - or day, if you need it - so that you aren't rushing through your chat and have time to process any emotions you may feel afterwards.</li></ul>

Take The Time

If you've given yourself a chance to prepare for the conversation, you should also extend the same courtesy to your friend.Consider if they are in a space where they can actually receive and process your feelings. If not, it's likely that they will go into fight-or-flight mode.

Provide a Warning

<ul><li>Use authentic feelings as leverage.</li><li>Be open about your feelings and be honest about your nerves. This may help ease your friend’s nerves and expand their ability to receive and receive your emotions. You can also build trust with someone by being open and honest with them.</li></ul>

Lean into vulnerability

<ul><li>How you start the conversation influences the mood, tone, and direction of the talk more than you know.</li><li>Use verbiage that welcomes your friend in rather than alienates them, positive framing script.</li><li>An example would be: "Hey, I was wondering if we can talk about something that's been on my mind."</li></ul>

Use Inviting Language

When sharing your dilemma, keep the focus of your words on you and how you feel by using "I" statements.Start by expressing how it made you feel when your friend did what they did. Feelings are information, not fact.This also helps you understand that there is more than one reality, and going towards factual reality is a two-way process involving both.

Speak to Your Reality, Not Theirs

<ul><li>What you're trying to do is to embrace something called mutuality.</li><li>You're considering their experience and your experience at the same time.</li><li>True mutuality is not about right or wrong, it's about finding balance and understanding.</li><li>Don't kowtow to their reasoning, but listen to them out.</li></ul>

Ask About Their Experience

If you have been approached by a friend about how you've hurt them, remember that they care enough to bring it to you and are willing to be their vulnerable self with youThis is your friend showing that they're invested in you enough to want to work through this issue

View It as An Act of Love

<ul><li>Do what you need to do to refrain from sending emotions into overdrive</li><li>De-escalate if necessary, even if it means taking a break during the conversation</li><li>If the dialogue gets heated, verbalize that you need a moment instead of shutting down</li></ul>

Protect Yourself from Fight or Flight

In the heat of the moment, it's hard to remember that we are real people.Take a pause, ask for a moment, and call back later, or even take a day or two. It will help your relationship in the long run and give you space to be receptive rather than reactive.

<ul><li>Frame your friend's feelings as information instead.</li><li>A certain word or action may trigger them, but it might not trigger you and vice versa.</li><li>It's simply about respecting and honouring their request next time.</li><li>Don't let them tell you they hate you.</li></ul>

Depersonalize It

Before the conversation ends, let your friend know that you hear them. Confirm what has upset them, and verbalize that you care and understand where they're coming from.If you would like to avoid hurting them in the future, express how you will go about it next time.

Listen to Understand

Learn the best methods for navigating disagreements with friends, whether you’re bringing up or responding to hurt feelings.

The Art of Friendship: How to Address and Respond to Conflict

Humans are famously social animals. But they are not alone in their tendency to team up with other individuals of the same species (conspecifics) to reach their goals. In fact, herds of mammals, flocks of birds, or shoals of fish are abundantly observed in nature. How does an animal’s brain recognize other animals of its own kind?

Looking For Teammates: Mostly Consciously

Humans and many other animals live in societies. At a fundamental level, social interactions require individuals to identify others as belonging to their own kind. This usually happens in fractions of a second, often instinctively. Unveiling the neuronal circuits that underly this behavior, however, is anything but trivial.

“Knowing” Teammates: Mostly Unconsciously

“There’s an inbuilt challenge in studying social interactions: For us as observers, actions and reactions are intermingled, both in animal behavior and at the neuronal level,” explains Johannes Larsch, neurobiologist and project leader in Herwig Baier’s department at the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology. “This is because individuals taking part in these interactions influence each other. Both are, at the same time, senders and receivers of social signals. It has been particularly hard to investigate the role of the visual system and its associated brain areas.”

Actions And Reactions, Senders And Receivers

Johannes Larsch’s team nevertheless found a way to elucidate the importance of the visual system in social interactions. The scientists developed an experimental virtual reality setup for zebrafish larvae that simulates conspecifics. All that was needed was a projected dot on a screen, which – and this is important – moved across the display with a jerky movement pattern that is stereotypical of swimming zebrafish.

Visual Stimulus For Shoaling Behavior

The zebrafish larvae could not resist this cue: They followed it around for hours, apparently confusing the moving dot with a real conspecific. The researchers had thus discovered a defined visual stimulus that triggers shoaling behavior.The team could now investigate the neuronal processing of the stimulus. The experiments revealed that a moving dot activates a specific set of neurons in a brain region known as the thalamus. The same area of the thalamus gets activated when another zebrafish larva swims nearby.

The Irresistible Visual Cue

“The thalamus is a sensory control center of the brain that integrates and relays sensory inputs,” explains Johannes Larsch. Sensory information is processed on its route to the thalamus, first in the retina and then in the tectum, a major visual center of the vertebrate brain.By the time the information arrives in the thalamus, it has already been filtered for social cues, such as the jerky movements of a potential conspecific.

The Brain’s Thalamus

The nerve cells identified by the researchers in this region of the thalamus connect the visual system of the zebrafish with other brain regions that are active during social behavior.The importance of the newly identified neurons was confirmed when the researchers specifically blocked the function of these cells. Zebrafish larvae lost their interest in conspecifics as well as moving dots and hardly followed them around anymore.“The neurons we discovered thus regulate social approach and affiliation in zebrafish,” says Johannes Kappel, graduate student and lead author of the study.

Social Attraction And Affiliation

“… and many neuronal processes have been conserved during evolution. We also have brain regions that are active when we perceive facial movements or body motion, but the significance of these regions for social behavior has not been explored”, continues Kappel. The study by Kappel, Larsch, Baker and their collaborators has shed light on a part of the brain whose activation provides the elementary “glue” for the bonding of two zebrafish. Collectively, such small-scale interactions create shoals of fish. Social behavior is driven by networks of brains, which are themselves networks of neurons.

Humans Possess A Thalamus, Too

Concludes Baier: “Neurobiological findings, such as ours, can perhaps inspire and enrich the thinking about the self-organization of animal societies in general, which is currently the domain of other scientific disciplines.”

Self-Organization In Animal Societies

A special network that runs from the eye’s retina deep into the brain may help mediate social attraction and affiliation, a new study reveals. It seems that “to see is to know”. But how would we feel about that if it partly or wholly explained our social behavior and relationships? What if we were the zebrafish of the experiment?

A special network that runs from the retina deep into the brain may help mediate social attraction, a new study reveals.

How to Be More Empathetic - A Year of Living Better Guides

What keeping secrets does to you

A GOOD CONVERSATION

The Art of Friendship: How to Address and Respond to Conflict

There Is A Brain Network for Social Attraction

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