From the course: Communicating about Culturally Sensitive Issues

Practicing true empathy

From the course: Communicating about Culturally Sensitive Issues

Practicing true empathy

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- We've all heard about the importance of empathy in culturally sensitive conversations, but we rarely discuss what makes empathy so hard. Most people don't realize that there are two kinds of empathy, intentional empathy and psychological empathy. Intentional empathy is a choice you make to understand what your conversation partner sees, thinks, and feels about the situation. Psychological empathy, on the other hand, is not a choice, it's a psychological reality. Most of this well-meaning advice fails to acknowledge this very important point. Our ability to empathize is influenced by ingroup bias. Studies have shown that it's easier for us to empathize with people who we perceive to be on the same team. Other research has demonstrated that it's simply more difficult to empathize with those who are of different races and ethnicities. This is why the superficial advice to be empathetic in these kinds of conversations is doomed to fail. It's insufficient. One strategy is to use bias in your favor to trick your brain into triggering psychological empathy. While psychological empathy is not a choice in the way that intentional empathy is, you can still trigger psychological empathy even when it doesn't happen naturally by pointing out similarities between you and the person you're speaking with. Doing so will help you both to overcome biases against each other, and allow you to take advantage of the benefits of ingroup bias. Empathy is something that can be learned, and the more you challenge yourself to find similarities with those around you, the better you'll be at drawing on empathy when you need it.

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