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Storytelling: How To Tell Great Stories That Engage EVERYONE

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The magical science of storytelling | David JP Phillips | TEDxStockholm

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The mystery of storytelling: Julian Friedmann at TEDxEaling

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Connect or Die: The Surprising  Power of Human Relationships | Starla Fitch | TEDxFargo

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The Mind-Body Connection - Emotions and Health | NIH MedlinePlus the Magazine

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NIH MedlinePlus the Magazine, The Mind-Body Connection - Emotions and Health

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con·​nec·​tion | \ kə-ˈnek-shən \

a : causal or logical relation or sequence the connection between two ideas

b(1) : contextual relation or association In this connection the word has a different meaning.

(2) : relationship in fact wanted in connection with a robbery

c : a relation of personal intimacy (as of family ties) Family connections can make getting a job much easier.

d : coherence, continuity … a confused multitude without order or connection.— John Locke

2 a : something that connects : link a loose connection in the wiring

b : a means of communication or transport a telephone connection

3 : a person connected with another especially by marriage, kinship, or common interest has powerful connections

4 : a political, social, professional, or commercial relationship The school has no connection with the museum. : such as

b : an arrangement to execute orders or advance interests of another a firm's foreign connections

c : a source of contraband (such as illegal drugs)

5 : a set of persons associated together: such as

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the act of connecting : the state of being connected: such as; causal or logical relation or sequence; contextual relation or association... See the full definition

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The power of empathy: Helen Riess at TEDxMiddlebury

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Gray Matter

By Daryl Cameron, Michael Inzlicht and

Credit... Gérard DuBois

ONE death is a tragedy. One million is a statistic.

You've probably heard this saying before. It is thought to capture an unfortunate truth about empathy: While a single crying child or injured puppy tugs at our heartstrings, large numbers of suffering people, as in epidemics, earthquakes and genocides, do not inspire a comparable reaction.

Studies have repeatedly confirmed this. It's a troubling finding because, as recent research has demonstrated, many of us believe that if more lives are at stake, we will - and should - feel more empathy (i.e., vicariously share others' experiences) and do more to help.

Not only does empathy seem to fail when it is needed most, but it also appears to play favorites. Recent studies have shown that our empathy is dampened or constrained when it comes to people of different races, nationalities or creeds. These results suggest that empathy is a limited resource, like a fossil fuel, which we cannot extend indefinitely or to everyone.

What, then, is the relationship between empathy and morality? Traditionally, empathy has been seen as a force for moral good, motivating virtuous deeds. Yet a growing chorus of critics, inspired by findings like those above, depict empathy as a source of moral failure. In the words of the psychologist Paul Bloom, empathy is a "parochial, narrow-minded" emotion - one that "will have to yield to reason if humanity is to survive."

We disagree.

While we concede that the exercise of empathy is, in practice, often far too limited in scope, we dispute the idea that this shortcoming is inherent, a permanent flaw in the emotion itself. Inspired by a competing body of recent research, we believe that empathy is a choice that we make whether to extend ourselves to others. The "limits" to our empathy are merely apparent, and can change, sometimes drastically, depending on what we want to feel.

Two decades ago, the psychologist Daniel Batson and colleagues conducted a study that showed that if people expected their empathy to cost them significant money or time, they would avoid situations that they believed would trigger it. More recently, one of us, Daryl Cameron, along with the psychologist Keith Payne, conducted an experiment to see if similar motivational factors could explain why we seem more empathetic to single victims than to large numbers of them.

Participants in this study read about either one or eight child refugees from the Darfur region of Sudan. Half of the participants were led to expect that they would be asked to make a donation to the refugee or refugees, whereas the other half were not. When there was no financial cost involved in feeling empathy, people felt more empathy for the eight children than for the one child, reversing the usual bias. If insensitivity to mass suffering stemmed from an intrinsic limit to empathy, such financial factors shouldn't have made a difference.

Likewise, in another recent study, the psychologists Karina Schumann, Jamil Zaki and Carol S. Dweck found that when people learned that empathy was a skill that could be improved - as opposed to a fixed personality trait - they engaged in more effort to experience empathy for racial groups other than their own. Empathy for people unlike us can be expanded, it seems, just by modifying our views about empathy.

Some kinds of people seem generally less likely to feel empathy for others - for instance, powerful people. An experiment conducted by one of us, Michael Inzlicht, along with the researchers Jeremy Hogeveen and Sukhvinder Obhi, found that even people temporarily assigned to high-power roles showed brain activity consistent with lower empathy.

But such experimental manipulations surely cannot change a person's underlying empathic capacity; something else must be to blame. And other research suggests that the blame lies with a simple change in motivation: People with a higher sense of power exhibit less empathy because they have less incentive to interact with others.

Even those suffering from so-called empathy deficit disorders like psychopathy and narcissism appear to be capable of empathy when they want to feel it. Research conducted by one of us, William A. Cunningham, along with the psychologist Nathan Arbuckle, found that when dividing money between themselves and others, people with psychopathic tendencies were more charitable when they believed that the others were part of their in-group. Psychopaths and narcissists are able to feel empathy; it's just that they don't typically want to.

Arguments against empathy rely on an outdated view of emotion as a capricious beast that needs to yield to sober reason. Yes, there are many situations in which empathy appears to be limited in its scope, but this is not a deficiency in the emotion itself. In our view, empathy is only as limited as we choose it to be.

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Gray Matter By Daryl Cameron, Michael Inzlicht and ONE death is a tragedy. One million is a statistic. You've probably heard this saying before. It is thought to capture an unfortunate truth about empathy: While a single crying child or injured puppy tugs at our heartstrings, large numbers of suffering people, as in epidemics, earthquakes and genocides, do not inspire a comparable reaction.

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Did you know?

Sympathy and empathy both refer to a caring response to the emotional state of another person, but a distinction between them is typically made: while sympathy is a feeling of sincere concern for someone who is experiencing something difficult or painful, empathy involves actively sharing in the emotional experience of the other person.

Sympathy has been in use since the 16th century, and its greater age is reflected in its wider breadth of meanings, including "a feeling of loyalty" and "unity or harmony in action or effect." It comes ultimately from the Greek sympathēs, meaning "having common feelings, sympathetic," which was formed from syn- ("with, together with") and páthos, "experience, misfortune, emotion, condition." Empathy was modeled on sympathy; it was coined in the early 20th century as a translation of the German Einfühlung ("feeling-in" or "feeling into"). First applied in contexts of philosophy, aesthetics, and psychology, empathy continues to have technical use in those fields that sympathy does not.

Did you know?

Compassion and empathy both refer to a caring response to someone else's distress. While empathy refers to an active sharing in the emotional experience of the other person, compassion adds to that emotional experience a desire to alleviate the person's distress.

... the story of Nellie Bly, the first female investigative reporter, who not only demanded justice from powerful institutions, but also insisted on dignity and compassion for the most vulnerable citizens. - The Christian Science Monitor, 17 Aug. 2022

Blonde clearly wants us to feel for Norma Jeane, but it dwells on her pain so obsessively ... that the movie's empathy feels like another form of exploitation. - Justin Chang, NPR, 23 Sept. 2022

The distinction between compassion and empathy is frequently a topic of exploration.

By empathy I mean feeling the feelings of other people. So if you're in pain and I feel your pain-I am feeling empathy toward you. If you're being anxious, I pick up your anxiety. If you're sad and I pick up your sadness, I'm being empathetic. And that's different from compassion. Compassion means I give your concern weight, I value it. I care about you, but I don't necessarily pick up your feelings. ... [I]f I feel compassion for you, I'll be invigorated. I'll be happy and I'll try to make your life better. - Paul Bloom, quoted in Vox, 16 Jan. 2019

Compassion is a much older word; it's been part of the language since the 14th century, and comes ultimately from Latin com- and pati, meaning "to bear, suffer." Empathy is a 20th century coinage modeled on sympathy as a translation of the German Einfühlung ("feeling-in" or "feeling into"). It was first applied in contexts of philosophy, aesthetics, and psychology and continues to have technical use in those fields.

Example Sentences

He felt great His months spent researching prison life gave him greater empathy with the poor. empathy towards convicts.

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'empathy.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Word History

Greek empatheia, literally, passion, from empathēs emotional, from em- + pathos feelings, emotion - more at pathos

1909, in the meaning defined at sense 2

The first known use of empathy was in 1909

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the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit... See the full definition