Take a look at your current group of friends. Do you all have similar interests? Do you think the same? Do you all agree on the same things? Do you have similar music tastes? Maybe you are all from the same country? Same culture? Same religion? 

Now take a second and think of any differences among you. Can you name more than one or two? Typically, we make friendships with those who are similar to us. But if we never branch out beyond our “tribes,” we can diminish our capacity for empathy, which is a problem for us as individuals and us as a society.

Empathy has been waning for some time. A landmark study in 2010 showed a huge decline in empathy among college students, finding that they showed 40 percent less empathy than their counterparts from previous decades.

“It’s fair to conclude we have a serious empathy deficit — a collective inability (or refusal) to see the world from others’ perspectives, to understand people’s fears and hopes and our shared humanity,” Jennifer Rubin writes in The Washington Post.

So what is the solution? Although empathy is only part of the process of solving problems, it is crucial in making society a more open, safe place, and it leads us to make better decisions. Therefore, we should prioritize extending our empathy beyond what is familiar to us and make greater connections with people from different backgrounds.

Emotion must be tempered with logic and reason

It’s important to acknowledge that empathy is not the only answer, as logic and reasoning need to be involved as well. As Yale psychology professor Paul Bloom argues in The New York Times, “Empathy has its place but reason should guide action, as it aspires toward the sort of fairness and impartiality empathy doesn’t provide.” 

Empathy is part of the making of any solution, but without reason and logic, it can lead to quick, short-sighted conclusions. When combined, all three components create a balanced and well thought-out solution.

In his article “Our Fear of Immigrants” Jeremy Adam Smith, a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto, shares the story of an immigrant fourth grader, Rodrigo Guzman, who was deported with his family back to Mexico, and how his classmates and teacher, Barbara Wenger, protested to bring him back. 

“She explained to her class that Rodrigo’s parents broke the law,” Smith writes. “But the education doesn’t stop there for Wenger, because you must also ask why the family broke the law—and if the law applies equally to everyone.”

While applauding the empathy Rodrigo’s classmates felt, Wenger also acknowledged the logic behind Guzman’s deportation. Clearly, we cannot ignore reason when considering solutions to today’s issues.

Solving today’s problems requires empathy

However, empathy is crucial in making society a more open, safe place. In a New York Times article, Claire Cain Miller shares exercises people can do to become more empathetic.

“Research has shown that empathy makes people better managers and workers, and better family members and friends. But it’s bigger than just its personal effect,” she writes. “We’re all in this together, and researchers say that connection and compassion are crucial to a sustainable and humane future.” 

The more we allow ourselves to feel empathy, the more we will be able to understand others, creating a safer environment overall. Without empathy, people are more easily drawn toward selfishness and greed, creating an insecure and dangerous society.

It’s up to us as individuals to prioritize extending our empathy beyond what is familiar to us and make greater connections with people from different backgrounds.

Emphasizing the importance of understanding others, Wenger urges people to take the time to get to know immigrants. 

“‘When shaping immigration policy, we should be holding in the front of our minds that we’re talking about real families, real kids, who have hopes and incredible stories,’” she says.

Empathy is key. When we lean on stereotypes that immigrants bring danger or will steal jobs, society becomes selfish and insecure, filled with hatred that drives away open-minded solutions and blurs our vision with fear.

When making difficult decisions, we must consider all points of view, as that kind of thinking helps us come up with more successful resolutions to societal challenges such as what to do about immigration policy.

“Emotion and reason are also intertwined,” writes Stanford psychology professor Jamil Zaki. “People constantly think themselves into and out of feelings. Strong emotions can act like a psychological alarm system, drawing our consciousness toward whatever causes them. In the best cases, emotions help us reason better, by forcing us to consider new points of view.”

We can get beyond our tribal mentality

It’s up to us as individuals to prioritize extending our empathy beyond what is familiar to us and make greater connections with people from different backgrounds.

“More and more, we live in bubbles,” Miller writes. “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.”

The empathy deficit we’re facing is largely caused by the social circles we created when we were young that have stuck with us for years. To fix this problem, we need to seek out diversity in order to extend our empathy beyond what we know. 

University of Chicago neurobiologist Peggy Mason conducted an experiment with rats to find how diversity can affect empathy.

“We took these albino (rat) pups on the day they were born and we put them into a litter with black cape rats, and a black caped rat mother, and we grew them up,” she explains in an episode of the Big Brains podcast. “And when they were weaned, they lived with a black cape rat litter mate. So when they were adults, they had never seen another albino rat. And then the question was, would they help? Well, of course, they helped black cape rats because they lived with them all their lives.”

In Mason’s experiment, the albino rats were raised by black cape rats, a diversified family that was familiar with their differences. When the albino rats were put to the test to help other black cape rats, they showed that through diversity and familiarity, empathy can be developed. 

“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.”

Claire Cain Miller, New York Times

Rodrigo’s situation also shows the importance of embracing diversity to create empathy.

“From a very young age, children start sorting themselves into in-groups and out-groups, so the potential for prejudice is there before social conditioning takes hold, contrary to what many liberals believe,” Smith writes.

“But in this case, says the research, their age is not as important as the fact that many of them had sat in the same classroom as Rodrigo for almost five years, in one of the most racially integrated and culturally diverse school districts in the nation.” 

Rodrigo Guzman’s classmates stood in solidarity against his deportation, sending Guzman videos and sending letters to their representatives in Congress. Through these acts of empathy, they demonstrated the power of diversity and inclusion in their school district. Because of the connections they made across different cultural backgrounds, they were able to empathize with one another and build better relationships.

The overwhelming similarities around us can strip from us the ability to empathize. Without empathy, our world becomes a self-serving empire with the desire to keep within ourselves.

Only when we begin to open our circles and accept the differences among us will we know the power of empathy and how its benefits can change the world, one empathetic connection at a time.