The War for Kindness: Building Empathy in a Fractured World

Research suggests that empathy has decreased over the last several decades. Jamil Zaki suggests that the reason for this is there being numerous obstacles to empathy in the modern world.

One of these main obstacles is the mismatch between the evolutionary environment and modern context. Today, humans erratically exhibit care and kindness. An individual often displays empathy for a single other person, rather than the many. This focus on the individual is a leftover trait from evolution. Humans evolved in an environment dominated by small communities. People saw the suffering of their community members (close kin and neighbors) first-hand and would lend aid. Human ancestors also understood that their help would be reciprocated in times of need. While caring about one person at a time made sense in the evolutionary context, this is no longer true. People become easily overwhelmed by all the tragedies occurring around the world, choosing to forget or ignore the people impacted by them. This mismatch between the evolutionary environment and modern context makes strengthening empathy difficult.

Humans are also often prone to tribalism. Other people are categorized into insiders and outsiders, only many only empathize with those in their own group.