Empathy and Storytelling.
Many confuse empathy (feeling with someone) with sympathy (feeling sorry for someone), and even researchers who study it have muddied the waters with many definitions. It’s time to clear the water and see-through.
Let’s take an example of an event to understand empathy.
Step 1: You don’t care about someone, something, or you have a preconceived notion of how you should feel about someone or something.
Step 2: You hear, read, or watch a story about that someone or something.
Step 3: You have a newfound respect, understanding, and empathy for that someone or something.
I bet you’ all had that feeling at least once in your lifetime.
This is not some magical trick that happens to all of us. It is the science of stories, and how they impact our learning and empathy for others.
The short version of the science is this: Our brains pay special attention to stories, engaging more areas of the mind then when we hear or see facts. And when we learn a good story, our brains synthesize the neurochemical oxytocin. This helps us feel others’ emotions and empathize with them.
Scientists have shown…
