The War for Kindness: Building Empathy in a Fractured World

“The modern world has made kindness harder.”

Zaki introduces the idea that there is a mismatch between humans’ evolutionary context and the modern world, which is negatively impacting empathy. Humans’ earliest ancestors lived in small communities where everyone knew each other. Connection, collaboration, and kindness came easily in this environment. The modern world is substantially different. More people are living alone in urban areas, and in-person interactions are becoming less frequent. While an individual comes across hundreds of people in their lifetime, they only know a few of them. All of these changes make it harder for people to exhibit empathy—a reality supported by research.

“Work from many labs, including my own, suggests that empathy is less like a fixed trait and more like a skill—something we can sharpen over time and adapt to the modern world.”

Throughout the book, Zaki illustrates how science is very much alive. Through the scientific process, claims are tested and retested, allowing them to be refined or rejected. Empathy is no different. For centuries, scientists, researchers, and philosophers believed that empathy was a fixed or unchangeable personality trait. Recent research, including that by Zaki, disproved this notion. Empathy is now seen as a skill that individuals can strengthen.

“We now accept that the earth and sky are forever changing, but our understanding of ourselves has proven more stubborn.”

This quote highlights one of the central tenets of Chapter 1: people’s inability to break with the idea of empathy as a fixed trait. In this chapter, Zaki documents the evolution of the understanding of human nature from being unchanging to malleable and mobile. Despite decades of research, non-scientists still impose a fixist attitude on their own empathetic behavior. Zaki finds it concerning that people still cannot accept that empathy is a skill. He underscores that the inability to break with this perspective continues to hinder kindness around the world.

“People in our study believed each article. After reading that empathy was a trait, they agreed with fixist statements. After reading it was a skill, they became mobilists. Crucially, these beliefs changed their own choices. ‘New fixists,’ empathized lazily, for instance with people who looked or thought like them, but not with outsiders. New mobilists, by contrast, emphasized even with people who were different from them racially or politically.”

Here, Zaki describes groundbreaking findings from an experiment he conducted with American psychologist Carol Dweck at Stanford. In this experiment, the two researchers showed how people’s view of empathy could change. Students who read passages where empathy was described as a skill or trait became mobilists and fixists, respectively. These new perspectives also shaped people’s connections with others. In contrast to new fixists, new mobilists empathized with outsiders. This experiment underlines that empathetic behavior can increase or decrease depending on one’s choices.

“Emotions really do work like Lewin’s tug-of-war: Whether you realize it or not, you’re constantly weighing the costs and benefits of sadness, or joy, or anxiety, and choosing the feelings that serve your purpose.”

Psychologist Kurt Lewin was the first researcher to see human behavior as a tug-of-war between various forces. Lewin argued that every choice a person makes happens because the forces pulling them toward a decision overcame the forces pulling them away. Empathy researchers, including Zaki, also believe an empathetic tug-of-war happens in the mind. An individual might choose to be empathetic because it makes them feel good or looks good to others (i.e., making donations); likewise, people might choose to avoid empathy to protect themselves.

“People can change how they approach everyday situations—the stories they hear, the people they meet, and the technology they use. The right tweaks make caring come naturally, turning an uphill climb into a downhill stroll.”

In Chapter 2, Zaki grapples with whether or not it’s possible to create long-lasting positive changes to human empathy. Research suggests that humans can intentionally choose to strengthen their empathy. This is a powerful conclusion because it demonstrates the ability to create a kinder world simply by believing it is possible. Zaki spends the rest of The War for Kindness illustrating strategies that do exactly this.

“Dehumanization silences empathy at the most basic levels.”

One way people can avoid empathy is to view someone as an outsider or not human. While this is especially common in war, ethnic clashes, and sports rivalries, people do this every day, often without realizing it. A 2015 study found that white Americans believed Arab and Mexican immigrants were “less evolved”. Many of these white Americans also supported anti-immigration policies, the torture of Muslim detainees, and calling Mexican immigrants derogatory names. Declining empathy has also increased political polarization. The combination of these elements makes for a more aggressive society.

“Tony spent the next half hour crying in Dov’s office. ‘Here was this man who loved me and wanted to heal me, and here was I, a person who had once advocated for the annihilation of his people.’ Tony felt he didn’t deserve a shred of compassion from Dov, but Dov extended it nonetheless.”

This quote is especially powerful because it highlights how showing someone genuine empathy can radically change their worldview. Jewish leadership trainer Dov Baron’s compassion toward Tony McAleer (despite his racism) enabled the latter to regain his self-compassion. In doing so, Tony was able to see a future beyond hate groups. Partly because of his experience, he believes showing empathy is one of the most successful strategies for extracting people from hate—something he taught to Zaki and his colleagues.

“Emile, Nour, and I believed that contact was a matter of changing people’s minds about outsiders. But people who had been in the trenches were telling us something else: Contact had changed how they viewed themselves.”

Here, Zaki describes a key lesson of his book: Researchers need to talk to people in specific situations to understand what strategies work best for rebuilding empathy. There is no one strategy that will help humans create a kinder world. Instead, people will need to tailor strategies to different situations. While scientific studies are helpful in illuminating some strategies, researchers need to consider all voices to find solutions.

“Recently, psychologists have begun telling a new story about stories. More than a diversion, narrative arts are an ancient technology: performance-enhancing drugs for untethering. Stories helped our ancestors imagine other lives, plan for possible futures, and agree on cultural codes. In the modern world, they help in a new way: flattening our empathic landscape, making distant others feel less distant and caring for them less difficult.”

In Chapter 4, Zaki argues that storytelling is one of the best ways for people to connect with each other. Fiction, in particular, helps people get inside the minds of outsiders. In doing so, people begin to feel empathy when they might not have. Fiction also helps people think about themselves differently. People can see themselves in characters, allowing them to talk about traumatic experiences—like some Hutus and Tutsis did after the Rwandan genocide. Some people can even see a different future for themselves, like students in the Changing Lives program. Compared to Zaki’s other strategies, storytelling does not need a complicated scientific design, which makes it more adaptable to various situations.

“As we’ve seen, empathy represents a push and pull between psychological forces. Acting shifts the balances of these forces.”

Zaki ponders whether actors are more empathetic than non-actors because of the range of their daydreaming (or untethering). To answer this question, he turns to research by psychologist Thalia Goldstein. Her groundbreaking research suggests that people who train in drama behave more empathetically. Thus, acting shifts the empathetic tug-of-war happening in a person’s mind toward acting rather than avoiding.

“Books are portable, silent, even secret: a reader can careen through other worlds while their subway neighbor remains unaware. This means that readers can empathize safely even with outsiders they would disavow or avoid in public.”

Reading does not require in-person contact. However, it holds the power to transport people into the minds of fictional characters. In doing so, readers can build empathy. Readers will often think about people or groups in their lives who might share similar experiences as the fictional characters. Their empathy will then shift to these real-life people. Thus, fictional books can be a means to build connections between insiders and outsiders.

“We could all use more empathy sometimes, but too much of it can debilitate us.”

In contrast to proceeding chapters, Chapter 5 focuses on how too much empathy can debilitate humans. To support this assertion, Zaki focuses on healthcare workers, who are often at the greatest risk of empathetic distress. The nature of the healthcare profession requires its workers to care deeply about patients; they often take on the emotions of others. While non-healthcare workers can choose to avoid doing so (and often do when facing an onslaught of emotions), healthcare workers do not have this privilege (and many would choose not do so regardless). However, taking on someone else’s emotions results in hazards to both the healthcare worker and their patients. Zaki examines which strategies might help healthcare workers feel for their patients (empathetic concern) rather than taking on their emotions (empathetic distress). He believes such strategies will lead to better healthcare in the US.

“‘This is the type of exam that hurts my heart in a new way now that I have a son of my own,’ Melissa tells me.”

This quote highlights a healthcare worker taking on the emotions of a patient (empathetic distress). Here, Melissa of the intensive care nursery (ICN) at Benioff Children’s Hospital thinks of her own son when taking care of a dying infant named Francisco. She finds it hard to detach her personal emotions from her professional emotions. As a result, she is hit hard by Francisco’s death. Melissa feels she could have done more for him, and her guilt suffocates her for several days.

“The day after Francisco died, Liz saw grace. She was proud that her team had done everything they could for him and had faced the end with bravery and kindness. ‘We talk a lot about good deaths and bad deaths here.’”

Zaki describes associate medical director Liz Rogers as having a high empathetic threshold, especially compared to others working in the ICN such as Melissa. Liz has what she terms “stubborn hope”. Her ability to empathize with patients without losing herself to emotions is rare. She acknowledges her uniqueness, admitting that she only recently realized that not everyone feels the same way as her. Zaki uses Melissa and Liz’s experiences in the ICN to illustrate empathy’s range as well as the different effects empathetic distress can have on healthcare workers. In doing so, he helps readers understand the necessity of supporting healthcare workers through crises.

“Prevailing beliefs act on us like gravity; we can escape them momentarily, but more often than not we get pulled back in.”

People conform to what they believe are cultural norms, even when these norms aren’t born of majority opinion. People are often swayed to a particular side by the loudest person in the room. While conforming is not always harmful, there are cases where it becomes difficult to hold onto empathy for so-called outsiders. It is difficult to break this “insiders versus outsiders” mentality. Even when people try to break free, they are often brought back to the group because like-minded individuals surround them. An example of this is an individual trying to leave a hate group.

“Emile Bruneau, who works to build empathy in the face of conflict, has examined this sort of ‘empathy bias.’ He recently asked Americans, Hungarians, and Greeks how they felt about their own group compared to outsiders they’ve historically disliked (Arabs, Muslim refugees, and Germans, respectively). He also asked about their willingness to cooperate across group lines. Highly empathic individuals didn’t necessarily support peaceful policies, especially if they cared more for their own group than outsiders.”

Up to this point, Zaki focused on building empathy across various groups. Yet, Emile Bruneau’s study adds another layer of complexity to creating a kinder world. Bruneau’s findings suggest that sometimes people need to reduce empathy within groups. If group members only care about each other, they will not be interested in being more empathetic to outsiders. Zaki suggests that police officers are a group who would benefit from a reduction of ingroup empathy.

“Violence mediated by technology doesn’t feel violent, because people mediated by technology don’t feel like people.”

This quote describes one of the most dangerous aspects of modern technology: the ease with which people dehumanize each other. Anonymity and a lack of in-person interactions make it easier for individuals to commit terrible acts that they  might not be willing to do in-person.

“Sadly, life online suits our worst instincts.”

As Zaki shows throughout the book, human nature seems to categorize people as either insiders or outsiders. The internet makes this tribalism exponentially worse. People can turn to sources and people who only support their views, which further narrows their perspective. Social media platforms often frame different groups as incompatible with each other. People are more volatile on the internet, spending hours defending their ingroup against outsiders.

“Rob realized that people all over the world needed help, and people all over the world wanted to help others, and he could connect them.”

While the internet appears to be ripping people apart, Zaki also shows that it can bring people together. An especially heartwarming example is Rob Morris’s Koko, a bot that helps strangers help other strangers. Koko shows that there are more people around the world who want to help than hurt others.

“In this book, I’ve expressed the hope that people might widen their circle of care to encompass all of humanity. But preserving our future requires expanding it even further, not just across space but across time.”

In the Epilogue, Zaki tries to convince readers to not only care about the people of today but those of the future. Humans often focus on decisions that impact the short-term rather than the long-term. Yet, major global crises like climate change are only just starting to impact the people of today. People in the future will be grappling with these issues, even though they did not cause them. Zaki hopes that people will come to care about those across space and time, driving home the notion that an individual is just one link in humankind’s chain.

“But in the face of escalating cruelty and isolation, we are fighting for our moral lives. Doing what’s easy is seldom worthwhile, and in moments like these, it’s dangerous. We each have a choice, and the sum of our choices will create the future. What are you going to do?”

In the final pages of his book, Zaki challenges readers to choose empathy. He acknowledges that change will be difficult—however, he says it is possible and a moral imperative. Humans change their legacies all the time, as exemplified by Alfred Nobel, an arms dealer. After a newspaper wrote Alfred’s obituary after mistakenly thinking he had died instead of his brother, Alfred donated all of his fortune to establish the Nobel Prize. In doing so, he changed how history remembers him. Zaki believes everyone can be like Alfred and change their legacy from one dominated by cruelty to one where kindness reigns.

“In particular, empathy is not really one thing at all.”

Here, Zaki summarizes a key point he makes throughout the book: There are multiple forms of empathy, as people interact with each other in different ways. As a result, there is no single solution to the empathy crisis. Humans must determine the best solution for each specific situation. While this might seem overwhelming or even impossible, Zaki shows that there are simple ways to increase empathy. As more of us choose empathy, rebuilding global kindness will become easier.