Giving Compass' Take:

• Stanford Universite psychology professor Zaki offers five strategies that can help individuals build and cultivate the skill of empathy. 

• Why is it important to develop empathy in the social sector? Zaki discusses the idea of building empathetic systems to instill kindness in each other. How can both nonprofit organizations and philanthropists help foster these "kind systems" through their work? 

• Read more about the civic power of empathy. 

Empathy is one of those words that, in 2019, can force a person to confront dueling sides of their humanity.

Zaki, a professor of psychology at Stanford University, has studied empathy for the past 15 years, grappling with its many complexities along the way.

No matter how you struggle with empathy, these 5 strategies can help:

  1. Understand that empathy is a skill, not a fixed trait.  Though humans do inherit a genetic predisposition toward empathy and generosity, Zaki says it's a mistake to believe that one's capacity for both traits are permanently stuck at a certain level.
  2. Increase your contact with "outsiders." This strategy might seem obvious to anyone who's ever heard a literature professor or actor talk about the virtues of seeing life through someone else's eyes, but research does indicate that people who spend more time with "outsiders" — those who belong to different groups than you do — harbor less prejudice.
  3. Practice self-compassion. "I’m not arguing that empathy is the cure-all or even the right state to be all the time," says Zaki. "The optimal version of human empathy is not one in which we feel everyone’s pain all the time and deplete ourselves into nothingness."
  4. Use the internet wisely.  In some cases, the internet can enhance empathy by bringing people into contact with outsiders and their stories, or by helping people build caring connections amongst each other. In other instances, the internet can quickly shred those relationships by elevating discourse and commentary that prompt a vicious cycle of outrage.
  5. Help build empathetic systems. Zaki says that people can channel their empathy into efforts to build "kind systems." This can mean changing workplaces and public institutions by focusing on ways to make kindness an expectation that's officially recognized and even rewarded.

Read the full article about strategies to develop empathy by Rebecca Ruiz at Mashable.