The war for kindness : building empathy in a fractured world /
Material type: TextPublisher: New York : Crown, [2019]Description: 261 pages : illustrations ; 24 cmContent type:- text
- unmediated
- volume
- 9780451499240
- 0451499247
- 152.4/1 23
- PSY031000 | PSY013000 | SCI075000
Item type | Current library | Home library | Collection | Call number | Copy number | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Standard Loan | Coeur d'Alene Library Adult Nonfiction | Coeur d'Alene Library | Book | 152.4 ZAKI (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | 1 | Available | 50610023931343 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
"In this masterpiece, Jamil Zaki weaves together the very latest science with stories that will stay in your heart forever."--Angela Duckworth, author of Grit
Don't miss Jamil Zaki's TED Talk, "We're experiencing an empathy shortage, but we can fix it together," online now.
Empathy is in short supply. We struggle to understand people who aren't like us, but find it easy to hate them. Studies show that we are less caring than we were even thirty years ago. In 2006, Barack Obama said that the United States was suffering from an "empathy deficit." Since then, things seem to have only gotten worse.
It doesn't have to be this way. In this groundbreaking book, Jamil Zaki shares cutting-edge research, including experiments from his own lab, showing that empathy is not a fixed trait--something we're born with or not--but rather a skill that can be strengthened through effort. He also tells the stories of people who embody this new perspective, fighting for kindness in the most difficult of circumstances. We meet a former neo-Nazi who is now helping to extract people from hate groups, ex-prisoners discussing novels with the judge who sentenced them, Washington police officers changing their culture to decrease violence among their ranks, and NICU nurses fine-tuning their empathy so that they don't succumb to burnout.
Written with clarity and passion, The War for Kindness is an inspiring call to action. The future may depend on whether we accept the challenge.
Praise for The War for Kindness
"A wide-ranging practical guide to making the world better." --NPR
"Relating anecdotes and test cases from his fellow researchers, news events and the imaginary world of literature and entertainment, Zaki makes a vital case for 'fighting for kindness.' . . . If he's right--and after reading The War for Kindness, you'll probably think so--Zaki's work is right on time." -- San Francisco Chronicle
"In this landmark book, Jamil Zaki gives us a revolutionary perspective on empathy: Empathy can be developed, and, when it is, people, relationships, organizations, and cultures are changed." --Carol Dweck, author of Mindset
Includes bibliographical references (pages 197-251) and index.
The surprising mobility of human nature -- Choosing empathy -- Hatred versus contact -- The stories we tell -- Caring too much -- Kind systems -- The digital double edge -- The future of empathy -- Appendix A: What is empathy? -- Appendix B: Evaluating the evidence -- Chapter claim ratings.
"A Stanford psychologist offers a bold new understanding of empathy, and shows how we can expand our circle of care, even in these divisive times Empathy is in short supply. Isolation and tribalism are rampant. We struggle to understand people who aren't just like us, but find it easy to hate them. Studies show that we are less caring than we were even thirty years ago. In 2006, Barack Obama said that the United States is suffering from an "empathy deficit." Since then, things only seem to have gotten worse. It doesn't have to be this way. In this groundbreaking book, Jamil Zaki argues that empathy is not a fixed trait--something we're born with or not--but rather a skill that we can all strengthen through effort. Drawing on both classic and cutting-edge research, including experiments from his own lab, Zaki shows how we can harness this new mindset to overcome toxic cultural divisions. He also tells the stories of people who are living these principles--fighting for kindness in the most difficult of circumstances. We meet a former neo-Nazi who is now helping extract people from hate groups, ex-prisoners discussing novels with the judge who sentenced them, Washington police officers changing their culture to decrease violence among their ranks, and NICU nurses fine-tuning their empathy so that they don't succumb to burnout. Written with clarity and passion, The War for Kindness is an inspiring call to action. The future of our society may depend on whether we accept the challenge"--
"A Stanford psychologist offers a bold new understanding of empathy, revealing it to be a skill, not a fixed trait, and showing, through science and stories, how we can all become more empathetic"--
We struggle to understand people who aren't just like us, but find it easy to hate them. In 2006, Barack Obama said that the United States is suffering from an "empathy deficit" and things seem to have gotten worse. Zaki argues that empathy is not a fixed trait, but rather a skill that we can all strengthen through effort. He shows how we can harness this new mindset to overcome toxic cultural divisions, and tells of people who are living these principles-- fighting for kindness in the most difficult of circumstances. -- adapted from jacket
Excerpt provided by Syndetics
Reviews provided by Syndetics
Booklist Review
Zaki's first book features the research he conducts about empathy as the director of Stanford's Social Neuroscience Laboratory. He argues that empathy is not inherent, fixed, and limited but learnable, expandable, and changeable. Empathy offers an antidote to the world's worst problems genocide, hate crimes, imprisonment. His chapters take deep dives into his and other researchers' work. He returns to the intensive-care nursery where his newborn daughter faced a crisis to spend time with the staff, who must walk a fine line between employing empathy in order to help families and finding enough emotional distance to prevent burnout and error. Zaki also profiles RISE, a peer-to-peer empathy network founded to provide safe space for staff to discuss errors, even fatal errors, in an attempt to reduce further errors driven by stress or shame. It works, and the program's usage grows each year. Zaki's heart-of-the-matter writing style relates complex emotion in clear, direct language. He walks his own fine line, between significant research findings and his personal emotional and empathic responses. His research and his book are worthy.--Emily Dziuban Copyright 2019 BooklistKirkus Book Review
The director of the Stanford Social Neuroscience Laboratory asserts that human empathy and kindness can be developed skills.With alarming evidence of our society's rapidly diminishing empathy, Zaki (Psychology/Stanford Univ.) draws on decades of clinical research, along with experiments conducted at his lab, to consider the forces that impact our modern condition. "The news is not good," he writes. "Empathy has dwindled steadily especially in the twenty-first century. The average person in 2009 was less empathic than 75 percent of the people in 1979." The author goes on to recount examples of how individuals and groups have worked toward reversing this trend. These include a former white supremacist who, after becoming a father, found new meaning in his life, enabling him to reverse his negative and often violent instincts. Along with a group of like-minded colleagues, he formed a nonprofit support group called Life After Hate, which "works to extract people from the dark place he once inhabited." Similarly, the alternative sentencing program Changing Lives Through Literature helps convicts become more empathetic by expanding their self-awareness through reading about fictional characters who have struggled through their own challenging issues. Zaki further considers degrees of empathy, especially regarding health care workers and other caretakers, offering examples of how to work effectively without burning out from the pressure of needing to fix all problems. He also reviews our quickly evolving technological advances, highlighting the many opportunities where technology can serve to enhance empathy. While Zaki's many examples offer encouragement that change is possible, the book could have further benefited by a more substantive action plan and a resource list. "In five years, or one, the world could be a meaner place or a kinder one. Our social fabric could further tear or start to mend," writes the author, so "the direction we takeand our collective fatedepends, in a real way, on what each of us decides to feel."An earnest and well-researched call to action and an urgent message that will hopefully expand in Zaki's future work. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.Author notes provided by Syndetics
Jamil Zaki is a professor of psychology at Stanford University and the director of the Stanford Social Neuroscience Laboratory. His writing has appeared in The New York Times , The Washington Post , The New Yorker , and The Atlantic .There are no comments on this title.