Overcoming the empathy gap: overcoming a societal lack of empathy

In Principled Innovation, the Civic asset of perspective-taking—of seeking to understand others’ worlds—provides the knowledge base and interpersonal links on which the emotional connections of empathy can take shape. This, in turn, can help us understand what moral and ethical decisions we need to make (Practice M2) to create what the PI framework describes as “positive change for humanity.” In this TED Talk (13 minutes), Fareeha Quayyum builds on her experience growing up in an immigrant family to argue that empathy begins with a cognitive interpersonal decision to seek to understand the world of others—and that this interpersonal act has wider social implications for overcoming prejudice and systemic inequities.