Unlocking Empathy: The Neuroscience Behind Understanding Others

Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning

Join Andrea Samadi in Episode 353 of the Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast as we explore the intricacies of empathy, guided by Grant Bosnick's tailored approaches to self-leadership. Delve into the foundation of empathy as a vital leadership tool, capable of strengthening relationships and achieving better outcomes. Learn about the neuroscience behind empathy, focusing on the role of mirror neurons and the three different types of empathy: cognitive, emotional, and empathetic concern.

We also reflect on personal experiences where assumptions led to misunderstandings, highlighting the importance of seeing through another's eyes. Discover practical tips for deepening empathy, cultivating empathetic concern, and applying these insights both personally and professionally to make meaningful connections. This episode calls us to consciously choose empathy, fostering trust and compassion in our interactions. Prepare for our final chapter on the Neuroscience of Presence in the upcoming episodes as we continue to enhance our understanding and application of neuroscience in our daily lives.

Welcome back to SEASON 13 of The Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast, where we connect the science-based evidence behind social and emotional learning and emotional intelligence training for improved well-being, achievement, productivity and results—using what I saw as the missing link (since we weren’t taught this when we were growing up in school), the application of practical neuroscience. I’m Andrea Samadi, an author, and an educator with a passion for learning and launched this podcast 6 years ago with the goal of bringing ALL the leading experts together (in one place) to help us to APPLY this research in our daily lives.

On today's episode #353 we continue with the second last topic of our 18-Week Self-Leadership Series based on Grant Bosnick’s “Tailored Approaches to Self-Leadership: A Bite Size Approach Using Psychology and Neuroscience” that we first dove into with our interview on EP #321[i] the end of January 2024. The goal was that each week, we focused on learning something new, (from Grant’s book) tied to the most current neuroscience research, that builds off the prior week, to help take us to greater heights this year. It honestly shocked me that this series took the entire year. Our final topic will be the neuroscience of presence, and then stay tuned for a review of the entire series to help us to move forward in 2025 with a new lens.

Now we have not yet covered empathy as an entire topic on this podcast, (yet) but we did mention it on EP 340[ii] with mediation expert John Ford on “Navigating Workplace Conflicts” with his “The Empathy Set”[iii] Card Program. I also included the topic of Empathy within the Character Education program I created for schools, so I know why Grant would think this topic to be important enough to include on his “roadmap” for success. When I looked back to what I had written over 15 years ago on empathy, I found an image that said “empathy is seeing with the eyes of another, listening with the ears of another, and feeling with the heart of another” which is right in line with how Grant Bosnick opens up Chapter 18 of his book. Grant reminds us that “empathy is the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from their frame of reference, the capacity to place ourselves in another person’s position, to put ourselves in their shoes, see it from their eyes, their perspective, their way of thinking and feeling.”.

((On today's EPISODE #353 “The Neuroscience of Empathy” we will cover)):

✔ A review of previous episodes where we covered empathy.

✔ The Neuroscience of Empathy

✔ Three Kinds of Empathy (Cognitive, Emotional and Empathetic Concern).

✔ Tips for becoming more empathetic in our daily life to deepen our relationships and improve our outcomes personally and professionally.

If you’ve taken the leadership self-assessment[iv], look to see if Empathy (in Pathway 6, our final pathway in this book study) along with biases, relationships/authenticity and trust is of a low, medium or high priority for you to focus on this year. I was not surprised to see this pathway is a high area of focus for me. I often think “I wonder what this person is thinking and feeling” and try to see a situation from their viewpoint. Do you do this? Think and feel from another person’s point of view? That’s the first step at putting empathy into action in our daily life. Now let’s take this deeper with Grant’s book.

In Chapter 18 of Bosnick’s Tailored Approaches to Self-Leadership, he asks us to remember a time we felt conflict or tension with another person, and asks us to look at the problem from the other person’s perspective. I remember Dr. Maiysha Clairborne from EP 289[v] talking about the “3 Positions of Listening” where she informs us we can look at the conflict through our own eyes first, and then step out of our shoes, and into someone else’s (she calls this position 2 to see what they see, hear what they hear, and feel the feelings they might be feeling. And finally, the third position, which she says is the most valuable, is the observer position where you can go above and look down at the conflict, outside of each person involved, to see the entire dynamic, or bigger picture.

Grant talks about the importance of stepping into another person’s shoes, the minute we sense tension or frustration coming up with another person. Feeling empathy for others is an important leadership tool Grant reminds us, as it will help us to “build trust, develop relationship(s) and achieve better outcomes” but he cautions us against making assumptions that can influence our decisions and actions. (Chapter 18, Bosnick, Tailored Approaches to Self-Leadership, Page 235)

REFLECTION QUESTION:

Grant asks us to reflect on when we might have been wrong about the thoughts or motivations of another person, and what behavior did you take, intentionally, or unintentionally?

I always go back to an example that I would share in the classrooms, working with teens on this topic, as this has happened to all of us in some capacity.

I’m going back now to when I was in high school, (Don Mills Collegiate in Toronto, Canada) and I was walking along a pathway, outside of my school, and saw my good friend Yolanda (real name). I waved at Yolanda, and looked forward to catching up with her on our way to our classes, but Yolanda didn’t wave back to me. I went straight in my head to “hmmm…I wonder why Yolanda is angry with me” and I went another route, so we would miss each other and didn’t end up walking together. I had made the assumption that Yolanda was angry with me, and the action I took, was that I avoided her. I can think of countless other times in my life where I’ve made assumptions like this, and missed opportunities with friends.

At a later date, Yolanda asked me why I was avoiding her, ( I was surprised she noticed) and I told her about how I had waved and that she hadn’t waved back, and it was then that she told me she wasn’t wearing her glasses that day, and never saw me. In fact, she didn’t see anything at all that day (the chalkboards included)! I was disappointed that I had made this assumption, and it was a valuable lesson to see through Yolanda’s eyes, with how incorrect I was when I made this assumption.

The Neuroscience of Empathy

So how does empathy work in our brain? Grant reminds us of “the activation of mirror neurons in our brain which help to explain the process of empathy.” In our brain, “empathy is a spontaneous sharing of a person’s feelings or thoughts by witnessing and being affected by their emotional state” (Chapter 18, Bosnick, Tailored Approaches to Self-Leadership, Page 236) and that “we mirror or mimic the emotional response that we would expect to feel ourselves if we were in that same context.” I always think of those emotional Hallmark Card commercials that get me every time, or movies where I relate to the character, and wipe away tears, reminding myself “it’s just a movie.”

The movie Ghost with Whoopi Goldberg, comes to mind, with a memory I’ll never forget, from many years ago. As the movie ended, one of my friends wasn’t ready to leave the theater, and I remember him not wanting to talk about it, as he wiped tear away from his eyes, hoping none of us would notice. The movie had triggered his mirror neurons and like Grant Bosnick mentioned in his book, movies can do this to us! Grant gives us the origin of these mirror neurons by sharing that “they evolved in the human brain to facilitate and understand the actions we need to take in response to others as, at least in human history (he says) our survival would depend on it.” (Chapter 18, Bosnick, Tailored Approaches to Self-Leadership, Page 237). My friend didn’t want to “feel” what Patrick Swayze was feeling in the movie, Ghost, but his mirror neurons wouldn’t give him much choice.

I remember reading in National Geographic, about the origin of our “mirror neurons” and learned that “humans communicate through facial gestures. Control of these expressions lies in the brain stem and amygdala, beyond consciousness.”[vi] This makes sense to me, since when you try to control it, or not feel these emotions, (like my friend in the movie theater) it’s very difficult, and almost impossible. Do you relate to mirror neurons, and feeling empathy for others in this way?

Three Kinds of Empathy

Bosnick goes on to share that there are three kinds of empathy: cognitive empathy, emotional empathy and empathetic concern.

Cognitive Empathy is “taking another person’s perspective and understanding the situation as they see it” (Chapter 18, Bosnick, Tailored Approaches to Self-Leadership, Page 237) like we learned from Maiysha Clairborne with the three positions of listening. “Through their words and body language, we process it logically, taking their perspective, without experiencing it.” The mirror neurons do not fire here.

Emotional Empathy is “feeling someone’s pain or emotion by seeing it in them and simulating/sensing it in ourselves.” (Chapter 18, Bosnick, Tailored Approaches to Self-Leadership, Page 237). In this case, mirror neurons fire as we experience the situation like it were our own, like my friend in the movie theater.

Grant points out that “different parts of the brain are activated during emotional empathy and cognitive empathy. As a result, we process it differently within our brain. It has also shown (that we just mentioned from the quote from National Geographic) that we can control cognitive empathy much more than emotional empathy because it uses a logical part of our brain rather than an emotional center.” (Chapter 18, Bosnick, Tailored Approaches to Self-Leadership, Page 238). He does urge us to work on using both at the same time “to understand the other person’s perspective AND experience their emotions” to come at the most accurate conclusion to how they are thinking and feeling.

Grant pointed out that in the workplace, he usually defaults to using more cognitive empathy, and just by adding more emotional empathy, he is able to truly understand those he works with, and empathize with them on a deeper level.

Empathetic Concern is “the feeling that if I can do something that can help you, I will…when I see you are in trouble, I want to help you out…It is being genuinely concerned with others and experiencing other-oriented emotions to help them.” (Chapter 18, Bosnick, Tailored Approaches to Self-Leadership, Page 240). This is “when we express care, tenderness, compassion…about another person, supporting them, showing trust, allowing them space.” Bosnick says empathetic concern takes “emotional empathy” to a deeper level.

REFLECTION QUESTION:

When have you experienced empathetic concern? Think of one personal and one business example where you have genuinely felt concern for another person and wanted to help them.

Reflect on what how empathetic concern deepened the levels of trust, helped to develop a better relationship, with improved outcomes.

Bosnick warns us that “although empathy is a natural biological process within our brains, it is not automatic” and shares that “feeling empathy is a choice we make.” (Chapter 18, Bosnick, Tailored Approaches to Self-Leadership, Page 241). His book does dive deeper into situations where people may consciously, or unconsciously choose not to be empathetic with tips on how to develop habits for effective empathy that include listening to others, standing up for others, reading more books, and even how to raise empathetic children. You can dive deeper into the topic of empathy in chapter 18 of Grant’s book.

REVIEW AND CONCLUSION

To review and conclude this week’s episode #353 on “The Neuroscience of Empathy” we covered:

✔ A review of previous episodes where we covered empathy (John Ford’s episode and also with Dr. Maiysha Clairborne) that are excellent to review.

✔ The Neuroscience of Empathy, our mirror neurons, and a warning to watch making assumptions in this process.

✔ Three Kinds of Empathy (Cognitive, Emotional and Empathetic Concern).

✔ Tips for becoming more empathetic in our daily life, and practice Empathetic Concern where we can, to deepen our relationships and improve our outcomes personally and professionally.

I hope this episode has provided you with a deeper understanding of ways to practice being more empathetic in your personal and work life. I know that the world can be a better place if we all can learn to think and feel from another person’s point of view, and finally, if we have solutions that can genuinely help others, to lean in and offer some ideas to support those that are close to you.

It can only work to bring you closer.

With that thought, we will close out this episode, and we will see you next time with our final chapter, The Neuroscience of Presence, before reviewing the entire book. Have a great week.

REFERENCES:

[i] Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE #321 with Grant ‘Upbeat’ Bosnick https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/insights-from-grant-upbeat-bosnick/

[ii] Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE #340 with John Ford https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/navigating-workplace-conflicts-insights-from-a-mediation-expert/

[iii] https://www.empathyset.com/about

[iv] Self-Assessment for Grant Bosnick’s book https://www.selfleadershipassessment.com/

[v] Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE #289 with Dr. Maiysha Clairborne on “Getting to the Roots of our Doubts, Fears and Beliefs” https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/maiysha-clairborne-md-on-what-holds-us-back-getting-to-the-root-of-our-doubts-fears-and-beliefs/

[vi] National Geographic “Your Brain: 100 Things You Never Knew” (4/19/19) https://www.amazon.com/National-Geographic-Your-Brain-Things/dp/B00AO70YGO