Motivation

What are the motivational (“psychological levers” ) factors for people to want to deepen or learn empathy?

  1. Maintain Personal Well-being - We know that an empathy rich life fosters well-being.

  2. Fostering Welling of the World -

  3. Painful or Negative Feelings - Feeling negative or painful feelings and knowing that empathy can help. It's the reason people go to therapist. They are having deep and painful problems, such as, anxiety, depression, alienation, stress, fear, etc and they seek out help.

  4. Resolving Painful Conflict -

  5. Creativity -

  6. Contribution - people want to contribute to the well-being of others. It can be a deeply satisfying feeling.

    1. Selfish motivations -

Motivation of empathy for self, to give to others, for everyone.

Empathy is a moral force by Jamil Zak

Jamil talks about a motivated model of empathy. Can we increase peoples motivation to be empathic?

"In many cases, people fail to empathize not because they are incapable of doing so, but because they are unmotivated to share, understand, or generate concern for others’ internal lives. As such, interventions should complement training in empathic skills with “psychological levers” (Miller & Prenctice, 2010) that can build people’s desire to empathize in the first place." (ZAKI 0000)