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Task summary: Please answer to 2 provided questions for this assignment after checking provided sources. 250 words for each part, do not use any outside sources besides the attached ones.Full order description:Dear Freelancer,please complete the post only MAIN DETAILS:Part 1: Once you have completed your reading, reflect on this article and write a paragraph that identifies what you see as challenges policymakers face in creating policies that impact the lives of everyday citizens and what social empathy might mean in terms of creating social welfare policies and programs.Part 2: Now, participate in the following activity:You have $1 to donate in the name of charity to distribute to an individual or cause you believe worthy of receiving this gesture on your part. Think hard as to how to best use your contribution to make a difference in the life or lives of recipients of your donation. Write down how you would distribute the $1. Reflect on this exercise and write another paragraph explaining how you made the decision where your contribution would go. ATTACHED:-task -sources
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As will be discussed throughout this course, there are a number of theories underlying
how policies are created, and how social values influence how policy decisions are
made. One thing that should not be forgotten is that policies are created by human
beings with their own sets of beliefs and experiences. Understanding this can help us as
social workers, to understand the values underlying policy decisions as well as how to
advocate for policies that are in the best interest of the individuals and communities we
serve. You should have read the article Social Empathy: A Model Built on Empathy,
Contextual Understanding, and Social Responsibility that Promotes Social Justice early
in this module. If you have not yet done so, please revisit the READINGS and complete
the reading.
Part 1:
Once you have completed your reading, reflect on this article and write a paragraph that
identifies what you see as challenges policymakers face in creating policies that impact
the lives of everyday citizens and what social empathy might mean in terms of creating
social welfare policies and programs.
Part 2:
Now, participate in the following activity:
You have $1 to donate in the name of charity to distribute to an individual or cause you
believe worthy of receiving this gesture on your part. Think hard as to how to best use
your contribution to make a difference in the life or lives of recipients of your donation.
Write down how you would distribute the $1.
Reflect on this exercise and write another paragraph explaining how you made the
decision where your contribution would go.
Requirements
In order to successfully complete this assignment, you should:
● Complete both parts of this assignment as specified above
○ This assignment should be approximately 250-500 words in total
● Submit both paragraphs as a single discussion board post by the assigned
due date
○ Label each part as appropriate
● Respond to posts from two of your peers by the end of the module
Note about discussions
In each module, you will have the opportunity to engage in conversation with your
classmates. Typically, you might respond to a discussion prompt by the due date and
then reply to two of your classmates’ posts by the end of the module, a few days later.
This is your opportunity to get to know your classmates, ask them questions, offer
ideas, and share this educational experience with them. It is important that your initial
post is completed by the first due date so that your classmates have something to
respond to, and everyone has time to finish responding by the end of the module.
Journal of Social Service Research, 37:266–277, 2011
c Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
Copyright
ISSN: 0148-8376 print / 1540-7314 online
DOI: 10.1080/01488376.2011.564040
Social Empathy: A Model Built on Empathy, Contextual
Understanding, and Social Responsibility That Promotes
Social Justice
Elizabeth A. Segal
ABSTRACT. A model of social empathy is described where social empathy is defined as the ability
to more deeply understand people by perceiving or experiencing their life situations and as a result
gain insight into structural inequalities and disparities. The three components of the model—individual
empathy, contextual understanding, and social responsibility—are explored and explained. Social empathy provides a framework for more effective social policies that address disparities and support social
and economic justice for all people. Social workers are well positioned to enhance social empathy, and
application and suggestions for further enhancement and research are provided.
KEYWORDS. Social empathy, empathy, social responsibility, scapegoating, civic involvement
The United States is a nation that proclaims
a dedication to justice and social well-being and
promises to secure these ideals for generations
to come:
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish
justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide
for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. (Preamble to the U.S. Constitution)
This is not simply a lofty ideal. The Constitution and all the laws and policies that have
evolved based on this declaration put justice
into practice. And to an extent, we as a nation have realized this goal, but not equally
for all groups. According to recent data from
the U.S. Census Bureau (DeNavas-Walt, Proctor, & Smith, 2010), the median per capita in-
come for Whites in 2009 was 71% higher than
for African Americans and 105% higher than
for Hispanics and Latinos. For year-round fulltime workers, women averaged 77% of what
men earned. These statistics represent only some
of the economic disparities and inequalities between groups. Measuring the concept of social
empathy can be difficult and when better defined
can lead to more effective social policies that
address these disparities and support social and
economic justice for all people. One way to measure it is by recognizing the importance of social
empathy, defining its nature, and thereby cultivating and increasing social empathy between
groups.
WHAT IS SOCIAL EMPATHY?
Social empathy is the ability to understand
people by perceiving or experiencing their life
Elizabeth A. Segal, PhD, is a Professor at Arizona State University, School of Social Work, Phoenix, AZ.
Address correspondence to: Elizabeth A. Segal, PhD, Arizona State University, School of Social Work,
411 N. Central Avenue, Suite 800, Phoenix, AZ 85004 (E-mail: [email protected]).
266
Social Empathy
situations and as a result gain insight into structural inequalities and disparities. Increased understanding of social and economic inequalities
can lead to actions that effect positive change,
social and economic justice, and general wellbeing (Segal, 2006, 2007a, 2007b). It is built
upon individual empathy.
Generally, empathy includes “the act of perceiving, understanding, experiencing, and responding to the emotional state and ideas of
another person” (Barker, 2003, p. 141). For
decades, empathy was analyzed and defined
from the perspective of social and cognitive psychologists (Gerdes, Segal, & Lietz, 2010). In recent years, empathy has received a great deal
of attention within the field of social-cognitive
neuroscience (Decety & Jackson, 2004, 2006;
Singer & Lamm, 2009).
During the past decade, social-cognitive neuroscience researchers have used neural brain
imaging to greatly expand our knowledge of empathy. They have mapped four distinct components of empathy: affective response, self/otherawareness, perspective taking, and emotion regulation (Decety & Moriguchi, 2007; Kaplan &
Iacoboni, 2006). The first component, affective
response, is an involuntary physiological and
emotional reaction to the automatic mirroring
of another person’s feelings, facial expressions,
and gestures. The phenomenon of mirroring was
identified and validated through observation of
267
blood circulation in distinct neural networks. We
see an action, and our brain responds as if we are
actually doing the action.
The other three components are cognitive processes that require voluntary mental activity.
These cognitive abilities are: 1) an awareness of
the distinction between the self and others; 2) the
ability to take the perspective of the other; and
3) the ability to regulate one’s emotions to avoid
being overwhelmed with what the other person
is feeling and by one’s own affective response to
the other person.
Incorporating the findings of social-cognitive
neuroscientists, a social work framework of empathy (Gerdes & Segal, 2009) defines empathy
as a multifaceted process. The model has three
parts: 1) mirroring another person’s emotions or
affective response; 2) the ability to cognitively
process the meaning and context of mirrored
emotions using self/other-awareness, perspective taking, and emotion regulation; and 3) conscious decision making or taking empathic action based on the collected information (Gerdes
& Segal, 2009). Figure 1 shows the relationship
between the components of individual empathy
and social empathy.
Social empathy applies empathy to social systems to better understand the experiences of different people, communities, and cultures. Social
empathy is the combination of: 1) experiencing
empathy to its fullest extent; 2) gaining deep
FIGURE 1. How Does Social Empathy Lead to Social Justice?
SOCIAL
JUSTICE
IMPACT OF
SYSTEMIC
CONDITIONS
SOCIAL
RESPONSIBILITY
CONTEXTUAL
UNDERSTANDING
EMPATHY
Affective
response/
mirroring
Cognitive
processing
HISTORICAL
BACKGROUND
Conscious
decision making
SOCIAL
EMPATHY
268
E. A. Segal
insight and knowledge about historical and socioeconomic contexts, particularly in relation to
inequality and disparity; and 3) embracing the
importance of social responsibility. These experiences, knowledge, and beliefs combine to
galvanize us to act in ways that promote social
justice. Social empathy provides the pathway for
creating communities and social policies governed by empathy.
This article identifies three components in the
social empathy model and their mutually reinforcing relationships. Empathy is defined, and its
relationship to altruism, cooperation, and civic
engagement are discussed. Individual empathy
is insufficient to motivate a society or community toward social justice. The most effective
way to change structural inequalities and disparities is to provide people with opportunities to
gain deep contextual knowledge and have experiences that create empathic insights into the
lives of people who are oppressed. This article
closes with a discussion of the implications of
the social empathy model for social work practice and research.
A MODEL OF SOCIAL EMPATHY
Social empathy is the conjunction of individual empathy and deep contextual understanding
of inequalities and disparities. The combination
of empathy and an informed understanding of
the historical, social, and economic contexts of
oppression can enhance the measurement of this
concept and promote social responsibility while
advancing social action and justice (see Figure
1). Social responsibility reflects a prosocial individual perspective that contributes to improving
the larger social arena. Pancer & Pratt (1999)
define social responsibility as a sense of connection to those outside your “circle of family and
friends [and] . . . an obligation to help those in
the community, nation, or society-at-large who
are in need” (p. 38).
Almost 20 years ago, Wakefield (1993, p. 454)
described social work as being society’s “altruistic conscience.” He called for people to be
charitable with humanistic passion while creating macro-interventions to protect the oppressed
members of society. This view of social work
reflects altruism and social responsibility. The
social empathy model discussed in this article
is similar to Wakefield’s call for altruism and
distributive justice. However, Wakefield did not
articulate or understand the importance of empathy in his call for social justice. This model
goes further and directly addresses the importance of empathy. Empathy is the foundation or
proximate mechanism for directed altruism (de
Waal, 2009), and therefore without it, impaired
measurement and application of social justice
can result.
Examination of other groups and cultures
through the eyes of members of other groups
and cultures can increase empathy and inform us
about the impact of social conditions. For example, during the 1960s and the period of the War
on Poverty, Robert Kennedy traveled to Jackson,
MS, and visited the homes of poor families. His
descriptions of the visits were filled with firsthand accounts, and his feelings reflected deep
empathy. His position of power and influence as
well as his determined awareness of the plight
of these Americans led him to push Congress to
open the Food Stamp Program to provide for the
needy (Mills, 2006). A clear definition and subsequent awareness of social empathy can lead
to recognition by the masses of disparity and
inequality, especially when the power and influence from individual awareness is not enough to
bring about the needed response. When there is
a shared definition of the empathic insights into
discrimination, injustice, or inequality, individuals are better able and more willing to take action that promotes social justice (Hoffman, 2000;
Morrell, 2010; Rifkin, 2009). Clarifying the definition and creating a shared meaning of social
empathy can reflect an understanding of social
conditions and enhance the willingness to help
others.
Furthermore, without an understanding of
complex social conditions, individuals are more
prone to believe stereotypes and emotionally appealing rationales that can lead to ideological
scapegoating (Glick, 2002, 2005, 2008). For example, German Jews were strongly assimilated
into German society following World War I.
However, lingering Jewish stereotypes coupled
with the economic problems of the 1920s and
1930s made the Nazi propaganda that Jewish
Social Empathy
industrialists had caused the economic misfortunes of Germany seem very plausible (Glick,
2008). Acceptance of such misinformation can
contribute to social breakdowns, the most atrocious of which is genocide. The components of
social empathy—individual empathy, enhanced
with an understanding of other groups’ contexts and surrounding social conditions, supported by a commitment to cooperation and social responsibility—can provide the impetus for
increased social justice.
The social empathy model was developed
from theory, research literature, and practice. It
evolved out of the desire to try and answer several questions:
r Why do some people have a strong empathic
regard for the welfare of others, particularly
people who live outside their personal realm,
while others do not?
r How do people better understand the life circumstances of people who are different from
them?
r What is the impact on our social policies
when there is understanding of people who
are different?
r How do people develop the interest and ability to consider the individual and societal
aspects of social issues, problems, and concerns?
Exploring the answers to these questions
forms the foundation for the construct measurement and analysis of empathy, social behaviors,
and how to more clearly address the intersection
of the two.
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Empathy
Empathy promotes positive social interaction
through prosocial behaviors such as cooperation, altruism (Van Lange, Gallucci, Karremans,
Klapwijk, & Folmer, 2007), and helping others
(Batson, 1991; Davis, 1996; Hoffman, 2000). A
lack of empathy is correlated with bullying, aggressive behaviors, and violent crime (Goleman,
1994). In addition, primal fears or anxieties and
a lack of well-developed empathy can overtake
our innate empathic tendencies and result in ethnic scapegoating (Glick, 2008). We need look
no further for an example than the current hostile environment toward Latinos—whether they
are American born, legal immigrants, or undocumented immigrants. According to the 2007 Uniform Crime Report, 62% of hate-crime victims
were Latino or Hispanic (U.S. Department of
Justice, 2008).
However, empathy for an individual who belongs to an oppressed group (e.g., Latino immigrants) can carry over to the group as a whole
(Batson et. al., 1997). It requires the understanding that each person’s perspective is “filtered
through his or her own cultural framework”
(Freedberg, 2007, p. 257), as well as recognition that power differentials exist across racial,
ethnic, and gender identities. When we allow
fear to override our innate empathic tendencies,
it is destructive and costly. One way to prevent
fear from hijacking our empathic sensibilities is
by obtaining a deep contextual understanding of
the inequalities and disparities that separate us.
Empathic insight and understanding into social
groups different from our own can lead us to consider social change as we are more likely to understand other people’s needs, be more tolerant
of differences, and be more socially cooperative.
Components of the Social Empathy Model
Contextual Understanding
As conceptualized in Figure 1, individual empathy coupled with contextual understanding
and a sense of social responsibility is the process that leads to social empathy. This process is
dynamic and fluid. Although built on individual
empathy, the process is not necessarily linear and
the relationships between the three components
are mutually reinforcing.
Neuroscientists’ identification of the regions
of the brain that correspond to empathic thoughts
confirms that humans are hardwired for empathy (Iacoboni, 2008). However, relying on individual empathy to promote the well-being of
people from different ethnic, cultural, racial, or
other identity groups has not always worked.
To encourage a strong belief in social respon-
270
E. A. Segal
sibility, to develop effective, fair, and just social policies, and to generate transformative social action, we need to provide a deep historical
and contextual understanding of the life experiences of people who are not identified with
the dominant culture. Morrell (2010) describes
this process, “democratic legitimacy,” which he
defines as majorities, or those in power, using
empathy to understand the effects of their decisions on others. For example, to successfully
create and pass comprehensive immigration reform, the American public must be exposed to
and educated about the actual life experiences of
Latinos who risk their lives to cross the border.
We can start by having a fact-driven discussion
to answer some basic questions: What are their
lives like in Mexico? What are the educational
and socioeconomic barriers to success in Mexico? Why are so many willing to risk their lives
and the lives of their children to cross the border?
Why do so many employers hire undocumented
workers? Who benefits the most from the resulting low-wage labor pool? The answers to these
questions can provide the rich context that is
necessary to truly understand the perspective of
undocumented Latino immigrants and gain useful empathic insights that might lead to fair and
effective immigration policies.
Societal heterogeneity is not conducive to empathy. In a society with significant heterogeneity
such as in the United States, it is very difficult to
create and receive majority support for equitable
social welfare policies. A brief examination of a
particularly homogeneous country, such as Iceland, provides useful insights into the empathy
deficit that is partially responsible for the gridlock in America’s legislative bodies. Empathic
perspective taking is much easier when someone
looks like you and has a similar life experience
(Stürmer, Snyder, & Omoto, 2005):
We have a hard time identifying with people whom we see as different or belonging
to another group. We find it easier to identify with those like us—with the same cultural background, ethnic features, age, gender, job and so on—and even more so with
those close to us, such as spouses, children
and friends. (de Waal, 2009, p. 80)
Icelanders, not unlike other homogenous
Scandinavian societies, have historically enthusiastically supported spending on universal
health care, family leave, and other social welfare programs. Support for fair and equitable, albeit expensive, social programs is greater when
the programs are perceived to benefit people
“just like us (JLU).” In Iceland, policy decisions
about spending taxpayer dollars on people who
are not of Icelandic descent, or people who are
seen as “not just like us (NJLU)” are more hotly
debated, and there is often much less agreement
(Szalavitz & Perry, 2010). In the United States,
the people who are JLU, or the dominant culture,
need a deeper contextual understanding of the
challenges faced by the people who are NJLU to
bridge the empathy gap.
Context is everything. Individual empathy is
often limited by the absence of an accurate context or no context at all (Singer & Lamm, 2009).
If you are shown a picture of needles being inserted into a person’s hand, your first reaction,
given no context, is that pain is being inflicted.
If the picture is all the information you have,
you would mirror the pain and cognitively (i.e.,
perspective taking) view the event as a negative
experience for the person. You might even have
the urge to stop the “perpetrator” from inserting
the needle.
However, if you were told you were going to
view pictures of techniques used by acupuncturists to alleviate pain, you may initially have
the same pain or affective response, but the ability to put the picture in a positive context (i.e.,
the needle is alleviating pain) takes away the
strong emotion or urge to stop the other person’s pain. Context and accurate information
are everything. When we see people who are
different from us and have different life experiences than us, without accurate information and
a context for their situations (such as understanding structural inequalities in political, economic,
health, and education systems), individual empathy alone is insufficient to lead us to solutions for
large-scale domestic or global problems. Therefore, if the understanding of large-scale social
problems like poverty is limited to individual
perception, it can be flawed or inaccurate. Consequently, empathic perspective taking will also
Social Empathy
be flawed, and flawed solutions or scapegoating
can result.
A lack of empathic perspective taking can
lead to scapegoating. Sociologist Peter Glick
has spent years writing about scapegoating. He
developed the concept of the “ideological model
of scapegoating” (Glick, 2002, 2005). In this
model, “scapegoating is the unfortunate outcome of the (normally adaptive) cognitive and
motivational processes by which people try to
explain and to solve shared misfortunes” (Glick,
2008, p. 124). In this context, atrocities such as
the Holocaust, the Aremian genocide in Turkey
during the early 1900s, and the more recent
Rwandan genocide can be understood as consequences of a severe lack of empathy. Glick explains that these horrific breakdowns in our humanity are the result of three intersecting events:
The first event is that the process of understanding the causes for large-scale social, political,
and economic events is complex and difficult to
comprehend. The second event is that to try and
understand these complex social, political, and
economic events, people develop explanations
for such events that are socially constructed and
can reflect such false beliefs as stereotypes and
blaming of out-groups. The third event is that
people’s shared misfortune is explained by the
actions of such out-groups, and their actions become the accepted rationale for bad conditions.
This tendency to follow stereotypes as the rationale for shared misfortune can be viewed as
a hijacking of the cognitive processing, which
takes time and significant critical analysis, by
the irrational immediacy of fear:
The ideological model assumes that when
misfortunes are widely shared, people seek
a social consensus about the causes of
these problems and an organized solution
to them. Genocides, for instance, are not
spontaneous outbursts by a mob of frustrated individuals, but are highly organized
among a group of people sharing a common set of beliefs. (Glick, 2008, p. 128)
This ideological model suggests that just as
the embrace of certain socially constructed values and beliefs can cause scapegoating, the acceptance of a different set of socially constructed
271
values can be used to support and encourage
exploration and understanding between groups.
Empathy, informed by strong values such as social responsibility and social justice can overcome stereotyping and blaming of out-groups.
Social Responsibility
When individuals obtain an accurate empathic
perspective about the conditions and needs of
others, they are more apt to feel social responsibility and become socially involved (Frank,
2001; Hoffman, 2000). On a macro-level, empathy fosters people’s involvement in social
change (Loeb, 1999), promotes social cooperation (Singer & Steinbeis, 2009), and increases
civic involvement (Astin, 2000). The ability to
experience empathy through an accurate contextual lens deepens our understanding of society,
leads to a belief in social responsibility, and can
result in social justice:
If a person thinks about how society’s
resources should be distributed, a selfserving perspective will make him prefer
principles that coincide with his own condition: high producers will choose merit
and low producers will choose need or
equality. If empathy is aroused, the welfare of others will be considered and even
high producers may choose need or equality. (Hoffman, 2000, pp. 14–15)
Conscious decision making leads to empathic
action. As articulated by Freire (1990), the basis of social change is praxis, the “reflection
and action upon the world in order to transform
it” (p. 36). Praxis, or social action, is brought
about through the reflection and understanding
developed through consciousness raising (which
is a combination of the self/other-awareness
and perspective-taking components of empathy).
Freire’s praxis also requires an understanding
of social power divisions and oppression. Social empathy is a combination of self-reflection
and an accurate perspective or understanding of
the underlying causes of social problems. Social
empathy leads to a desire to take action and to
improve societal well-being.
272
E. A. Segal
Freire (1990) argues that the oppressor has
a vested interest in the status quo. Change is
not valuable to the oppressor. Because the dominant class is determined to preserve the social
order, consciousness raising is not perceived
as valuable and is indeed threatening to those
in power. Therefore, it falls to the oppressed
to desire change and hence social consciousness raising. Several theoreticians argue that the
oppressor–oppressed dynamic Freire describes
makes empathy more difficult for dominant
groups. DeTurk (2001) argues that social power
can block empathy across cultures. Citing a number of others sources (such as Collins, 1990;
Miller, 1992), she concludes that the development of intercultural empathy between dominant
and subordinate groups is impossible due to the
difference in power between them:
Subordinates learn that direct, honest reactions are dangerous, and that open communication is possible only with each other.
Dominant groups are left ignorant of both
their own impact on others and of subordinate group members’ true identities and experiences. Subordinates, on the other hand,
know a great deal about the dominants:
first, because they must be carefully attuned to them in order to safely negotiate interactions with them; and second, because the dominant group’s values, communications styles, and norms are widely
disseminated through cultural institutions.
(p. 378)
Marginalized groups have to negotiate both
their own cultures and the dominant culture,
whereas the same is not true for those of the dominant culture. Swigonski (1994) points out that
those who are subordinate must strive to understand the dominant class in addition to their own
class. She calls this “‘double vision’ or double
consciousness—a knowledge of, awareness of,
and sensitivity to both the dominant worldview
of society and their own perspective” (p. 390).
Thus, it is important to be aware of power differences between groups when analyzing empathy
across cultures.
Are we biologically built for virtuous behavior
(or to take social action)? Neuroscientists have
recently explored the underlying motivations for
virtuous and moral behaviors. Immordino-Yang
and Sylvan (2010) found that virtuous behaviors
are not only motivated by conscious, cognitive
thinking, but that our “intense desire to socially
survive and flourish by accomplishing meaningful actions in the social world derives its power
by co-opting systems whose original purpose is
to maintain basic survival through the maintenance of the body” (p. 2). While examining brain
patterns through neuroimaging, it was discovered that motivation for virtuous behavior may
be driven, in part, by our nonconscious system,
the one that monitors our biological processes to
keep us alive. “The feeling of this motivational
emotion [desire to be virtuous] is deeply rooted
in the very systems that keep us alive, that make
us act, that organize and regulate the functioning
of our body” (Immordino-Yang & Sylvan, 2010,
p. 3). This reinforces the recent neuroscience
research that we are likely to be hardwired for
many complicated behaviors, such as empathy
and virtue, and hence social responsibility. Our
foundation for empathic action is embedded in
our physiology. The challenge is to bring it forward and use it to support and improve social
well-being.
Having a biological proclivity toward prosocial behaviors does not always guarantee moral
actions (Einolf, 2008). We think about doing
good things, but we do not always follow through
on those intentions. We might be hesitant to act
in ways that, albeit virtuous, may not be accepted
behaviors—for example, sticking up for the
scapegoated person. We also need social values
that support prosocial actions. Bell, Richerson,
and McElreath (2009) argue that there is a longstanding pattern of “gene-culture co-evolution”
for human prosociality. They analyzed cultural
differentiations over time and found the combination of genetic disposition and social selection
enhances the maintenance of altruistic behavior:
The evolution of cultural rules mandating
cooperation between group members could
exert ordinary selection pressures for genotypes that obey cultural rules. Social selection mechanisms such as exclusion from
the marriage market, denial of the fruits of
cooperative activities, banishment, and ex-
Social Empathy
ecution would have exerted strong selection against genes tending toward antisocial behavior. (Bell et al., 2009, p. 17673)
Although we may be hardwired to behave in
empathic, prosocial, and moral ways, our communities still benefit from active selection and
social support for these behaviors. Nature may
give us the basic tools to be empathic and socially responsible, but we need social guidance
to do so collectively on an ongoing basis.
HOW DO SOCIAL WORKERS
INCORPORATE THE CONSTRUCT OF
SOCIAL EMPATHY INTO PRACTICE
AND RESEARCH?
Based on neurological, biological, and psychological studies, the following point seems to
be well accepted: “Empathy builds on proximity, similarity, and familiarity, which is entirely
logical given that it evolved to promote in-group
cooperation” (de Waal, 2009, p. 221). It follows
then that to promote empathy and use it to influence society and large systems, we must think
in terms of creating more proximity and ways to
improve familiarity between different groups.
Various studies have found that perspective
taking, a skill critical to experiencing empathy
to its fullest extent, develops better with higher
amounts of social interaction (Eisenberg,
Murphy, & Shepard, 1997). Social work needs
a model that promotes proximity and familiarity
between groups, opportunities for cross-cultural
exchange, and the teaching of perspective
taking.
Social empathy is a concept that emphasizes
the importance of a deep understanding of the social and economic conditions of all populations,
especially those that have experienced oppression. Research on disparities and social justice
often focuses on quantifiable differences such as
income, wealth, and educational achievement.
Social empathy provides a model to help examine why these differences exist and what can
be done to change the inequalities. For example, financial data reveal that race is correlated
with income inequality. This level of research is
273
measurable but does not explain why there are
differences. Social empathy provides the framework for those with resources to examine what
life might be like for a different race lacking
resources (empathy), to examine the history of
access to resources and economic opportunities
for dominant groups compared to nondominant
groups (contextual understanding), and to consider what the differences mean for social justice (social responsibility). The construct of social empathy provides a framework for assessing
why there are social inequalities and what might
be done to change those inequalities.
Consciousness raising and understanding oppression can lead to change even though it is
not always in the best interest of those who hold
most of the power. Women’s voting rights, child
labor laws, and civil rights legislation are examples of what can be achieved through the
power of consciousness raising and empathy.
When gr
