Introduction

We can see the positive change empathy brings to the world just from the impact of the women from Yunnan Province on policy-makers in their community (you can learn more about this case-study from our previous blog, which discussed Catherine Wang and Mary Ann Burris’s research and results from implementing photovoice to evaluate healthcare in Yunnan province, a rural area of China). Overall, Wang and Burris found that their methodology of photovoice gave the women participants the opportunity to express their needs and hopes in ways that empowered them to speak honestly with one another and power-holders in their community. They also found that gatekeepers finally showed empathy towards the needs of their communities in ways they had not expressed before. Empathy changed the larger community as unmet needs in these villages began to be resolved. Likewise, the experience changed the women who participated by creating space for new forms of vulnerability.

The Power of Empathy

Empathy moves people toward compassion for self and others; it allows one to understand and appreciate another’s experience and be moved to a helpful response (Decety).  Increasingly, neuroscientists are finding just how foundational empathy is to building healthy communities. Beginning in the early 2000s researchers used magnetic resonance imaging to study the brain and discovered mirror neurons. When feeling the pain of others or one’s own pain, circuits of mirror neurons are activated in the brain; some neuroscientists call this pattern “empathy neurons.” These mirror neurons allow people to see the world from the perspective of others. And when this empathy circuit is damaged, it lowers our ability to understand the feelings of others (Decety). 

Empathy affects mental, spiritual, and emotional health. It calms negative perceptions and self-talk. It helps us to recognize and clarify our needs and desires. It bolsters our ability to manage our stress and anger. Empathy also fosters greater understanding of oneself (The Power of Empathy). 

People who are more empathetic and service-oriented tend to live longer and healthier lives because empathy offers emotional and physical benefits. In a Harvard study, researchers analyzed the saliva of people who watched a video of Mother Teresa caring for the sick and the dying in one of her homes. The saliva after watching the video had higher levels of immunoglobulin A, antibodies that help to fight infections (The Power of Empathy). So empathy benefits our individual and communal health. Empathy is critical to forming flourishing communities because empathy is key to forming healthy relationships. It connects us to those around us in profound and authentic ways, building a sense of real, needed, human belonging and connection.

Empathy as Agent of Change

Interfaith Photovoice encourages participants to develop empathy for one another by first building knowledge of the other person. As participants share photos about their own everyday experiences of religion and spirituality, they also discover the challenges people face.

For example, when a Christian woman learned about the challenges a Muslim woman faces in finding clothes appropriate to the modesty standards of her religious values, she began to see the world from a new perspective. Photographs and conversations like this help participants to think, see, and feel differently. They trigger empathy neurons to fire in the brain and help us to think and feel what we may not feel otherwise. Empathy becomes a doorway to meet ourselves in new ways and to enter the lives of our neighbors powerfully to develop flourishing community.

Works Cited

Decety, Jean and Kalina Michalska, “Neurodevelopmental changes in the circuits underlying empathy and sympathy from childhood to adulthood,” Developmental Studies, 2009, pp. 1–14.

The Power of Empathy. Films On Demand. 2001. Accessed November 20, 2021. https://fod.infobase.com/PortalPlaylists.aspx?wID=240519&xtid=49911.

Glover, Paul, “Three Successful Ways to Practice Empathetic Leadership in the Workplace,” Forbes, 2021. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2021/06/15/three-successful-ways-to-practice-empathetic-leadership-in-the-workplace/?sh=707f615416cc