Want to Be More Empathetic? Ask These 2 Questions
by Julia Davies
Wounds heal; scars last. Experiences shape beliefs – what you’ve experienced in the world that I haven’t is what makes you believe what I don’t believe. The way I think about the world would be different if I experienced what you have.
“Experience” is a generalization, but all things that shape our beliefs are based in experience. It’s not an “experience = belief” framework so much as an “experience-belief-experience-belief” loop. New experiences change how we will perceive future events, while also changing how we remember past events. We have the tendency to seek out and/or interpret new experiences to align with our current beliefs. Similarly, when we recall a past experience, our brain alters the original recollection based on new knowledge and experiences. In other words, our brains are wired to become entrenched in whatever we believe.
In the increasingly globalized and diversified world we find ourselves in, these psychological tendencies seem to do us more harm than good. So how can we work to challenge this? Some ideas –
Ask yourself – “Who would I be, and what would I believe if I were born to different parents/generation/country?” These questions are impossible to answer, but all the specifics of how you exist and have existed in the world are what make you believe what you believe.
Instead of attributing character traits to people based on their beliefs, try attributing experience instead. For example, instead of thinking, “they are a bad person for believing x,” re-frame it as, “they might have had x experience, which has potentially led them to believe x.” Ask yourself, why would they believe this? Why don’t I believe it?
This isn’t easy work. It’s often frustrating to talk with someone who seems to have blinders on to others’ opinions. It’s uncomfortable to be on the other end, to have your beliefs questioned by someone else. These are both normal. To our brain, someone or something challenging our beliefs makes us feel unsafe, and we perceive it as a threat. We process and respond to emotional threats in the same part of our brain as physical threats, producing a fight-or-flight response.
Hence the power of acknowledgment. You don’t have to agree with someone’s belief, but acknowledging their experiences and beliefs as theirs makes them feel safe. They’re less likely to respond with anger or hostility, because their brain is no longer perceiving you as a threat.
It’s difficult to authentically acknowledge without understanding. Complete understanding is often unrealistic – you won’t ever have their specific recipe of lived experience. But by looking at the experience-belief loop as conceptually inseparable, we can acknowledge the gap in our understandings as a difference of experience and not necessarily a difference of character.
Julia is a Peace Catalyst intern in Bosnia and Herzegovina. She is a recent graduate of Ohio State University, where she majored in history and political science with research distinction. During her three-month study abroad program in Rwanda, Julia worked with youth groups and women’s associations addressing transgenerational trauma and promoting forgiveness. Her research on collective memory and genocide memorials and their role in promoting reconciliation has given her a unique perspective on the power of peacebuilding. Learn more about Julia here.
