The Empathy Gym
5/18/20261 hr 29 min
Some people are good at putting themselves in another person's shoes. Others may struggle to relate. But psychologist Jamil Zaki argues that empathy isn't a fixed trait. This week, we revisit a favorite episode about how to exercise our empathy muscles. Then, Leslie John answers listener questions about the benefits of opening up to others, in our latest installment of Your Questions Answered.
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Episode illustration by Getty Images for Unsplash+
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Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsShankar Vedantam· Host0:00
This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam. In May 2007, an artist living in Chicago moved into a new place. It was a small room with white walls. The interior design was minimalist. There was a bed, a desk, a computer, a lamp, and a paintball gun. [instrumental music plays] Affixed to the gun was a webcam. It live-streamed the room to the internet. Anyone could look in, and anyone could take control of the gun, aim, and fire. [paintball gun fires] At all hours of the day and night, [paintball gun fires] the paintball gun would spring to life and begin shooting yellow pellets into the room. [paintball gun fires] Some hit the walls or the furniture. Some hit the artist.
Wafaa Bilal· Guest0:49
I, I was shot at 70,000 times, [paintball gun fires] and I received 80 million hits on the internet from 128 countries.
Shankar Vedantam· Host0:59
Wafaa Bilal spent one whole month in the room, targeted tens of thousands of times by random strangers around the world. Why would he choose to do this? [instrumental music plays] Wafaa was born and raised in Iraq. He came to the US in the early '90s.
Wafaa Bilal· Guest1:23
I live, uh, this duality of, uh, living in two places. One is a comfort