Empathy is widely held as an important research mindset among designers. Many design research processes begin with the word. While empathy is broadly necessary to design practice, it is not without its problems. Most designers and researchers do not also know the dangers of empathy. Consider that:
- We confuse and conflate empathy, sympathy, and compassion. The differences are critically important.
- Empathic resonance in the brain is extremely biased. We find it hard to empathize with people unlike ourselves.
- Having too much empathy may also be problematic and can be weaponized by bad actors.
- We feel empathy only for humans and animals‚ not for objects, spaces, places, or our planet.
We will explore some limitations of empathy and show how and why two additional emotive capacities should be cultivated: curiosity and care.
Cassini Nazir will be joining us remotely.
