Boost your empathy
Unlimited thinking paired with performance art creates societal change
What if you could boost your empathy? Would it help us overcome prejudices? Bring about positive change in society?
Eran Halperin and his colleagues at Hebrew University in Jerusalem recently published results from several studies in which they utilized a blend of psychology and performance art to determine if empathy could be boosted for societal change.
Their premise was that all of us belong to social groups that tend to think and act with biases. Yet, when we are presented with situations outside of our social experience and social groups, we tend to be less empathetic, pull back, and tend to protect the status quo. Halperin wanted to see if this could be overcome.
What he determined was that there are two types of thinking: limited empathy and unlimited empathy. The limited empathy reinforces biases — because you feel like you only have enough for your own small circle.
However, unlimited-empathy thinking allows space to overcome differences.
Halperin learned that the first and most important step is to believe that you can have unlimited empathy. When you re-orient yourself this way, you are more willing to take in a variety of others’ experiences, listen more, and find a way to care. It’s a mindset issue.
So, how can you help people to change their mindset? Halperin’s group used lab experiences where performance art was mixed with psychology.
Performance art is when you combine the visual arts with a dramatic actor performance. It’s the type of art that has to be watched in person. Today’s modern performance art is not considered a play. Instead, it’s more improvised, more in the moment, and often utilizes the performer’s body to illuminate or illustrate.
Here’s an example of modern performance art. It’s the “Art is Present” MoMA 2010 exhibit by Marina Abromovic. In this clip, she is shown staring at a bunch of strangers, until an old friend arrives.
As you can see from this clip, just like Abramovic, we immediately empathize with the emotions of seeing someone we love.
The same is true in the Hebrew University empathy experiments. They created an “immigration booth” with performance artists. Participants would come to the booth and they were given information and asked questions, along with the opportunity to hear about a Syrian refugee story. The participants were broken into two groups: the limited-empathy experience group and the unlimited-empathy group. The performance artists embedded psychological manipulation into their performances to create the limited and unlimited viewpoints.
The result? The group that was moved toward limited empathy had less interest in the Syrian refugee. Whereas, the unlimited empathy group that received prompts suggesting empathy had no bounds nearly always wanted to know more about the refugee AND they reduced their biases.
Hebrew University also did another study in which they trained actors who self-identified as Jews and Arabs to perform empathy-inducing scenes at an art festival.
Similar to the Syrian immigrant study above, the groups were broken into manipulative performance art groups: 1) the limited empathy group and 2) the group that was made to believe that empathy was unlimited with a growth mindset.
The results were consistent. The unlimited empathy group demonstrated more empathy toward the actors AND also engaged, by choice, in more empathetic behaviors.
In thinking about how art could help us overcome our biases and care more about others, the combined studies from Hebrew University are a strong indicator that
you can use performance art to help change minds and hearts toward being more open and empathetic
art can generate powerful and meaningful experiences that help people expand their thinking, such as developing a growth mindset
performance art could be arranged to bring people together and interact face to face in a non-threatening environment, which is perfect for considering new points of view
Applications of these ideas include getting people to consider scientific discoveries or training professionals in overcoming biases in the workplace.
For example, there are whole swaths of the public who, for political reasons or propaganda, are discounting science. However, performance art could break open an opportunity to have a different point of view presented, with scientific facts and presentations.
For the healthcare field, utilizing creative performance art in physician training could help them to treat all patients equally and with empathy, regardless of social, cultural, or ethnic background. This would be beneficial for both patient and provider.