Growing Young

by Marta Zaraska

  This may all seem daunting if you suspect your empathy levels may not be of Dalai Lama quality. What if you are a Lithuanian man whose overly stressed mother chain smoked in pregnancy? Are you doomed? The good news is that empathy can be increased, although it may require some effort.

  Empathy 101

  On a hot, stuffy day in London, UK, in a bright, white-walled classroom of the Ashburnham Primary School, two dozen nine- and ten-year-olds sat in a circle around a green blanket. There, in the middle of that woven stage, lay a ten-month-old baby, clad in a onesie with “Roots of Empathy” written across the tummy. Her name was Evelyn, and today she was the star. Everyone’s eyes followed her as she strained to reach a pink plush clam that had rolled away. Libby, Evelyn’s mom, helped her get the toy and started playing with it, making it squeak repeatedly. At first, Evelyn was curious, but she soon got upset. She whimpered in frustration. “Too much, baby?” Libby asked.

  Christine Zanabi, an empathy instructor, turned to the big children: “Did you notice what the mom said?” A girl with long, strawberry-blond hair replied: “She said, ‘too much.’ ” The instructor nodded: “So mom is really tuned in to how the baby is feeling, ‘It’s a bit too much, it’s too exciting.’ We saw the mom help the baby regulate her feelings.” The instructor paused, then continued. “When you are feeling upset, how do you regulate yourself? What to do you do to feel a little bit calmer?” Hands shot up, and a girl was chosen to reply, “To calm myself, I draw.” Then another: “I sing.” Christine suggested that singing may soothe the baby too, so the students picked up a tune: “Hush little baby, don’t say a word…” Evelyn watched them intently and stopped crying. “What’s happened when you were singing?” Christine asked. An answer came: “She went much more quiet.” The instructor then pointed out to the children that they sang the song more softly than they usually do, subconsciously tuning in to the baby’s needs. She asked them to recall the times in their lives when they experienced frustration, the way Evelyn did when playing with the toy. Once again, many hands rose.

  What I witnessed that day in London was part of a program called “Roots of Empathy” run by a Canadian non-profit with the same name. The idea is to teach children emotional literacy so that they become more sensitive and socially integrated human beings. The babies in the program are the “teachers”—by observing their development over the course of several months, by labelling their feelings and comparing them to what they experience in their own lives, the students, ages five to thirteen, learn to be more empathic. As a result, classroom bullying goes down while pro-social behaviours go up. According to the research done on the program, the results last for at least a year after the intervention.

  Many other studies confirm that training empathy does indeed work. It works for children, resident physicians, and sex offenders. The curricula differ, but they usually offer a mixture of such approaches as learning to decode facial expressions, improving listening skills, and mastering how to take the perspective of another person. Some actors can be a good example of how investing a lot of effort into empathy can pay off. Take Nicolas Cage. For his role of a Vietnam vet in Birdy, Cage had a few teeth pulled out, without anaesthesia, and kept his face wrapped in bandages for weeks. “When I took the bandages off, my skin was all infected because of acne and ingrowing hairs,” he told the Telegraph. To play a Holocaust survivor in The Pianist, Adrien Brody starved himself to drop thirty pounds, practised piano for four hours a day, and, as if that wasn’t enough, he gave up his apartment, sold his car and moved to Europe with nothing but two bags and a keyboard. All so that he would feel as lost as his character did.

  Cage’s and Brody’s so-called “method acting” is certainly going a bit far when it comes to practising empathy, but Roman Krznaric vouches that similar efforts on an everyday scale can indeed improve our “outward looking”—and so, presumably, our health. Krznaric argues that empathy, like every other skill, takes practice, and you should make a conscious decision to work on it. To do so, you should develop curiosity about others and try seeing the world through their eyes, letting go of preconceived ideas. How does life look to your dark-skinned waiter at an Indian restaurant? Where do you think your taxi driver goes after she is off duty? Does she seem tired to you? Happy? What is your kid really feeling when he is whining before dinner?

  While these are good starting points, Krznaric encourages you to go even further than simply engaging in mental exercises—he recommends “experiential adventures,” trying out other people’s lives yourself, even if you can only dip your toes into other existences. You could take part in a charity-organized fundraiser where you sleep on the streets with homeless people. You could fast for Ramadan with your Muslim friends or go to mass with your Catholic ones. You could trade jobs with someone for a day or try dining in the dark to empathize with blind people (restaurants in many cities now offer such experiences). On a smaller scale, certain books and movies can also help us practise empathy—if you’ve ever cried in a cinema or while reading a novel you probably know what I mean. Krznaric has developed what he calls an “online empathy library” with reviews and charts of the most empathy-inspiring books and films.

  Even the most empathy-resistant testosterone-loaded Lithuanian man can be taught to be very “outward looking.” In one experiment, men scored much worse than women on understanding emotion until the researchers offered to pay them for their effort, proportionally to their performance. The monetary incentive was enough to wipe out any differences in empathy between the male and female participants (if you are female and married, and you are now considering whether paying your husband to listen better would be a good idea, I can only say—try it, who knows, it might well work).

  What does hurt empathy, though, is, ironically, pain medication. In case you are prone to taking acetaminophen pills such as Tylenol, consider that a 2016 study showed that it can reduce empathic concern for other people’s aches and throbs. So if your partner’s headache or sore back doesn’t seem like such a big deal to you, the reason may be the pill you’ve recently taken for your own pains. What could help you reconnect in such a situation, other than waiting for the acetaminophen to flush out of your system, would be for you to try dancing together or singing a song, the more synchronously the better. And yes, I’m serious. So-called “social grooming” such as synchronous dancing, choir singing, or synchronized sports not only bonds people but also improves health.

  Why Disco Dancing and Choir Singing Are Good for Health

  At a conference on the archaeology of music held in Reading, UK, Robin Dunbar, the Oxford anthropologist whom I’ve interviewed about our social brains, had a flash of insight while engaged in traditional Zulu dancing. It was early evening, and most of the serious talks were over, when an unusual exercise was suggested: the gathered academics were to walk around in an African dance, blowing on pieces of plastic tubing cut to different sizes. “Just wait and see what happens,” the instructor said. And so walk they did, in a group of about twenty, and blow they did, creating a rather unpleasant ruckus. Yet after about five minutes the sounds and movements changed—without particular effort, the scientists became synchronized, playing music in consistent tune with each other. “It really was extraordinary; you could feel this uplift from doing it,” Dunbar told me, adding that he now suspects that the feeling of exhilaration was created by the release of endorphins.

  In the years since the Zulu dance, Dunbar has extensively researched synchrony and the astounding effects it has on our body. In one of his experiments, simple disco dancing was enough to bring about social closeness and improve physiological health. A few dozen people were asked to learn four basic dance routines from a video. This part of the experiment must have been quite fun, the volunteers mastering such classic moves as “driving” (one hand is extended as if resting on top of a steering wheel, crossing from left to right and back, while the other hand hangs relaxed along the body) or the “swimming m
ove” (knees bending rhythmically, arms alternating from side to side as if doing the front crawl).

  Afterward, the participants were divided into groups of four. Everyone was given headphones through which music started flowing and the disco began. In some of the groups, volunteers heard the same music and were instructed to do exactly the same moves, causing them to dance synchronously, while in other groups people jigged in total chaos—everybody to their own, different tune. Once the admittedly weird disco was over, research assistants pulled blood pressure–measuring monitors onto the arms of each dancer, asking them to indicate when the discomfort of the inflating cuff became uncomfortable. In reality the scientists were not interested in the cardiac health of the volunteers, but rather in their pain thresholds. And they got some interesting findings: those dancers who boogied in sync could stand the monitor’s cuff clamping over their arms much more tightly than did those who didn’t engage in synchrony. What’s more, they also claimed to be feeling friendlier with the other volunteers, or in science-speak, “socially closer.”

  Many other studies conducted by Dunbar and his colleagues have found similar effects of doing things in synchrony. Singing in a choir causes release of endorphins, natural painkillers, and makes people feel more included and more connected to others. Rowing in a group, as compared to rowing alone, makes pain more bearable. Singing and dancing synchronously incites people to donate money and increases trust. Even tapping your fingers in rhythm with a partner works, promoting warm feelings of togetherness. Unfortunately, it doesn’t mean you can eat all the fast food in the world as long as you tap your fingers in sync with someone a few times a day (I can only imagine tables full of finger-tapping customers at McDonald’s). Synchrony increases feelings of closeness, but obviously doesn’t have the same health-boosting powers as being surrounded by trusted friends.

  Dunbar told me that singing and dancing, and in particular of the synchronous kind, likely plays such an important role in our social lives for evolutionary reasons. In order to bond and keep the group together, non-human primates groom each other. I groom you, you groom me, then I go on to groom ape X and you to ape Y, and so on. Picking fleas out of another’s fur takes a lot of time, though, and Dunbar calculated that it sets an upper limit on the size of a group that can be bonded at about fifty individuals. That’s not much.

  As you may recall, Dunbar’s number of how many close friends a human can have stands at around 150—three times the flea-picking maximum. So what has likely happened is that we’ve come up with ways to “groom” several people at once—using our voices or the movements of our bodies instead of our fingers. Just like classic grooming—I rub you, you rub me—singing and dancing release social neurohormones, such as endorphins and oxytocin, into the body, which helped our ancestors bond. This may also in part explain why ritualized dancing and singing is so widespread across cultures, from the tribes of Pacific islands to the Inuit of the North, and the peculiar appeal of flash mobs at the turn of the twenty-first century.

  When we dance or sing in synchrony, as opposed to just jigging or humming in dissonance, the endorphin kick can double. “We really don’t know why that might be the case; it’s a big puzzle,” Dunbar told me. He suspects, however, that the endorphin boost of synchrony may be due to the workings of our so-called mirror neurons. These are the brain cells that fire when we observe others acting and simulate the behaviour in our own neural system.

  We humans are so sensitive to synchrony that even fourteen-month-old babies prefer a teddy bear with which they rock in their seat in synchrony to another that moves at a different pace. Look at young lovers, too—they tend to be masters of synchrony: strolling step in step, holding hands, slow dancing. Synchrony is so powerful, in fact, that coordinating your actions with a complete stranger can make you as empathic toward that person as you would be toward a dear friend.

  Laughing with others can also work as social grooming—it elevates pain thresholds and releases oxytocin and endorphins. It’s enough to just watch a comedy with a friend for the high-powered bonding to begin. Dunbar argues that dining in company is also a type of synchrony, giving us an endorphin kick and strengthening relationships.

  Yet we don’t eat with others often enough. One survey has found that a mere 24 percent of Americans in their thirties and forties eat dinner with their family day after day, and it wasn’t even specified in the data whether these people dine together at a table or whether everyone shovels in the food while watching TV. In Canada, 70 percent of people admit to watching TV while eating, while almost a third of adult Britons eat alone “most or all of the time.” Among middle-aged French people, 61 percent eat dinner with their family, at the table, each and every evening. Americans live on average almost two years shorter than the French. Could there be at least some link in there?

  If you really can’t make that family dinner happen every night, there is one more, rather subtle way in which matching your movements with another person can make you feel more social, lower your cortisol levels, and directly affect your health. It’s called mimicry. Although you might have been told as a child that copycatting others is rude, the truth is we all do it. All the time. We automatically mimic body postures, foot shaking, playing with pens, and facial expressions. And the more empathic someone is, the more they act like a human chameleon.

  Have you ever noticed how some married couples start resembling each other after many years down the marital path? Like Tom Brady and Gisele Bündchen? That’s a result of mimicry, too. In one experiment people were presented with a pile of pictures—individual portraits of husbands and wives, some from their wedding day and some taken twenty-five years later. The task was to guess who was married to whom. When it came to the photos of the big day, the volunteers just couldn’t do it, yet with the silver anniversary images, the success rate was very high. The happier the couple was, the easier it was to match their pictures.

  The reason behind this marital doppelgänger effect is that after years of automatically mimicking each others’ smiles and frowns, our facial muscles change from all the use and disuse. And the more we play chameleons, the better we feel. Like empathy, mimicry makes us more pro-social, boosts trust, and keeps our blood cortisol low.

  What about Botox, then—could it potentially shorten your life? Facial expressions can trigger or change emotions—it’s called facial feedback—and studies show that this process malfunctions in people who get Botox injections. Due to the paralysis of some facial muscles, they can’t frown or smile properly and find it difficult to mimic or identify the feelings of others. We know from observations of people with Parkinson’s disease that those with facial rigidity have trouble keeping friends. Research on chronic anger suppression, meanwhile, suggests that not showing how mad you are by frowning or scrunching your nose can lead to cardiovascular problems. So far there is not enough data on Botox and health to suggest how large the effects might be. Yet the early indications of potential issues are certainly there.

  Assuming you haven’t had a radical Botox treatment, mimicry can be practised and improved. In preparations for experiments, research assistants are often trained to mimic other people. They are told to wait a couple of seconds and then do a slight variation on the behaviour of the other person. For example, if Mr. A touches his ear, the research assistant may scratch his head. If Mr. A crosses his leg at the ankle, the research assistant might cross it at the knee. It’s a skill you can learn—and you may end up more liked and trusted by others, with better relationships. Just be warned: running behind your boss and copycatting every tiny gesture she makes will not get you a promotion (more like get you fired). Becoming a human mirror is not the goal here. Mimicry, like drinking red wine, can be good for health—if practised in moderation.

  * * *

  To live long, you need strong social relationships. You need a committed romantic partner, a few best friends, and caring neighbours. Whether you will get these
relationships depends partially on your luck and life circumstances, but you can also considerably up your chances of a socially included life by developing certain basic qualities: empathy and a secure attachment style. If you test yourself and find out that you are insecurely attached, consider therapy—that’s the best way to change your attachment style. But even simply knowing that these things can be changed may push you the first step in the right direction.

  As for empathy, you can practise it the way you might practise tennis or yoga: the more you do it, the better you will become. Try to see the world through the eyes of another person at least once a day. Study their facial expressions and body language. Listen, really listen, to what they are saying. Talk to your neighbours, to fellow shoppers in the checkout line, to your waiter—and the more different these people appear from you the better. Watch movies and read books that are particularly good at portraying the world from another person’s perspective. Try a human library—a place where people are “books” you can “borrow” and talk to. Some of the “books” are refugees, while others are HIV carriers, deaf-blind people, or soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder.

  You can also groom your social bonds by following the example of our hominin ancestors and using synchrony. Sign up for a choir. Sing with your family more often, no matter how badly. If you want to double the health benefits of exercise, choose sports that can be practised in synchrony, such as group jogging, rowing, or spinning. Make a habit of eating with others—dinners with some alcohol involved (in moderation!) are best, Dunbar tells me. Try to mimic the body language and expressions of people around you, tuning in better into their experiences.