phubbing, or ignoring the people around you in favor of your phone.

The people who scored higher in empathy also scored much higher in reading body language, conflict-resolution skills, resilience, and standing by their values.

every time someone likes or comments on one of our posts—their magic of creating bridges is sometimes overpowered by their capacity to help us burn them.

Another friend, a woman, scolded me for not defending her husband in a debate about the book Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus. You have a lot of learning to do, she said to me, before blocking me and never speaking to me again.

cognitive empathy (understanding another person’s mental state) and affective empathy (responding emotionally to the other person’s mental state—i.e., sharing their feelings).

“Empathetic people are happier, more self-aware, self-motivated, and optimistic. They cope better with stress, assert themselves when it is required, and are comfortable expressing their feelings. There was only one scale where non-empathetic people scored higher: Need for Approval.”

What good does empathy actually do us? At the most basic level, it helps us connect with other humans.

This reaction tends to be less common with tragedies that affect larger groups of people, a phenomenon sometimes called the “collapse of compassion.” Experts think this happens because we automatically regulate our emotional reactions when we expect them to be overwhelming.

Franchesca Ramsey, an activist and actress who gained fame from a series of viral YouTube videos, writes about this poignantly in her book Well, That Escalated Quickly: Memoirs and Mistakes of an Accidental Activist.