- Cognitive empathy is the ability to understand how others perceive the world, including their emotional reactions, without necessarily sharing those feelings. It's also referred to as "perspective taking".
- It is different from emotional empathy, which involves feeling the emotions of others and sympathizing with them.
- Cognitive empathy is valuable because it can improve predictive power by helping anticipate how someone will act under various circumstances.
- A lack of cognitive empathy is a source of many problems, including: marital conflict, misinterpretations between nations leading to war, political polarization, poor user interface design, and ineffective communication.
- Cognitive empathy is "simple but not easy" because although we are built to exercise it, there are also obstacles in the brain that impede its use.
- These obstacles exist because, in certain situations, shutting down cognitive empathy could have helped our ancestors survive and pass on their genes.
- However, in today's world, these natural limitations of cognitive empathy can be a problem.
- Cognitive empathy can be a superpower that allows cooperation, but it also can be a kryptonite.
- The author believes that cognitive empathy is at the root of morality and the ability to make and settle disputes based on moral rules.
- Improving cognitive empathy skills could lead to radical changes in how we think about many things, from international relations to personal relationships.
- The author suggests that the survival and flourishing of humankind may depend on more people upgrading their cognitive empathy skills.
- Improving cognitive empathy skills may help save people from delusion, hostility and moral blindness.
- Cognitive empathy is considered a path to enlightenment because it allows people to see the world more clearly.
- To practice cognitive empathy, you must temporarily suspend moral judgment in order to try to see the world from the other person's perspective.
- A common obstacle to cognitive empathy is the intuition that understanding why someone did something means absolving them of moral responsibility.
- Understanding political pressures on leaders may be a benefit of cognitive empathy.
- The author suggests that the American media is not doing a good job of illuminating Putin's perspective.
- Cognitive empathy is needed to help navigate the Ukraine crisis, to help avoid a new cold war, and address major global issues.
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