TEDx talk Valeria Gazzola: Empathy – a tool for everyone

Many think they are stuck with a fixed amount of empathy. Neuroscientist Valeria Gazzola shows this not to be true: despite individual differences, we can all train, refine, and regulate our empathic skills. This enables us to become more socially balanced, and successful individuals, who act with rather than against the emotions of others. “Most believe empathy is a quality some have, others not. Research shows we can all use, regulate and train our empathy and become more skillful individuals.” Valeria co-leads the Social Brain Lab at the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience and is an Associate Professor at the University of Amsterdam. By combining advanced technology and computation methods across species, she and her team hope to reveal how empathy evolved to influence behaviour.