Betsy and Nicole have spent a lot of time so far encouraging you toward empathy, understanding and self-care. Now we’re going to talk about self-care from a completely different angle.

Defensive dehumanization.

Wow. That sounds terrible! It sounds like something we should be fighting against. It’s true,
dehumanizing people is a step towards things like slavery, murder, violence or genocide. In order to wipe out a people group, drop a bomb, or fight in a war, you have to dehumanize your opponents.
What’s interesting is that empathy is actually a part of creating space for dehumanizing a person or
people group. It is because I have such great empathy and love for my family that I might be willing to kill someone who breaks into my house and harms my child or spouse. In that moment it is my
tremendous empathy that leads me to dehumanize the intruder.

Tricky right???

You 2.0: The Empathy Gym:
https://www.npr.org/2019/07/22/744195502/you-2-0-the-empathy-gym

Social Connection Enables Dehumanization: https://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/nicholas.epley/WaytzEpleyJESP2012.pdf

Why We Fight: https://www.apa.org/science/about/psa/2017/12/why-fight

Why Doctors Should Be More Empathetic--But Not Too Much More:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/doctors-and-dehumanization-effect/

Arkansas A.W.A.R.E. website: bit.ly/AWAREwebsite

Produced by Donnie Lee
Music: https://www.purple-planet.com
More information: https://dese.ade.arkansas.gov/Offices/communications/dese-podcasts