Minding the empathy gap : how insights into brains and behaviors are placating polarization

The One America Movement is a nonprofit, bridge-building organization founded after the 2016 presidential election. The organization is committed to combating toxic polarization all over the country. On January 27, 2019, One America organized a meeting in South Jordan, Utah in which Latter-day Saints and Jews came together to foster empathy for the other faith. This thesis reports on the on the interfaith event and explores the science behind it and other conflict resolution strategies. Touching on neuroscience and social psychology, this thesis addresses how we come to define empathy, why and when we fail to express it, and how we can hope to recoup it.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Comparative Media Studies

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2019

Author dc:creator

• Arenas, Diego,S.M.Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Thomas Levenson.

• Comparative Media Studies.
• Graduate Program in Science Writing.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/123781

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/123781