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Decline in Human Empathy Creates Global Risks in The 'Age of Anger' - Zurich Insurance
Decline in Human Empathy Creates Global Risks in The 'Age of Anger' - Zurich Insurance
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9/10/22, 10:21 AM Decline in Human Empathy Creates Global Risks in the 'Age of Anger' | Zurich Insurance
Fourth Industrial Revolution is marked by a blurring of the line between the human
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and the technological, according to the Global Risks Report 2019, published by
the World Economic Forum in partnership with Zurich Insurance Group.
The result of this blurring has been an increase in loneliness, rising polarization
and a corresponding decline in empathy. And unlike previous waves of
globalization, today’s feelings of discontent aren’t just confined to displaced
workers. For business leaders, the challenge is to create a corporate culture of
openness and diversity that is responsive to the concerns of employees and
customers.
“We are going to need new ways of managing technology and globalization that
respond to the insecurity that many people experience,” says John Scott, Head of
Sustainability Risk at Zurich Insurance Group.
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Pervasive digital technology has also blurred the boundary between the workplace
and home. Work-related emails often start before office hours and continue long
after close of business. A 2016 study by Pew Research Center found that nearly
one-third of American adults never turn off their smartphones.
Urbanization weakens social bonds not just in cities, but also in the communities
and households that migrant workers leave behind, and growing social isolation is
a trend in established and emerging economies alike. The proportion of people
feeling lonely in the U.K. climbed to 22 percent in 2017 from an average of 17
percent in 2014-2016, with a sharp drop in the number of people who reported
never feeling lonely, according to a survey published by the Cabinet Office.
These results mirror those of a study in American Sociological Review that looked
at the number of close friends that people have. In 1985, the average number of
close friends was 2.9; by 2004 it was 2.1. The percentage of people who
responded that they had no close friends at all tripled over the same period.
In 1985 people had an average 2.9 close friends; by 2004 it was 2.1.
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9/10/22, 10:21 AM Decline in Human Empathy Creates Global Risks in the 'Age of Anger' | Zurich Insurance
“Individual harms matter in themselves, but they can also feed into wider systemic
risks—for example, potential political, societal, technological and environmental
disruptions,” Scott says.
The decline in empathy is not just anecdotal. One study of American students
published in Personality and Social Psychology Review revealed that levels of
empathy in this demographic fell by 48 percent between 1979 and 2009. Possible
causes of the growing empathy gap include increasing materialism, changing
parenting methods and the digital echo chamber, in which people anchor
themselves in close-knit groups of like-minded people. Such echo-chamber
effects aren’t always as obvious as those seen on social media. For example,
researchers have found that the matching processes used on dating platforms can
also weaken social bonds.
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9/10/22, 10:21 AM Decline in Human Empathy Creates Global Risks in the 'Age of Anger' | Zurich Insurance
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The Global Risks Report highlights that while online connections can be
empathetic, research suggests that the degree of empathy is six times weaker than
for real-world interactions. However, technology’s impact on empathy may not be
wholly negative; some observers believe that virtual reality will be an “engine for
empathy,” and that emotionally responsive robots could tackle loneliness,
particularly in care-related settings.
But at what point does increasing isolation and the decline in empathy morph into
a social risk?
The business world can take a number of steps to help mitigate the consequences
of the human consequences of technology.
in many industrializing economies. In the 21st century, mental health and safety
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rules and practices could play an analogous role by ensuring that workplace
conditions are appropriate for an increasingly knowledge-based economy. “A
number of steps can be taken to protect organizations from systemic risks,
including thinking small, looking for early warning signs and encouraging
skepticism through diversity, with a culture of open communication and mitigating
our cognitive biases,” he says.
“Empathy underwrites all political systems that aspire to the liberal condition,”
states the Global Risks Report, “and no amount of law or regulation will overcome a
lack of empathy.”
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