Posted on 11 March, 2025

Empathy is not a fixed trait; it’s more like a muscle you can build with the right exercises.

Start With a Growth Mindset

To the previous point, believing you can improve — taking a growth mindset — may aid you in the improving. “People who believe that empathy can grow try harder to empathize when it doesn’t come naturally to them, for instance, by empathizing with people who are unfamiliar to them or different than they are, compared to people who believe empathy is a stable trait,” social psychologist Erika Weisz explained to the APA.

Listen to Other Perspectives

As with many interpersonal skills, actively listening, without focusing on your own thoughts and emotions, can increase your capacity for empathy. And listening to perspectives you might not normally hear is a great way to turbocharge this.

“Paying attention to other people allows you to be moved by their experiences,” Sara Hodges, a professor of psychology at the University of Oregon, told the APA. “Whether you are actively ­perspective-taking or not, if you just pay more attention to other people, you’re likely to feel more concerned for them and become more involved in their experiences.”

It can be difficult to listen to other perspectives without feeling that your own beliefs are being threatened, but the more you do it, the easier it becomes.

“The foundation of empathy has to be a willingness to listen to other peoples’ experiences and to believe they’re valid,” added psychology professor Raymond Mar. “You don’t have to deny your own experience to accept someone else’s.”

Think Back

When someone is having an emotional reaction that differs from how you might react in the same situation, it may be hard to jump from cognitive empathy to emotional. In these circumstances, recalling a time you did feel that way (regardless of the event) can get you closer. In an article for Inc., Justin Bariso quotes Hendrie Weisinger, author of Emotional Intelligence at Work.

“If a person says, ‘I screwed up a presentation,’ I don’t think of a time I screwed up a presentation — which I have [done] and thought, no big deal. Rather, I think of a time I did feel I screwed up, maybe on a test or something else important to me. It is the feeling of when you failed that you want to recall, not the event.”

Try Second-Guessing Yourself

It can be an uncomfortable experience to be wrong, especially about something we believe in strongly — so uncomfortable that we often go out of our way to avoid the possibility. But openness and learning are key to building more empathy, and that starts with questioning our assumptions and automatic reactions.

“As scientists, we ­second-guess our assumptions all the time, looking for alternative explanations,” Hodges told the APA. “We need to do that as people, too.”

Empathy as an Acronym

There is often a disconnect between what we’re feeling and what other people “think” we’re feeling, something that has led to plenty of misunderstandings and arguments between friends and strangers. That’s why learning how to effectively communicate our empathy to others, rather than simply feeling it, can be helpful in strengthening trust and inviting vulnerability in relationships.

Dr. Helen Riess, an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and author of The Empathy Effect, focuses much of her work on helping health care professionals practice more empathy with patients. But the program she developed for that purpose may also benefit the layperson: It’s called EMPATHICS, and per Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center, its steps follow the acronym EMPATHY:

• Eye contact
• Muscles in facial expressions
• Posture
• Affect
• Tone
• Hearing
• Your response

Click here for an explanation of each step.

Read (Good) Fiction

This one may not be the fastest way to increase your empathy, but reading fiction has so many other boons — research points to it driving critical thinking skills and boosting emotional vocabulary — that it can’t hurt to recommend it in this context as well.

A 2013 study found that people who read fiction and were emotionally transported into the story demonstrated increased empathy as compared to those who read non-fiction. That means to reap the benefits, you’ve got to find a book that truly invites you into the world and feelings of its characters. Check out these recommendations.