The War for Kindness: Building Empathy in a Fractured World

Jamil Zaki credits his parents’ divorce with inspiring his interest in empathy. He was the only child of a mother from Peru and a father from Pakistan. During the contentious divorce, Zaki “was the single bridge between their worlds” (265). He learned from this experience that it was possible to understand two people’s extremely different perspectives. In essence, Zaki practiced growing his empathy from a young age.

Zaki is a professor of psychology at Stanford University, where he serves as director of the Stanford Social Neuroscience Lab. His research interests include how people respond to empathy, why they are willing to conform (even if an idea is not expressed by the majority), and why people help each other. One aspect that makes his argument in The War for Kindness compelling is that he uses his own research.

The War for Kindness is Zaki’s first book. He has published his findings in scholarly journals as well as other media outlets—including the Atlantic, the New York Times, the New Yorker, and the Washington Post.

Carol Dweck is an American psychologist and Lewis and Virginia Eaton Professor of Psychology at Stanford University. She is best known for research on mindsets and has found that people fall into two categories: The first is “everyday fixists” who believe that human nature (including intelligence and personality) is fixed, and the second is “everyday mobilists” who believe aspects of human nature are more akin to skills (28).