Hello and welcome to Speaking of Psychology, a bi-weekly podcast from the American Psychological

Association that explores the connections between psychological science and everyday life.

I'm your host, Caitlin Luna.

Concern and care for others' feelings are virtues we seek to instill in

our children, yet they are sorely lacking in many adult Americans today. Flip on the news,

scroll through social media sites, or read the comments on any news article, and you realize

just how unempathetic so many of us are. There's scientific research to back up the notion that Americans are caring less and less

for others.

For instance, one study found a steep decline in empathy among young people from 1979 to 2009.

One of the authors of that study is joining me today.

Dr. Sarah Conrath is an associate professor of philanthropic studies at Indiana University

and director of the interdisciplinary program on empathy and altruism research. She teaches classes

on the psychology of giving and altruism and health. Her other work has also found that

narcissism is on the rise in young people. And she's done some fascinating research examining

narcissism's effect on social media usage. We'll be exploring why empathy is declining and what we

can do to create more kindness and caring in our communities. Welcome, Dr. Conrath.

Thanks for having me. When I was researching this topic, I came across an article in the New York

Times from 1989. The cited research

that found that newborn babies can display empathy, which was notably by crying in response to

another nearby baby. Other research from our journal developmental psychology from that same time

period found that mothers have a profound influence on their child's development of empathy.

From your perspective, is it nature, is it nurture, or is it both?

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