Social Empathy Lab

Many of the early members of the lab emerged from an experimental undergraduate class taught in Spring 2022 entitled “Compassion and Human Health,” the purpose of which was to explore compassion and empathy directly and socially through activities, games, and personal statements, rather than through academic research. One of the students in that class, Kaushiki Ravi, expressed interest in the study of empathy and embodiment, and proposed establishing a new research lab. The lab was launched later that semester by Kaushiki, Chikako Ozawa-de Silva, and Brendan Ozawa-de Silva. Members of the lab expressed an interest in continuing to explore empathy not merely as an object of study, but also personally and socially, using the lab space to cultivate empathy amongst ourselves.

The first year of the lab was quite experimental and focused on playing games collectively to explore empathy as an embodied and social experience. From that, we decided to focus on three main areas: (1) Theoretical work on bringing joint action and the body back into the study and uses of empathy; (2) Exploring “sites of empathy” anthropologically and ethnographically; and (3) Experimental and empirical research on empathy as an enactive, grounded process. The lab serves as a place for students to present their own research and ideas in a supportive interdisciplinary environment, and has supported the development of several undergraduate senior honors theses as well as doctoral work.