Paul Bloom
Paul Bloom
Paul Bloomis a Canadian American professor of psychology and cognitive science at Yale University. His research explores how children and adults understand the physical and social world, with special focus on language, morality, religion, fiction, and art...
NationalityCanadian
ProfessionPsychologist
Date of Birth24 December 1963
CountryCanada
angry article care couple gods obey people rule science souls ten verbal
I tell you, a couple of years ago, there was a science article on a dog, Rico, that could obey verbal commands. That got me ten times more angry e-mails than this. Souls and gods are one thing, but people care a lot about their dogs. So my rule is: I can write about God but not dogs.
bring castle fewer people police
If Inigo Montoya were around now, he wouldn't need to storm the castle to bring his father's murderer to justice; the police would do it for him, and fewer people would have to die.
thinking compassion people
Some people think that without that spark of empathy we would do nothing, but that's just flat-out wrong. You could feel compassion for somebody without the spark of empathy.
thinking people would-be
You might argue on utilitarian grounds that the best way for the world to work is for everybody to take care of themselves first. And people have made that argument. But I just think we would be so much better off if we could care for distant others even a little bit more.
interesting people psychology
The effects of Twitter and Facebook and all those things on people's psychologies is a really interesting question to which nobody knows the answer.
compassion people empathy
It's hard to pull apart empathy from compassion. What is really clear is that we innately care for other people at least to some extent.
hands people hammers
Individuals differ in how empathic they are. Some people would really flinch if they watched me hitting my hand with a hammer, and other people would just not care.
nice interesting people
It would be nice if everybody who had something interesting to say about my work could say it politely and civilly, but it doesn't work that way... Sometimes people are just really nasty.
people empathy way
It has been a period where people have been far nicer to one another in every possible way. I'm not saying it's because we're dropping our empathy that we're nicer to each other, just that the drop doesn't seem to be causing any harm.
war people empathy
Because of empathy, stories of the suffering of one person could lead us into a war that could kill millions of people.
thinking people community
I think we're going to care more about Americans than Africans. I don't think that's ever going to go away, and I don't think it's ever going to go away that people care more about their families than strangers, and their communities over other communities. But I think it would transform the world in such a good way if we could just acknowledge, at least intellectually, that an African life and an American life are the same.
mean shoes people
What I mean by "empathy" is putting yourself in other people's shoes, feeling what they feel.
people empathy inspire
When people want to inspire you to turn against some group of people, they'll often use empathy.
war thinking people
I'm not a pacifist. I think the suffering of innocent people can be a catalyst for moral action. But empathy puts too much weight on the scale in favor of war. Empathy can really lead to violence.