The Age of Empathy: Nature's Lessons for a Kinder Society

by Frans de Waal

We excel at bodily synchrony and actually derive pleasure from it. Walking next to someone, for example, we automatically fall into the same stride. We coordinate chants and “waves” during sporting events, oscillate together during pop concerts, and take aerobics classes where we all jump up and down to the same beat. As an exercise, try to clap after a lecture when no one else is clapping, or try not to clap when everyone else is. We are group animals to a terrifying degree. Since political leaders are masters at crowd psychology, history is replete with people following them en masse into insane adventures. All that a leader has to do is create an outside threat, whip up fear, and voilà: The human herd instinct takes over.

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