Building a Culture of Empathy

mariamma · 08-30-2012, 11:20 AM

A quote from a nice article that discusses oxytocin in a society or nation.

One issue that began Zak’s work in this new field was research in the late 1990s that found an unexplored connection between trust and national prosperity. Data showed that high trust exists in countries that are, by and large, rich or fast growing. Countries in which trust is high have effective governments, says Zak: "They have very tight social structures, people interact very nicely with each other, they don’t have a lot of divisions." A 2007 study by the Pew Research Center found 45% of Americans said they trust each other—a large percentage compared to many other countries, which hover in the single percentage points.

Linking the data to the discovery of how oxytocin-led trust cycles can harness or hurt economic transactions toward prosperity, Zak shows how trust becomes the "great summary measure of a society in which things are working well." However, as he notes, lack of trust is also a measure of to what degree things are broken.

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08-30-2012, 11:20 AM	#11
mariamma Member How Do You Identify?: femme Preferred Pronoun?: she Relationship Status: single Join Date: May 2011 Location: Oregon Posts: 352 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 1,458 Thanked 1,115 Times in 281 Posts Rep Power: 9628891	A quote from a nice article that discusses oxytocin in a society or nation. One issue that began Zak’s work in this new field was research in the late 1990s that found an unexplored connection between trust and national prosperity. Data showed that high trust exists in countries that are, by and large, rich or fast growing. Countries in which trust is high have effective governments, says Zak: "They have very tight social structures, people interact very nicely with each other, they don’t have a lot of divisions." A 2007 study by the Pew Research Center found 45% of Americans said they trust each other—a large percentage compared to many other countries, which hover in the single percentage points. Linking the data to the discovery of how oxytocin-led trust cycles can harness or hurt economic transactions toward prosperity, Zak shows how trust becomes the "great summary measure of a society in which things are working well." However, as he notes, lack of trust is also a measure of to what degree things are broken.