Episode 558: Kurt Gray
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The Psychology Behind Morality and Empathy
How do individuals navigate moral typecasting? What is the dual nature of empathy in the context of human pain and suffering? When is there a disconnect between the perceptions of what is right and what is moral
Kurt Gray is a Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he directs the Deepest Beliefs Lab and the Center for the Science of Moral Understanding. In the autumn of 2025, he will join the faculty of the Department of Psychology at Ohio State University. He’s also an author, and his books are titled Outraged: Why We Fight About Morality and Politics and How to Find Common Ground and The Mind Club: Who Thinks, What Feels, and Why It Matters.
Greg and Kurt discuss Kurt’s work at the Deepest Beliefs Lab and the Center for the Science of Moral Understanding. Their conversation covers key topics such as how moral disagreements are rooted in differing perceptions of harm, the impact of evolutionary psychology, and the role of empathy in bridging divides. Kurt also shares insights from his classroom experiences on fostering understanding among students.
*unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*
Episode Quotes:
How can pain and suffering change your view about empathy?
43:00: There are two ways, right? That pain and suffering could change your views of empathy. And I should say there are some people who do experience a lot of pain and suffering and then do not feel sympathy...[43:16] Everyone suffers. Just like, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, dust yourself off and get hard, get tough. But for the most part, if you suffered a lot in life, you can kind of recognize that it's tough sometimes to be a human being and that you have more sympathy for others, at least more so than people who never suffered in their lives, right? But I think the way that pain causes you to have less empathy is if you're in pain right now. Right? So if you are standing in, you know, a pile of razor blades, it's hard to be really empathic for someone—you know, someone's situation, right?—because you're so focused. Like, pain just overwhelms your entire consciousness. So never try to get empathy from someone who is actively in pain, but I think instead, reach out to people who, you know, have gone through a similar thing.
Moral understanding begins with human contact
40:46: The more you have sustained contact with people who are different than you, you show more moral understanding.
When recognizing pain depends on perception
27:13: When it comes to the ability to suffer, pain like that is ultimately a matter of perception. Like, you can, you know, agency—someone is intending—you can see that more on the surface, right? Like, I am going to think and I will do something—that is agency. But if you start crying, like, are you a method actor? Are you actually in tears? Are those crocodile tears? So, questions of pain are easy to accept when it is your family or your friends. Perhaps when someone is very different than you, or maybe you are locked in a conflict with someone and they are crying, right? It is much harder to take their pain as authentic.
Understanding starts with stories not arguments
30:53: Stories are a way of sharing one true thing, shall we say, right? This thing happened to me, and it's not a talking point I heard on the radio. It actually happened to me, and let me tell you about it so that you can better understand me. I think it's powerful because it's not the thing that you're going to use to persuade in policy, let's say—although, often, stories are persuasive in policy—but instead it's a way of saying, here's where I'm coming from. Can you understand where I'm coming from? And that's a great place for a conversation to start. Right now, I understand you're a person, I'm a person, and let's explore our perspectives rather than argue about complex policy issues.