J.D. Trout

Empathy Gap Cover
By J.D. Trout
February 2009, from Viking/Penguin.
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Praise for The Empathy Gap

"The Empathy Gap is an important and engaging book, and Trout's ideas are eye-opening and fascinating. Trout explains a large set of new ideas about human rationality, emotion, and well-being, and connects them to pressing social and political issues. This is an invaluable enrichment of public discourse, which could lead to new ways of framing our current dilemmas and to new solutions to them."

-- Steven Pinker, author of The Stuff of Thought

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"Trout identifies the issues facing citizens who worry about others' exploiting their natural imperfections as decision makers, but also worry about relying on paternalistic institutions to protect them. Recognizing that those institutions are similarly flawed, Trout calls for information sharing, public deliberation, and empirical evaluation of interventions."

-- Baruch Fischhoff, Howard Heinz University Professor, Social and Decision Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University, and past president of the Society for Judgment and Decision Making

"J.D. Trout's The Empathy Gap provides insightful answers to explain how good people can look the other way and do so little to respond to massive problems affecting other human beings. He uses the latest findings in behavioral decision research, with his practical understanding of philosophy, to outline a better world. We would all be better off if the new administration in Washington read and understood the messages that are outlined in this. In fact, Trout's The Empathy Gap explains so much of what has gone wrong for the last eight years. This work has the power to transform how we think about and act on challenges to improve society."

-- Max H. Bazerman, Straus Professor, Harvard Business School, coauthor of The Negotiation Genius

“In a neuroscience-inflected heir to Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone, Trout makes two assumptions: Humans want to reduce each other's suffering, and this is the primary goal of our societies. Why, then, are we so bad at it? Trout examines the unconscious habits that make us see helping others as a zero-sum game, and advocates governance that circumvents our unreliable gut decisions. While some will see that kind of governance as the ultimate "nanny-statism," the argument provokes thought on how much suffering we are willing to accept."

-- Named a "SEED PICK" for the February 2009 issue of Seed Magazine

“The Empathy Gap is a brilliant, empathic argument that policy makers must take the limits of human decision-making abilities into account in formulating public policies. Using the most up-to-date research on the psychology of decision making as his weapon, Trout argues that it would be the height of irresponsibility for politicians to make policies on the assumption that people are perfectly rational choosers. The book offers a cogent, compassionate general approach to policy making, as well as many specific and smart suggestions about the issues that face us today."

-- Barry Schwartz, Dorwin Cartwright Professor of Social Theory and Social Action, Swarthmore College, and author of The Paradox of Choice