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Empathy - Mark Honigsbaum: LINK ¤ the GUARDIAN

 

• US President Barack Obama: "the "empathy deficit" is a more pressing problem"

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "than the federal deficit"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "although empathy has become something of a political buzzword"

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "it is surprisingly difficult to define"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "the word first appeared, misspelled as "enpathy", in a 1909 lecture by the Cornell psychologist Edward Titchener"

 

 

 

 

 

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• "inspired by the German aesthetic term "Einfühlung""

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "meaning "feeling into""

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "Titchener compared empathy to an enlivening process whereby an art object evoked actual or incipient bodily movements"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "and accompanying emotions in the viewer"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "for empathy to become more like sympathy"

 

 

 

 

 

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• "it first had to transit from aesthetics to interpersonal psychology and the new brain sciences"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "the key shift came in 1992 when a group of Italian researchers observed neurons in macaque monkeys that fired both"

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "when they picked up a raisin"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "and when they saw a person pick up a raisin"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "a few years later, similar "mirror neurons" were identified in humans"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "since then, neuroscience has greatly expanded our understanding of the "empathy circuit""

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "the key brain regions appear to be the amygdala"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "which is involved in the regulation of emotional learning"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "and the reading of emotional expressions"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "another important area is the anterior insula (AI), which lights up in response both to one's own pain"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "and a loved one's pain"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "as well as to other emotional elicitors, such as disgusting tastes and images"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "perhaps the most important region of all is the medial prefrontal cortex (MPC)"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "a "hub" for social information processing, the MPC modulates self-awareness"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "and our awareness of other people's thoughts and feelings"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "these discoveries show that empathy is hard-wired. And that we are primed for morality"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "hence the writer Jeremy Rifkin's claim that these circuits are the source"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "of humanity's desire for intimate participation and companionship"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

• "decades of scientific research show"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "that people are kinder to those they view as human beings"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "the reason is that, when we make the imaginative effort to step into the shoes of another person"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "and see things from their perspective"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "we become less capable of ignoring their suffering"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "brain imaging studies of Buddhists"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "who use meditation exercises to contemplate compassion on a daily basis"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "show increased activation of the amygdala"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "and other parts of the brain's empathy circuit"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "when we empathise oxytocin and other chemicals flood"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "the brain's pleasure centres"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "resulting in a "warm glow" effect"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "similar surges occur when people are asked to play economic exchange games designed"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "to elicit trust"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "according to neuroeconomists such as Paul Zak, this suggests"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "that empathy and trust are two sides of the same adaptive response"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "the idea being that our brains have evolved so that it literally feels good"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• "to empathise and to trust people"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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