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Psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen’s The Science of Evil: On Empathy and the Origins of Cruelty is a fascinating, clear, short excursion into the current science of empathy, autism and their implications.
The book starts with a discussion of human evil and cruelty, using some salient examples, suggesting that while ‘evil’ as a concept has little explanatory value, and is not amenable to scientific study, empathy has both. That human evil and cruelty are the result of a lack, or erosion of, empathy.
Professor Simon Baron Cohen presents a new way of understanding what it is that leads individuals down negative paths, and challenges all of us to consider replacing the idea of evil with the idea of empathy-erosion. More on Simon Baron-Cohen: http://bit.ly/jlHrf7
In this presentation to the Ottawa Skeptics, Dana Peters describes topic related to the development of human empathy.
The July 15 march scheduled by the solidarity movement for Palestinian independence will surely stir an ugly wave of threats against Jews who dare to deviate from the consensus: those who express their identification with the Palestinian desire to end the occupation and establish an independent state. In the Israel of 2011, every manifestation of basic human empathy toward the Palestinian side, every disclosure of understanding for its aspirations and priorities hits a wall of hatred, distrust and the growing siege mentality
Hyper-empathetic people feel what the see happen to others. A brain anomaly can make the saying "I know how you feel" literally true in hyper-empathetic people who actually sense that they are being touched when they witness others being touched.
The condition, known as mirror-touch synesthesia, is related to the activity of mirror neurons, cells recently discovered to fire not only when some animals perform some behavior, such as climbing a tree, but also when they watch another animal do the behavior. For "synesthetes," it's as if their mirror neurons are on overdrive.
Simon Baron-Cohen, Carrie Allison, Bonnie Auyeung, Mike Lombardo, Bhismadev Chakrabarti, Amber Ruigrok, Meng-Chuan Lai. The ARC began work in this area by studying 'theory of mind' (ToM) deficits in autism and Asperger Syndrome. ToM is the ability to attribute mental states to others, to infer what someone else is thinking or feeling. It is one of the two major components of empathy, sometimes known as 'cognitive empathy'. The other major component is known as 'affective empathy', or the drive to respond with an appropriate emotion to someone else's mental states. Our work is showing that both components of empathy may be impaired in autism and Asperger Syndrome. More on Simon Baron-Cohen: http://bit.ly/jlHrf7
Empathy erosion is a logical response. You know it is. Or you wouldn't be able to eat meat. If you turn the dial up all the way on empathy, you end up like that strange offshoot of Hinduism, walking around with your mouth covered for fear a fly will fly in and you'll swallow it. You'll do silly things like only eat fruit after it's fallen on it's own to the ground cuz you don't want to hurt the tree.
Come on. Really? Empathy erosion is a highly adaptive response that allows your survival. It allows you to kill the enemy and consequently survive.
Join the conversation about immigration, take an interactive asylum seeker's journey, read about the participants, and watch the trailer for the world-first TV event.
[In this reality TV show, six Australians walk in the shoes of asylum seekers by taking the journey in reverse that asylum seekers take to get to Australia. Doing role plays like this can deepen a sense of empathy.]
International conference to be held at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development Berlin, July 1-2, 2011
Recent research in biological evolution has stressed empathy as the central factor in the process of evolution from primates to humans. Empathy was discovered to be the key emotion that fostered the cognitive evolution of the human brain. It consists in the capability to think in the mind of another, to anticipate the reactions of another human being and to interact with his or her projects. Without empathy, scientists tell us, humans would not be able to enlarge their brain volume, to enter into common projects and to use their cultural heritage.
These new insights have given rise to a new body of research, including new applications in practical and cultural domains for creating a better future.
Empathy has been a hot topic at the summit. Typically considered a soft skill and not necessarily essential to leadership (at least in the traditional sense), Bill Drayton, Founder of Ashoka, has uncovered a number of thematic connections between all of those folks who are social entrepreneurs. Empathy has been and continues to be at the top of that list.
Research has shown that social problems often arise in people with severe traumatic brain injury (TBI). These have been attributed in part to a loss of emotional empathy, the capacity to recognise and understand the emotions of other people.
I have looked squarely at the most pressing problems confronting humanity — global climate change, mass extinctions, resource depletion, increasing toxicity of our soils, over population, and more — and still I am hopeful. How can this be?
The answer is that human beings are incredibly resilient creatures. We are capable of love and beauty unparalleled in the animal kingdom. And we are wired for empathy. While studying cognitive science, the cross-cutting field of research dedicated to understanding the human mind, I learned something that has inspired me greatly. The human brain has within it a set of circuits called mirror neurons that enable us to simulate and re-enact the experiences of others
WASHINGTON – Speaking on behalf of congressional Republicans, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) said today that trillions could be cut from the Federal budget if Congress can agree to eliminate empathy.
“The current budget is bursting at the seams with pet projects that reek of empathy,” Rep. Cantor said. “As a nation, we can no longer afford to spend money on people’s basic survival needs like a bunch of drunken sailors.”
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Read each of the following 60 statements very carefully and state how strongly you agree or disagree with it. When you've answered all the questions, press the 'Get score' button at the bottom to see your results. img http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExamsMore on Simon Baron-Cohen: http://bit.ly/jlHrf7
When a psychology questionnaire revealed he had disturbingly low levels of empathy, Adam Dudding wanted an explanation. So he got on the phone to the test's creator, the renowned British brain researcher, Simon Baron-Cohen.
I've always found it hard to resist a pop-psychology test. When those stupid ads pop up with a little mugshot of Einstein and "What's your personality type?!", I'll click on the link in preference to meeting a deadline. If a lurking Scientologist tries to lure me up the stairs for a quick bout of Dianetics, I'm tempted to follow, until I remember it ultimately leads to couch-jumping and sci-fi theology.
A new study has found Botox reduces the ability to empathize. The reason is that in order to interpret the emotions others express, we need to mimic those emotions in our own facial expression.
the mimicry happens fast and it's quite unconscious -- just a flicker. After mirroring the other person, your face sends a message to your brain. The brain matches the expression you've embodied to an associated emotion. Conversely, when you can't mimic a perceived emotion, the brain has trouble sorting out what it is. And of course, if you can't tell what other people are feeling, you can't really empathize with them. Since Botox tends to keep the face stuck in neutral, it limits the emotions recipients can identify.
Watching another person being touched activates a similar neural circuit to actual touch and, for some people with 'mirror-touch' synesthesia, can produce a felt tactile sensation on their own body.
In this study, we provide evidence for the existence of this type of synesthesia and show that it correlates with heightened empathic ability. This is consistent with the notion that we empathize with others through a process of simulation.
People who feel what they see offer clues about how we read emotions and empathize...
Understanding the thoughts and feelings of other individuals is essential for navigating the social world. But empathy is a complex process, based in part on fleeting facial expressions. Research suggests that we empathize by effectively putting ourselves in others’ shoes: for example, when we observe someone feeling sad, we simulate their experience by activating the same regions of the brain that are involved when we feel sad ourselves.
A study in the Journal of Neuroscience in February bolsters this idea using rare individuals with “mirror-touch synesthesia.”
For years, The Harley School has been training its students as Hospice workers. Now, the Brighton school will help educators from all over the country learn about empathy education.
Research suggests that students best learn skills such as empathy and compassion through first-hand experience with others, and that's exactly what the program aims to accomplish. The curriculum, which the school has used for seven years, has been recognized and adopted at colleges...
Harley educators point out that empathy can be taught through a number of projects, from bullying prevention in the middle years to work with people who are homeless or cancer patients.
"ONE of the great challenges, I think, in modern TV, with so many choices and so many channels, is how to make important stuff interesting," director Ivan O'Mahoney is saying, and with some passion, too...
"Even those of the six who didn't change their positions came to appreciate that the discussion is not as simple as they had always thought," O'Mahoney says. "I don't want viewers to think that we want to manipulate them into being extremely welcoming of asylum-seekers or that we have a position that they are all bad and unwelcome."
FOR the first time in a long time, there was required viewing on TV for me last week: the SBS program "Go Back To Where You Came From". A blend of reality TV and documentary, Go Back showed six Australians spending several weeks experiencing in reverse the journeys refugees have taken to reach our shores.
Go Back involved a bold exercise in empathy. Its Greek etymology notwithstanding, empathy has only a recent intellectual history. The term was introduced into the English language in 1909 by psychologist Edward Titchener as a translation of the German word "einfuhlung". As it was originally used, empathy meant being able to relate to the experience of another person, by mirroring it in one's mind.
Go Back's novel method of eliciting empathy was perhaps why the show proved so absorbing.
Individuals who see angry faces tend to exhibit lower levels of electrical activity in areas of the brain that control empathy, a new study reveals. What this means is that people tend to be a lot less empathic when they are dealing with angry persons. This finding has serious implication. Studies have determined that patients who have suffered traumatic brain injuries (TBI) show a lack of emotional empathy, while at the same time exhibiting an elevated physiological response to anger.
Experts at the University of New South Wales, who conducted such a study, say that this leads TBI patients to exhibit egocentric behavior and insensitivity to the needs of others, which can in turn be reflected back on them through lack of empathy from others.
Baron-Cohen is an expert in autism and developmental psychopathology, and has always wanted to isolate and understand the factors that cause people to treat others as if they were mere objects. And, in his lecture at the RI, he began by explaining the need for people to turn their focus away from evil and towards empathy.
The reason for this is that the concept of evil is not an explanatory concept. The logic of evil is circular, following a pattern which follows a repeating loop from ‘doing something bad’ to ‘are bad’.
You see a stranger stub her toe and you immediately flinch in sympathy. You watch a baseball outfielder run to catch a long fly ball and feel your heart racing and your leg muscles pumping along with him. You notice a friend wrinkle up his face in disgust while tasting some food and suddenly your own stomach recoils at the thought of eating.
This ability to instinctively and immediately understand what other people are experiencing has long baffled neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers alike. Recent research now suggests a fascinating explanation: brain cells called mirror neurons.. Mirror neuron research, therefore, is helping scientists reinterpret the neurological underpinning of social interactions. These studies are leading to:
* New insight into how and why we develop empathy for others.
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The Virtuous Empathy group hosted two visitors this semester. Dr. Jodi Halpern, MD, PhD, who teaches in the Joint Medical Program, University of California, Berkeley and San Francisco, visited in February. She met with the Virtuous Empathy participants and presented a public lecture, "Rethinking Clinical Empathy."
In April the Virtuous Empathy group hosted Eva-Maria Engelen, a philosopher from the University of Konstanz, Germany, who met with the group, visited a class, and gave a public lecture, "Empathy and Imagination.
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