Empathy is the capacity to understand or feel
what another person is experiencing from within
their frame of reference, that is, the capacity
to place oneself in another's position.
Definitions of empathy encompass a broad range
of emotional states.
Types of empathy include cognitive empathy,
emotional empathy, and somatic empathy.
== Etymology ==
The English word empathy is derived from the
Ancient Greek word εμπάθεια (empatheia,
meaning "physical affection or passion").
This, in turn, comes from εν (en, "in, at")
and πάθος (pathos, "passion" or "suffering").
The term was adapted by Hermann Lotze and
Robert Vischer to create the German word Einfühlung
("feeling into"), which was translated by
Edward B. Titchener into the English word
"empathy".
However, in modern Greek: εμπάθεια
means, depending on context,: prejudice, malevolence,
malice, and hatred.Alexithymia is a word used
to describe a deficiency in understanding,
processing or describing emotions in oneself,
as opposed to others.
This term comes from the combination of two
Ancient Greek words: ἀλέξω (alekso,
meaning "push away, repel, or protect") and
θυμός (thymos, meaning "the soul, as
the seat of emotion, feeling and thought").
Thus, alexithymia means "pushing away your
emotions".
== Definitions ==
Empathy definitions encompass a broad range
of emotional states, including caring for
other people and having a desire to help them;
experiencing emotions that match another person's
emotions; discerning what another person is
thinking or feeling; and making less distinct
the differences between the self and the other.
It can also be understood as having the separateness
of defining oneself and another a blur.It
also is the ability to feel and share another
person's emotions.
Some believe that empathy involves the ability
to match another's emotions, while others
believe that empathy involves being tenderhearted
toward another person.Having empathy can include
having the understanding that there are many
factors that go into decision making and cognitive
thought processes.
Past experiences have an influence on the
decision making of today.
Understanding this allows a person to have
empathy for individuals who sometimes make
illogical decisions to a problem that most
individuals would respond with an obvious
response.
Broken homes, childhood trauma, lack of parenting
and many others factors can influence the
connections in the brain which a person uses
to make decisions in the future.Martin Hoffman
is a psychologist who studied the development
of empathy.
According to Hoffman everyone is born with
the capability of feeling empathy.Compassion
and sympathy are terms associated with empathy.
Definitions vary, contributing to the challenge
of defining empathy.
Compassion is often defined as an emotion
we feel when others are in need, which motivates
us to help them.
Sympathy is a feeling of care and understanding
for someone in need.
Some include in sympathy an empathic concern,
a feeling of concern for another, in which
some scholars include the wish to see them
better off or happier.Empathy is distinct
also from pity and emotional contagion.
Pity is a feeling that one feels towards others
that might be in trouble or in need of help
as they cannot fix their problems themselves,
often described as "feeling sorry" for someone.
Emotional contagion is when a person (especially
an infant or a member of a mob) imitatively
"catches" the emotions that others are showing
without necessarily recognizing this is happening.Since
empathy involves understanding the emotional
states of other people, the way it is characterized
is derived from the way emotions themselves
are characterized.
If, for example, emotions are taken to be
centrally characterized by bodily feelings,
then grasping the bodily feelings of another
will be central to empathy.
On the other hand, if emotions are more centrally
characterized by a combination of beliefs
and desires, then grasping these beliefs and
desires will be more essential to empathy.
The ability to imagine oneself as another
person is a sophisticated imaginative process.
However, the basic capacity to recognize emotions
is probably innate and may be achieved unconsciously.
Yet it can be trained and achieved with various
degrees of intensity or accuracy.
Empathy necessarily has a "more or less" quality.
The paradigm case of an empathic interaction,
however, involves a person communicating an
accurate recognition of the significance of
another person's ongoing intentional actions,
associated emotional states, and personal
characteristics in a manner that the recognized
person can tolerate.
Recognitions that are both accurate and tolerable
are central features of empathy.The human
capacity to recognize the bodily feelings
of another is related to one's imitative capacities,
and seems to be grounded in an innate capacity
to associate the bodily movements and facial
expressions one sees in another with the proprioceptive
feelings of producing those corresponding
movements or expressions oneself.
Humans seem to make the same immediate connection
between the tone of voice and other vocal
expressions and inner feeling.
In the field of positive psychology, empathy
has also been compared with altruism and egotism.
Altruism is behavior that is aimed at benefitting
another person, while egotism is a behavior
that is acted out for personal gain.
Sometimes, when someone is feeling empathetic
towards another person, acts of altruism occur.
However, many question whether or not these
acts of altruism are motivated by egotistical
gains.
According to positive psychologists, people
can be adequately moved by their empathies
to be altruistic, and their are others who
consider the wrong moral leaning perspectives
and having empathy can lead to polarization,
ignite violence and motivate dysfunctional
behavior in relationships.
== Classification and types of empathy ==
Empathy is generally divided into two major
components:
=== Affective empathy ===
Affective empathy, also called emotional empathy:
the capacity to respond with an appropriate
emotion to another's mental states.
Our ability to empathize emotionally is based
on emotional contagion: being affected by
another's emotional or arousal state.Affective
empathy can be subdivided into the following
scales:
Empathic concern: sympathy and compassion
for others in response to their suffering.
Personal distress: self-centered feelings
of discomfort and anxiety in response to another's
suffering.
There is no consensus regarding whether personal
distress is a basic form of empathy or instead
does not constitute empathy.
There may be a developmental aspect to this
subdivision.
Infants respond to the distress of others
by getting distressed themselves; only when
they are 2 years old do they start to respond
in other-oriented ways, trying to help, comfort
and share.
=== Cognitive empathy ===
Cognitive empathy: the capacity to understand
another's perspective or mental state.
The terms cognitive empathy and theory of
mind or mentalizing are often used synonymously,
but due to a lack of studies comparing theory
of mind with types of empathy, it is unclear
whether these are equivalent.Although science
has not yet agreed upon a precise definition
of these constructs, there is consensus about
this distinction.
Affective and cognitive empathy are also independent
from one another; someone who strongly empathizes
emotionally is not necessarily good in understanding
another's perspective.Cognitive empathy can
be subdivided into the following scales:
Perspective-taking: the tendency to spontaneously
adopt others' psychological perspectives.
Fantasy: the tendency to identify with fictional
characters.
Tactical (or "strategic") empathy: the deliberate
use of perspective-taking to achieve certain
desired ends.
=== Somatic ===
Somatic empathy is a physical reaction, probably
based on mirror neuron responses, in the somatic
nervous system.
== Development of empathy ==
=== 
Evolutionary development across species ===
An increasing number of studies in animal
behavior and neuroscience claim that empathy
is not restricted to humans, and is in fact
as old as the mammals, or perhaps older.
Examples include dolphins saving humans from
drowning or from shark attacks.
Professor Tom White suggests that reports
of cetaceans having three times as many spindle
cells—the nerve cells that convey empathy—in
their brains as we do might mean these highly-social
animals have a great awareness of one another's
feelings.A multitude of behaviors has been
observed in primates, both in captivity and
in the wild, and in particular in bonobos,
which are reported as the most empathetic
of all the primates.
A recent study has demonstrated prosocial
behavior elicited by empathy in rodents.Rodents
have been shown to demonstrate empathy for
cagemates (but not strangers) in pain.
One of the most widely read studies on the
evolution of empathy, which discusses a neural
perception-action mechanism (PAM), is the
one by Stephanie Preston and de Waal.
This review postulates a bottom-up model of
empathy that ties together all levels, from
state matching to perspective-taking.
For University of Chicago neurobiologist Jean
Decety, [empathy] is not specific to humans.
He argues that there is strong evidence that
empathy has deep evolutionary, biochemical,
and neurological underpinnings, and that even
the most advanced forms of empathy in humans
are built on more basic forms and remain connected
to core mechanisms associated with affective
communication, social attachment, and parental
care.
Core neural circuits that are involved in
empathy and caring include the brainstem,
the amygdala, hypothalamus, basal ganglia,
insula and orbitofrontal cortex.Since all
definitions of empathy involves an element
of for others, all distinctions between egoism
and empathy fail at least for beings lacking
self-awareness.
Since the first mammals lacked a self-aware
distinction between self and other, as shown
by most mammals failing at mirror tests, the
first mammals or anything more evolutionarily
primitive than them cannot have had a context
of default egoism requiring an empathy mechanism
to be transcended.
However, there are numerous examples in artificial
intelligence research showing that simple
reactions can carry out de facto functions
the agents have no concept of, so this does
not contradict evolutionary explanations of
parental care.
However, such mechanisms would be unadapted
to self-other distinction and beings already
dependent on some form of behavior benefitting
each other or their offspring would never
be able to evolve a form of self-other distinction
that necessitated evolution of specialized
non-preevolved and non-preevolvable mechanisms
for retaining empathic behavior in the presence
of self-other distinction, and so a fundamental
neurological distinction between egoism and
empathy cannot exist in any species.
=== Ontogenetic development in the individual
===
By the age of two years, children normally
begin to display the fundamental behaviors
of empathy by having an emotional response
that corresponds with another person's emotional
state.
Even earlier, at one year of age, infants
have some rudiments of empathy, in the sense
that they understand that, just like their
own actions, other people's actions have goals.
Sometimes, toddlers will comfort others or
show concern for them at as early an age as
two.
Also during the second year, toddlers will
play games of falsehood or "pretend" in an
effort to fool others, and this requires that
the child know what others believe before
he or she can manipulate those beliefs.
In order to develop these traits, it is essential
to expose your child to face-to-face interactions
and opportunities and lead them away from
a sedentary lifestyle.
According to researchers at the University
of Chicago who used functional magnetic resonance
imaging (fMRI), children between the ages
of 7 and 12 years appear to be naturally inclined
to feel empathy for others in pain.
Their findings are consistent with previous
fMRI studies of pain empathy with adults.
The research also found additional aspects
of the brain were activated when youngsters
saw another person intentionally hurt by another
individual, including regions involved in
moral reasoning.Despite being able to show
some signs of empathy, including attempting
to comfort a crying baby, from as early as
18 months to two years, most children do not
show a fully fledged theory of mind until
around the age of four.
Theory of mind involves the ability to understand
that other people may have beliefs that are
different from one's own, and is thought to
involve the cognitive component of empathy.
Children usually become capable of passing
"false belief" tasks, considered to be a test
for a theory of mind, around the age of four.
Individuals with autism often find using a
theory of mind very difficult (e.g. Baron-Cohen,
Leslie & Frith, 1988; the Sally-Anne test).
Empathetic maturity is a cognitive structural
theory developed at the Yale University School
of Nursing and addresses how adults conceive
or understand the personhood of patients.
The theory, first applied to nurses and since
applied to other professions, postulates three
levels that have the properties of cognitive
structures.
The third and highest level is held to be
a meta-ethical theory of the moral structure
of care.
Those adults operating with level-III understanding
synthesize systems of justice and care-based
ethics.
== Major theories and empirical findings ==
=== 
Influence of empathy on helping behavior ===
Emotions motivate individual behavior that
aids in solving communal challenges as well
as guiding group decisions about social exchange.
Additionally, recent research has shown individuals
who report regular experiences of gratitude
engage more frequently in prosocial behaviors.
Positive emotions like empathy or gratitude
are linked to a more positive continual state
and these people are far more likely to help
others than those not experiencing a positive
emotional state.
Thus, empathy's influence extends beyond relating
to other's emotions, it correlates with an
increased positive state and likeliness to
aid others.
Measures of empathy show that mirror neurons
are activated during arousal of sympathetic
responses and prolonged activation shows increased
probability to help others.
Research investigating the social response
to natural disasters looked at the characteristics
associated with individuals who help victims.
Researchers found that cognitive empathy,
rather than emotional empathy, predicted helping
behavior towards victims.
Others have posited that taking on the perspectives
of others (cognitive empathy) allows these
individuals to better empathize with victims
without as much discomfort, whereas sharing
the emotions of the victims (emotional empathy)
can cause emotional distress, helplessness,
victim-blaming, and ultimately can lead to
avoidance rather than helping.Yet, despite
this evidence for empathy-induced altruistic
motivation, egoistic explanations may still
be possible.
For example, one alternative explanation for
the problem-specific helping pattern may be
that the sequence of events in the same problem
condition first made subjects sad when they
empathized with the problem and then maintained
or enhanced subjects’ sadness when they
were later exposed to the same plight.
Consequently, the negative state relief model
would predict substantial helping among imagine-set
subjects in the same condition, which is what
occurred.
An intriguing question arises from such findings
concerning whether it is possible to have
mixed motivations for helping.
If this is the case, then simultaneous egoistic
and altruistic motivations would occur.
This would allow for a stronger sadness-based
motivation to obscure the effects of an empathic
concern-based altruistic motivation.
The observed study would then have sadness
as less intense than more salient altruistic
motivation.
Consequently, relative strengths of different
emotional reactions, systematically related
to the need situation, may moderate the predominance
of egoistic or altruistic motivation (Dovidio,
1990).
But it has been shown that researchers in
this area who have used very similar procedures
sometimes obtain apparently contradictory
results.
Superficial procedural differences such as
precisely when a manipulation is introduced
could also lead to divergent results and conclusions.
It is therefore vital for any future research
to move toward even greater standardization
of measurement.
Thus, an important step in solving the current
theoretical debate concerning the existence
of altruism may involve reaching common methodological
ground.
=== Neuroscientific basis of empathy ===
Contemporary neuroscience has allowed us to
understand the neural basis of the human mind's
ability to understand and process emotion.
Studies today enable us to see the activation
of mirror neurons and attempt to explain the
basic processes of empathy.
By isolating these mirror neurons and measuring
the neural basis for human mind reading and
emotion sharing abilities, science has come
one step closer to finding the reason for
reactions like empathy.
Neuroscientists have already discovered that
people scoring high on empathy tests have
especially busy mirror neuron systems in their
brains (Dr. Christian Keysers).
Empathy is a spontaneous sharing of affect,
provoked by witnessing and sympathizing with
another's emotional state.
In a way we mirror or mimic the emotional
response that we would expect to feel in that
condition or context, much like sympathy.
Unlike personal distress, empathy is not characterized
by aversion to another's emotional response.
Additionally, empathizing with someone requires
a distinctly sympathetic reaction where personal
distress demands avoidance of distressing
matters.
This distinction is vital because empathy
is associated with the moral emotion sympathy,
or empathetic concern, and consequently also
prosocial or altruistic action.
Empathy leads to sympathy by definition unlike
the over-aroused emotional response that turns
into personal distress and causes a turning-away
from another's distress.
In empathy we feel what we believe are the
emotions of another, which makes it both affective
and cognitive by most psychologists.
In this sense, arousal and empathy promote
prosocial behavior as we accommodate each
other to feel similar emotions.
For social beings, negotiating interpersonal
decisions is as important to survival as being
able to navigate the physical landscape.A
meta-analysis of recent fMRI studies of empathy
confirmed that different brain areas are activated
during affective–perceptual empathy and
cognitive–evaluative empathy.
Also, a study with patients with different
types of brain damage confirmed the distinction
between emotional and cognitive empathy.
Specifically, the inferior frontal gyrus appears
to be responsible for emotional empathy, and
the ventromedial prefrontal gyrus seems to
mediate cognitive empathy.Research in recent
years has focused on possible brain processes
underlying the experience of empathy.
For instance, functional magnetic resonance
imaging (fMRI) has been employed to investigate
the functional anatomy of empathy.
These studies have shown that observing another
person's emotional state activates parts of
the neuronal network involved in processing
that same state in oneself, whether it is
disgust, touch, or pain.
The study of the neural underpinnings of empathy
has received increased interest following
the target paper published by Preston and
Frans de Waal, following the discovery of
mirror neurons in monkeys that fire both when
the creature watches another perform an action
as well as when they themselves perform it.
In their paper, they argue that attended perception
of the object's state automatically activates
neural representations, and that this activation
automatically primes or generates the associated
autonomic and somatic responses (idea of perception-action-coupling),
unless inhibited.
This mechanism is similar to the common coding
theory between perception and action.
Another recent study provides evidence of
separate neural pathways activating reciprocal
suppression in different regions of the brain
associated with the performance of "social"
and "mechanical" tasks.
These findings suggest that the cognition
associated with reasoning about the "state
of another person's mind" and "causal/mechanical
properties of inanimate objects" are neurally
suppressed from occurring at the same time.A
recent meta-analysis of 40 fMRI studies found
that affective empathy is correlated with
increased activity in the insula while cognitive
empathy is correlated with activity in the
mid cingulate cortex and adjacent dorsomedial
prefrontal cortex.It has been suggested that
mirroring-behavior in motor neurons during
empathy may help duplicate feelings.
Such sympathetic action may afford access
to sympathetic feelings for another and, perhaps,
trigger emotions of kindness, forgiveness.
=== Gender differences ===
The literature commonly indicates that females
tend to have more cognitive empathy than males.
On average, female subjects score higher than
males on the Empathy Quotient (EQ), while
males tend to score higher on the Systemizing
Quotient (SQ).
Both males and females with autistic spectrum
disorders usually score lower on the EQ and
higher on SQ (see below for more detail on
autism and empathy).
However, a series of studies, using a variety
of neurophysiological measures, including
MEG, spinal reflex excitability, electroencephalography
and N400 paradigm have documented the presence
of an overall gender difference in the human
mirror neuron system, with female participants
tending to exhibit stronger motor resonance
than male participants.
In addition, these aforementioned studies
found that female participants tended to score
higher on empathy self-report dispositional
measures and that these measures positively
correlated with the physiological response.
Other studies show no significant difference,
and instead suggest that gender differences
are the result of motivational differences.A
review published in the journal Neuropsychologia
found that women tended to be better at recognizing
facial effects, expression processing and
emotions in general.
Men only tended to be better at recognizing
specific behavior which includes anger, aggression
and threatening cues.
A 2006 meta-analysis by researcher Rena A
Kirkland in the journal North American Journal
of Psychology found significant sex differences
favoring females in "Reading of the mind"
test.
"Reading of the mind" test is an advanced
ability measure of cognitive empathy in which
Kirkland's analysis involved 259 studies across
10 countries.
Another 2014 meta-analysis in the journal
of Cognition and Emotion, found overall female
advantage in non-verbal emotional recognition
across 215 samples.Using fMRI, neuroscientist
Tania Singer showed that empathy-related neural
responses tended to be significantly lower
in males when observing an "unfair" person
experiencing pain.
An analysis from the journal of Neuroscience
& Biobehavioral Reviews also found that, overall,
there are sex differences in empathy from
birth, growing larger with age and which remains
consistent and stable across lifespan.
Females, on average, were found to have higher
empathy than males, while children with higher
empathy regardless of gender continue to be
higher in empathy throughout development.
Further analysis of brain tools such as event
related potentials found that females who
saw human suffering tended to have higher
ERP waveforms than males.
Another investigation with similar brain tools
such as N400 amplitudes found, on average,
higher N400 in females in response to social
situations which positively correlated with
self-reported empathy.
Structural fMRI studies also found females
to have larger grey matter volumes in posterior
inferior frontal and anterior inferior parietal
cortex areas which are correlated with mirror
neurons in fMRI literature.
Females also tended to have a stronger link
between emotional and cognitive empathy.
The researchers found that the stability of
these sex differences in development are unlikely
to be explained by any environment influences
but rather might have some roots in human
evolution and inheritance.Throughout prehistory,
females were the primary nurturers and caretakers
of children; so this might have led to an
evolved neurological adaptation for women
to be more aware and responsive to non-verbal
expressions.
According to the Primary Caretaker Hypothesis,
prehistoric males did not have the same selective
pressure as primary caretakers; so therefore
this might explain modern day sex differences
in emotion recognition and empathy.
=== Empathy in educational contexts ===
Another growing focus of investigation is
how empathy manifests in education between
teachers and learners.
Although there is general agreement that empathy
is essential in educational settings, research
has found that it is difficult to develop
empathy in trainee teachers.
According to one theory, there are seven components
involved in the effectiveness of intercultural
communication; empathy was found to be one
of the seven.
This theory also states that empathy is learnable.
However, research also shows that it is more
difficult to empathize when there are differences
between people including status, culture,
religion, language, skin colour, gender, age
and so on.An important target of the method
Learning by teaching (LbT) is to train systematically
and, in each lesson, teach empathy.
Students have to transmit new content to their
classmates, so they have to reflect continuously
on the mental processes of the other students
in the classroom.
This way it is possible to develop step-by-step
the students' feeling for group reactions
and networking.
Carl R. Rogers pioneered research in effective
psychotherapy and teaching which espoused
that empathy coupled with unconditional positive
regard or caring for students and authenticity
or congruence were the most important traits
for a therapist or teacher to have.
Other research and publications by Tausch,
Aspy, Roebuck.
Lyon, and meta-analyses by Cornelius-White,
corroborated the importance of these person-centered
traits.
=== Empathy in intercultural contexts ===
In order to achieve intercultural empathy,
psychologists have employed empathy training.
One study hypothesized that empathy training
would increase the measured level of relational
empathy among the individuals in the experimental
group when compared to the control group.
The study also hypothesized that empathy training
would increase communication among the experimental
group, and that perceived satisfaction with
group dialogue would also increase among the
experimental group.
To test this, the experimenters used the Hogan
Empathy Scale, the Barrett-Lennard Relationship
Inventory, and questionnaires.
Using these measures, the study found that
empathy training was not successful in increasing
relational empathy.
Also, communication and satisfaction among
groups did not increase as a result of the
empathy training.
While there didn't seem to be a clear relationship
between empathy and relational empathy training,
the study did report that "relational empathy
training appeared to foster greater expectations
for a deep dialogic process resulting in treatment
differences in perceived depth of communication".
US researchers William Weeks, Paul Pedersen
et al. state that developing intercultural
empathy enables the interpretation of experiences
or perspectives from more than one worldview.
Intercultural empathy can also improve self-awareness
and critical awareness of one's own interaction
style as conditioned by one's cultural views
and promote a view of self-as-process.
=== Developmental and environmental influences
===
The environment has been another interesting
topic of study.
Many theorize that environmental factors,
such as parenting style and relationships,
play a significant role in the development
of empathy in children.
Empathy promotes pro social relationships,
helps mediate aggression, and allows us to
relate to others, all of which make empathy
an important emotion among children.
A study done by Caroline Tisot looked at how
a variety of environmental factors affected
the development of empathy in young children.
Parenting style, parent empathy, and prior
social experiences were looked at.
The children participating in the study were
asked to complete an effective empathy measure,
while the children's parents completed the
Parenting Practices Questionnaire, which assesses
parenting style, and the Balanced Emotional
Empathy scale.
This study found that a few parenting practices
– as opposed to parenting style as a whole
– contributed to the development of empathy
in children.
These practices include encouraging the child
to imagine the perspectives of others and
teaching the child to reflect on his or her
own feelings.
The results also show that the development
of empathy varied based on the gender of the
child and parent.
Paternal warmth was found to be significantly
important, and was positively related to empathy
within children, especially in boys.
However, maternal warmth was negatively related
to empathy within children, especially in
girls.It has also been found that empathy
can be disrupted due to trauma in the brain
such as a stroke.
In most cases empathy is usually impaired
if a lesion or stroke occurs on the right
side of the brain.
In addition to this it has been found that
damage to the frontal lobe, which is primarily
responsible for emotional regulation, can
impact profoundly on a person's capacity to
experience empathy toward another individual.
People who have suffered from an acquired
brain injury also show lower levels of empathy
according to previous studies.
In fact, more than 50% of people who suffer
from a traumatic brain injury self-report
a deficit in their empathic capacity.
Again, linking this back to the early developmental
stages of emotion, if emotional growth has
been stunted at an early age due to various
factors, empathy will struggle to infest itself
in that individual's mind-set as a natural
feeling, as they themselves will struggle
to come to terms with their own thoughts and
emotions.
This is again suggestive of the fact that
understanding one's own emotions is key in
being able to identify with another individual's
emotional state.
== Applications ==
The empathy-altruism relationship also has
broad for whom empathy is felt at the expense
of other potential pro-social goals, thus
inducing a type of bias.
Researchers suggest that individuals are willing
to act against the greater collective good
or to violate their own moral principles of
fairness and justice if doing so will benefit
a person for whom empathy is felt.On a more
positive note, aroused individuals in an empathetic
manner may focus on the long-term welfare
rather than just the short-term of those in
need.
Empathy-based socialization is very different
from current practices directed toward inhibition
of egoistic impulses through shaping, modeling
and internalized guilt.
Therapeutic programs built around facilitating
altruistic impulses by encouraging perspective
taking and empathetic feelings might enable
individuals to develop more satisfactory interpersonal
relations, especially in the long-term.
At a societal level, experiments have indicated
that empathy-induced altruism can be used
to improve attitudes toward stigmatized groups,
even used to improve racial attitudes, actions
toward people with AIDS, the homeless and
even convicts.
Such resulting altruism has also been found
to increase cooperation in competitive situations.
== Individual differences ==
Empathy in the broadest sense refers to a
reaction of one individual to another's emotional
state.
Recent years have seen increased movement
toward the idea that empathy occurs from motor
neuron imitation.
But, how do we account for individual differences
in empathy?
It cannot be said that empathy is a single
unipolar construct but rather a set of constructs.
In essence, not every individual responds
equally and uniformly the same to various
circumstances.
The Empathic Concern scale assesses "other-oriented"
feelings of sympathy and concern and the Personal
Distress scale measures "self-oriented" feelings
of personal anxiety and unease.
The combination of these scales helps reveal
those that might not be classified as empathetic
and expands the narrow definition of empathy.
Using this approach we can enlarge the basis
of what it means to possess empathetic qualities
and create a multi-faceted definition.Behavioral
and neuroimaging research show that two underlying
facets of the personality dimensions Extraversion
and Agreeableness (the Warmth-Altruistic personality
profile) are associated with empathic accuracy
and increased brain activity in two brain
regions important for empathic processing
(medial prefrontal cortex and temporoparietal
junction).
== Genetics ==
Research suggests that empathy is also partly
genetically determined.
For instance, carriers of the deletion variant
of ADRA2B show more activation of the amygdala
when viewing emotionally arousing images.
The gene 5-HTTLPR seems to determine sensitivity
to negative emotional information and is also
attenuated by the deletion variant of ADRA2b.
Carriers of the double G variant of the OXTR
gene were found to have better social skills
and higher self-esteem.
A gene located near LRRN1 on chromosome 3
then again controls the human ability to read,
understand and respond to emotions in others.
== Empathic anger and distress ==
=== 
Anger ===
Empathic anger is an emotion, a form of empathic
distress.
Empathic anger is felt in a situation where
someone else is being hurt by another person
or thing.
It is possible to see this form of anger as
a pro-social emotion.Empathic anger has direct
effects on both helping and punishing desires.
Empathic anger can be divided into two sub-categories:
trait empathic anger and state empathic anger.The
relationship between empathy and anger response
towards another person has also been investigated,
with two studies basically finding that the
higher a person's perspective taking ability,
the less angry they were in response to a
provocation.
Empathic concern did not, however, significantly
predict anger response, and higher personal
distress was associated with increased anger.
=== Distress ===
Empathic distress is feeling the perceived
pain of another person.
This feeling can be transformed into empathic
anger, feelings of injustice, or guilt.
These emotions can be perceived as pro-social,
and some say they can be seen as motives for
moral behavior.
== Impairment in psychopathology ==
A difference in distribution between affective
and cognitive empathy has been observed in
various conditions.
Psychopathy and narcissism have been associated
with impairments in affective but not cognitive
empathy, whereas bipolar disorder and borderline
traits have been associated with deficits
in cognitive but not affective empathy.
Autism spectrum disorders have been associated
with various combinations, including deficits
in cognitive empathy as well as deficits in
both cognitive and affective empathy.
Schizophrenia, too, has been associated with
deficits in both types of empathy.
However, even in people without conditions
such as these, the balance between affective
and cognitive empathy varies.Atypical empathic
responses have been associated with autism
and particular personality disorders such
as psychopathy, borderline, narcissistic,
and schizoid personality disorders; conduct
disorder; schizophrenia; bipolar disorder;
and depersonalization.
Lack of affective empathy has also been associated
with sex offenders.
It was found that offenders that had been
raised in an environment where they were shown
a lack of empathy and had endured the same
type of abuse, felt less affective empathy
for their victims.
=== Autism ===
The interaction between empathy and autism
is a complex and ongoing field of research.
Several different factors are proposed to
be at play.
A study of high-functioning adults with autistic
spectrum disorders found an increased prevalence
of alexithymia, a personality construct characterized
by the inability to recognize and articulate
emotional arousal in oneself or others.
Based on fMRI studies, alexithymia is responsible
for a lack of empathy.
The lack of empathic attunement inherent to
alexithymic states may reduce quality and
satisfaction of relationships.
Recently, a study has shown that high-functioning
autistic adults appear to have a range of
responses to music similar to that of neurotypical
individuals, including the deliberate use
of music for mood management.
Clinical treatment of alexithymia could involve
using a simple associative learning process
between musically induced emotions and their
cognitive correlates.
A study has suggested that the empathy deficits
associated with the autism spectrum may be
due to significant comorbidity between alexithymia
and autism spectrum conditions rather than
a result of social impairment.One study found
that, relative to typically developing children,
high-functioning autistic children showed
reduced mirror neuron activity in the brain's
inferior frontal gyrus (pars opercularis)
while imitating and observing emotional expressions.
EEG evidence revealed that there was significantly
greater mu suppression in the sensorimotor
cortex of autistic individuals.
Activity in this area was inversely related
to symptom severity in the social domain,
suggesting that a dysfunctional mirror neuron
system may underlie social and communication
deficits observed in autism, including impaired
theory of mind and cognitive empathy.
The mirror neuron system is essential for
emotional empathy.Previous studies have suggested
that autistic individuals have an impaired
theory of mind.
Theory of mind is the ability to understand
the perspectives of others.
The terms cognitive empathy and theory of
mind are often used synonymously, but due
to a lack of studies comparing theory of mind
with types of empathy, it is unclear whether
these are equivalent.
Theory of mind relies on structures of the
temporal lobe and the pre-frontal cortex,
and empathy, i.e. the ability to share the
feelings of others, relies on the sensorimotor
cortices as well as limbic and para-limbic
structures.
The lack of clear distinctions between theory
of mind and cognitive empathy may have resulted
in an incomplete understanding of the empathic
abilities of those with Asperger syndrome;
many reports on the empathic deficits of individuals
with Asperger syndrome are actually based
on impairments in theory of mind.Studies have
found that individuals on the autistic spectrum
self-report lower levels of empathic concern,
show less or absent comforting responses toward
someone who is suffering, and report equal
or higher levels of personal distress compared
to controls.
The combination in those on the autism spectrum
of reduced empathic concern and increased
personal distress may lead to the overall
reduction of empathy.
Professor Simon Baron-Cohen suggests that
those with classic autism often lack both
cognitive and affective empathy.
However, other research has found no evidence
of impairment in autistic individuals' ability
to understand other people's basic intentions
or goals; instead, data suggests that impairments
are found in understanding more complex social
emotions or in considering others' viewpoints.
Research also suggests that people with Asperger
syndrome may have problems understanding others'
perspectives in terms of theory of mind, but
the average person with the condition demonstrates
equal empathic concern as, and higher personal
distress, than controls.
The existence of individuals with heightened
personal distress on the autism spectrum has
been offered as an explanation as to why at
least some people with autism would appear
to have heightened emotional empathy, although
increased personal distress may be an effect
of heightened egocentrism, emotional empathy
depends on mirror neuron activity (which,
as described previously, has been found to
be reduced in those with autism), and empathy
in people on the autism spectrum is generally
reduced.
The empathy deficits present in autism spectrum
disorders may be more indicative of impairments
in the ability to take the perspective of
others, while the empathy deficits in psychopathy
may be more indicative of impairments in responsiveness
to others’ emotions.
These “disorders of empathy” further highlight
the importance of the ability to empathize
by illustrating some of the consequences to
disrupted empathy development.The empathizing–systemizing
theory (E-S) suggests that people may be classified
on the basis of their capabilities along two
independent dimensions, empathizing (E) and
systemizing (S).
These capabilities may be inferred through
tests that measure someone's Empathy Quotient
(EQ) and Systemizing Quotient (SQ).
Five different "brain types" can be observed
among the population based on the scores,
which should correlate with differences at
the neural level.
In the E-S theory, autism and Asperger syndrome
are associated with below-average empathy
and average or above-average systemizing.
The E-S theory has been extended into the
Extreme Male Brain theory, which suggests
that people with an autism spectrum condition
are more likely to have an "Extreme Type S"
brain type, corresponding with above-average
systemizing but challenged empathy.It has
been shown that males are generally less empathetic
than females.
The Extreme Male Brain (EMB) theory proposes
that individuals on the autistic spectrum
are characterized by impairments in empathy
due to sex differences in the brain: specifically,
people with autism spectrum conditions show
an exaggerated male profile.
A study showed that some aspects of autistic
neuroanatomy seem to be extremes of typical
male neuroanatomy, which may be influenced
by elevated levels of fetal testosterone rather
than gender itself.
Another study involving brain scans of 120
men and women suggested that autism affects
male and female brains differently; females
with autism had brains that appeared to be
closer to those of non-autistic males than
females, yet the same kind of difference was
not observed in males with autism.While the
discovery of a higher incidence of diagnosed
autism in some groups of second generation
immigrant children was initially explained
as a result of too little vitamin D during
pregnancy in dark-skinned people further removed
from the equator, that explanation did not
hold up for the later discovery that diagnosed
autism was most frequent in children of newly
immigrated parents and decreased if they immigrated
many years earlier as that would further deplete
the body's store of vitamin D. Nor could it
explain the similar effect on diagnosed autism
for some European migrants America in the
1940s that was reviewed in the 2010s as a
shortage of vitamin D was never a problem
for these light-skinned immigrants to America.
The decrease of diagnosed autism with the
number of years the parents had lived in their
new country also cannot be explained by the
theory that the cause is genetic no matter
if it is said to be caused by actual ethnic
differences in autism gene prevalence or a
selective migration of individuals predisposed
for autism since such genes, if present, would
not go away over time.
It have therefore been suggested that autism
is not caused by an innate deficit in a specific
social circuitry in the brain, also citing
other research suggesting that specificalized
social brain mechanisms may not exist even
in neurotypic people, but that particular
features of appearance and/or minor details
in behavior are met with exclusion from socialization
that shows up as apparently reduced social
ability.
=== Psychopathy ===
Psychopathy is a personality disorder partly
characterized by antisocial and aggressive
behaviors, as well as emotional and interpersonal
deficits including shallow emotions and a
lack of remorse and empathy.
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders (DSM) and International Classification
of Diseases (ICD) list antisocial personality
disorder (ASPD) and dissocial personality
disorder, stating that these have been referred
to or include what is referred to as psychopathy.A
large body of research suggests that psychopathy
is associated with atypical responses to distress
cues (e.g. facial and vocal expressions of
fear and sadness), including decreased activation
of the fusiform and extrastriate cortical
regions, which may partly account for impaired
recognition of and reduced autonomic responsiveness
to expressions of fear, and impairments of
empathy.
Studies on children with psychopathic tendencies
have also shown such associations.
The underlying biological surfaces for processing
expressions of happiness are functionally
intact in psychopaths, although less responsive
than those of controls.
The neuroimaging literature is unclear as
to whether deficits are specific to particular
emotions such as fear.
Some recent fMRI studies have reported that
emotion perception deficits in psychopathy
are pervasive across emotions (positives and
negatives).A recent study on psychopaths found
that, under certain circumstances, they could
willfully empathize with others, and that
their empathic reaction initiated the same
way it does for controls.
Psychopathic criminals were brain-scanned
while watching videos of a person harming
another individual.
The psychopaths' empathic reaction initiated
the same way it did for controls when they
were instructed to empathize with the harmed
individual, and the area of the brain relating
to pain was activated when the psychopaths
were asked to imagine how the harmed individual
felt.
The research suggests how psychopaths could
switch empathy on at will, which would enable
them to be both callous and charming.
The team who conducted the study say it is
still unknown how to transform this willful
empathy into the spontaneous empathy most
people have, though they propose it could
be possible to bring psychopaths closer to
rehabilitation by helping them to activate
their "empathy switch".
Others suggested that despite the results
of the study, it remained unclear whether
psychopaths' experience of empathy was the
same as that of controls, and also questioned
the possibility of devising therapeutic interventions
that would make the empathic reactions more
automatic.Work conducted by Professor Jean
Decety with large samples of incarcerated
psychopaths offers additional insights.
In one study, psychopaths were scanned while
viewing video clips depicting people being
intentionally hurt.
They were also tested on their responses to
seeing short videos of facial expressions
of pain.
The participants in the high-psychopathy group
exhibited significantly less activation in
the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, amygdala
and periaqueductal gray parts of the brain,
but more activity in the striatum and the
insula when compared to control participants.
In a second study, individuals with psychopathy
exhibited a strong response in pain-affective
brain regions when taking an imagine-self
perspective, but failed to recruit the neural
circuits that were activated in controls during
an imagine-other perspective—in particular
the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and amygdala—which
may contribute to their lack of empathic concern.It
was predicted that people who have high levels
of psychopathy would have sufficient levels
of cognitive empathy but would lack in their
ability to use affective empathy.
People that scored highly on psychopathy measures
were less likely to portray affective empathy.
There was a strong negative correlation showing
that psychopathy and affective empathy correspond
strongly.
The DANVA-2 portrayed those who scored highly
on the psychopathy scale do not lack in recognising
emotion in facial expressions.
Therefore, individuals who have high scores
on psychopathy and do not lack in perspective-talking
ability but do lack in compassion and the
negative incidents that happen to others.Despite
studies suggesting deficits in emotion perception
and imagining others in pain, professor Simon
Baron-Cohen claims psychopathy is associated
with intact cognitive empathy, which would
imply an intact ability to read and respond
to behaviors, social cues and what others
are feeling.
Psychopathy is, however, associated with impairment
in the other major component of empathy—affective
(emotional) empathy—which includes the ability
to feel the suffering and emotions of others
(what scientists would term as emotional contagion),
and those with the condition are therefore
not distressed by the suffering of their victims.
Such a dissociation of affective and cognitive
empathy has indeed been demonstrated for aggressive
offenders.
Those with autism, on the other hand, are
claimed to be often impaired in both affective
and cognitive empathy.One problem with the
theory that the ability to turn empathy on
and off constitutes psychopathy is that such
a theory would classify socially sanctioned
violence and punishment as psychopathy, as
it means suspending empathy towards certain
individuals and/or groups.
The attempt to get around this by standardizing
tests of psychopathy for cultures with different
norms of punishment is criticized in this
context for being based on the assumption
that people can be classified in discrete
cultures while cultural influences are in
reality mixed and every person encounters
a mosaic of influences (e.g. non-shared environment
having more influence than family environment).
It is suggested that psychopathy may be an
artefact of psychiatry's standardization along
imaginary sharp lines between cultures, as
opposed to an actual difference in the brain.
=== Other conditions ===
Research indicates atypical empathic responses
are also correlated with a variety of other
conditions.
Borderline personality disorder is characterized
by extensive behavioral and interpersonal
difficulties that arise from emotional and
cognitive dysfunction.
Dysfunctional social and interpersonal behavior
has been shown to play a crucial role in the
emotionally intense way people with borderline
personality disorder react.
While individuals with borderline personality
disorder may show their emotions too much,
several authors have suggested that they might
have a compromised ability to reflect upon
mental states (impaired cognitive empathy),
as well as an impaired theory of mind.
People with borderline personality disorder
have been shown to be very good at recognizing
emotions in people's faces, suggesting increased
empathic capacities.
It is, therefore, possible that impaired cognitive
empathy (the capacity for understanding another
person's experience and perspective) may account
for borderline personality disorder individuals'
tendency for interpersonal dysfunction, while
"hyper-emotional empathy" may account for
the emotional over-reactivity observed in
these individuals.
One primary study confirmed that patients
with borderline personality disorder were
significantly impaired in cognitive empathy,
yet there was no sign of impairment in affective
empathy.One diagnostic criterion of narcissistic
personality disorder is a lack of empathy
and an unwillingness or inability to recognize
or identify with the feelings and needs of
others.Characteristics of schizoid personality
disorder include emotional coldness, detachment,
and impaired affect corresponding with an
inability to be empathetic and sensitive towards
others.A study conducted by Jean Decety and
colleagues at the University of Chicago demonstrated
that subjects with aggressive conduct disorder
elicit atypical empathic responses to viewing
others in pain.
Subjects with conduct disorder were at least
as responsive as controls to the pain of others
but, unlike controls, subjects with conduct
disorder showed strong and specific activation
of the amygdala and ventral striatum (areas
that enable a general arousing effect of reward),
yet impaired activation of the neural regions
involved in self-regulation and metacognition
(including moral reasoning), in addition to
diminished processing between the amygdala
and the prefrontal cortex.Schizophrenia is
characterized by impaired affective empathy,
as well as severe cognitive and empathy impairments
as measured by the Empathy Quotient (EQ).
These empathy impairments are also associated
with impairments in social cognitive tasks.Bipolar
individuals have been observed to have impaired
cognitive empathy and theory of mind, but
increased affective empathy.
Despite cognitive flexibility being impaired,
planning behavior is intact.
It has been suggested that dysfunctions in
the prefrontal cortex could result in the
impaired cognitive empathy, since impaired
cognitive empathy has been related with neurocognitive
task performance involving cognitive flexibility.Lieutenant
Colonel Dave Grossman, in his book On Killing,
suggests that military training artificially
creates depersonalization in soldiers, suppressing
empathy and making it easier for them to kill
other human beings.
== Practical issues ==
The capacity to empathize is a revered trait
in society.
Empathy is considered a motivating factor
for unselfish, prosocial behavior, whereas
a lack of empathy is related to antisocial
behavior.Proper empathic engagement helps
an individual understand and anticipate the
behavior of another.
Apart from the automatic tendency to recognize
the emotions of others, one may also deliberately
engage in empathic reasoning.
Two general methods have been identified here.
An individual may simulate fictitious versions
of the beliefs, desires, character traits
and context of another individual to see what
emotional feelings it provokes.
Or, an individual may simulate an emotional
feeling and then access the environment for
a suitable reason for the emotional feeling
to be appropriate for that specific environment.Some
research suggests that people are more able
and willing to empathize with those most similar
to themselves.
In particular, empathy increases with similarities
in culture and living conditions.
Empathy is more likely to occur between individuals
whose interaction is more frequent.
(See Levenson and Reuf 1997 and Hoffman 2000:
62).
A measure of how well a person can infer the
specific content of another person's thoughts
and feelings has been developed by William
Ickes (1997, 2003).
In 2010, team led by Grit Hein and Tania Singer
gave two groups of men wristbands according
to which football team they supported.
Each participant received a mild electric
shock, then watched another go through the
same pain.
When the wristbands matched, both brains flared:
with pain, and empathic pain.
If they supported opposing teams, the observer
was found to have little empathy.
Bloom calls improper use of empathy and social
intelligence as a tool can lead to shortsighted
actions and parochialism, he further defies
conventional supportive research findings
as gremlins from biased standards.
He ascertains empathy as an exhaustive process
that limits us in morality and if low empathy
makes for bad people, bundled up in that unsavoury
group would be many who have Asperger's or
autism and reveals his own brother is severely
autistic.
Early indicators for a lack of empathy:
Frequently finding oneself in prolonged arguments
Forming opinions early and defending them
vigorously
Thinking that other people are overly sensitive
Refusing to listen to other points of view
Blaming others for mistakes
Not listening when spoken to
Holding grudges and having difficulty to forgive
Inability to work in a teamThere are concerns
that the empathizer's own emotional background
may affect or distort what emotions they perceive
in others (e.g. Goleman 1996: p. 104).
It is evidenced that societies that promote
individualism have lower ability for empathy.
Empathy is not a process that is likely to
deliver certain judgments about the emotional
states of others.
It is a skill that is gradually developed
throughout life, and which improves the more
contact we have with the person with whom
one empathizes.
Empathizers report finding it easier to take
the perspective of another person when they
have experienced a similar situation, as well
as experience greater empathic understanding.
Research regarding whether similar past experience
makes the empathizer more accurate is mixed.
== Ethical issues ==
The extent to which a person's emotions are
publicly observable, or mutually recognized
as such has significant social consequences.
Empathic recognition may or may not be welcomed
or socially desirable.
This is particularly the case where we recognize
the emotions that someone has towards us during
real time interactions.
Based on a metaphorical affinity with touch,
philosopher Edith Wyschogrod claims that the
proximity entailed by empathy increases the
potential vulnerability of either party.
The appropriate role of empathy in our dealings
with others is highly dependent on the circumstances.
For instance, Tania Singer says that clinicians
or caregivers must be objective to the emotions
of others, to not over-invest their own emotions
for the other, at the risk of draining away
their own resourcefulness.
Furthermore, an awareness of the limitations
of empathic accuracy is prudent in a caregiving
situation.
== Disciplinary approaches ==
=== Philosophy ===
==== 
Ethics ====
In his 2008 book, How to Make Good Decisions
and Be Right All the Time:Solving the Riddle
of Right and Wrong, writer Iain King presents
two reasons why empathy is the "essence" or
"DNA" of right and wrong.
First, he argues that empathy uniquely has
all the characteristics we can know about
an ethical viewpoint – including that it
is "partly self-standing", and so provides
a source of motivation that is partly within
us and partly outside, as moral motivations
seem to be.
This allows empathy-based judgements to have
sufficient distance from a personal opinion
to count as "moral".
His second argument is more practical: he
argues, "Empathy for others really is the
route to value in life", and so the means
by which a selfish attitude can become a moral
one.
By using empathy as the basis for a system
of ethics, King is able to reconcile ethics
based on consequences with virtue-ethics and
act-based accounts of right and wrong.
His empathy-based system has been taken up
by some Buddhists, and is used to address
some practical problems, such as when to tell
lies, and how to develop culturally-neutral
rules for romance.
In the 2007 book The Ethics of Care and Empathy,
philosopher Michael Slote introduces a theory
of care-based ethics that is grounded in empathy.
His claim is that moral motivation does, and
should, stem from a basis of empathic response.
He claims that our natural reaction to situations
of moral significance are explained by empathy.
He explains that the limits and obligations
of empathy and in turn morality are natural.
These natural obligations include a greater
empathic, and moral obligation to family and
friends, along with an account of temporal
and physical distance.
In situations of close temporal and physical
distance, and with family or friends, our
moral obligation seems stronger to us than
with strangers at a distance naturally.
Slote explains that this is due to empathy
and our natural empathic ties.
He further adds that actions are wrong if
and only if they reflect or exhibit a deficiency
of fully developed empathic concern for others
on the part of the agent.
==== Phenomenology ====
In phenomenology, empathy describes the experience
of something from the other's viewpoint, without
confusion between self and other.
This draws on the sense of agency.
In the most basic sense, this is the experience
of the other's body and, in this sense, it
is an experience of "my body over there".
In most other respects, however, the experience
is modified so that what is experienced is
experienced as being the other's experience;
in experiencing empathy, what is experienced
is not "my" experience, even though I experience
it.
Empathy is also considered to be the condition
of intersubjectivity and, as such, the source
of the constitution of objectivity.
=== History ===
Some postmodern historians such as Keith Jenkins
in recent years have debated whether or not
it is possible to empathize with people from
the past.
Jenkins argues that empathy only enjoys such
a privileged position in the present because
it corresponds harmoniously with the dominant
liberal discourse of modern society and can
be connected to John Stuart Mill's concept
of reciprocal freedom.
Jenkins argues the past is a foreign country
and as we do not have access to the epistemological
conditions of by gone ages we are unable to
empathize.It is impossible to forecast the
effect of empathy on the future.
A past subject may take part in the present
by the so-called historic present.
If we watch from a fictitious past, can tell
the present with the future tense, as it happens
with the trick of the false prophecy.
There is no way of telling the present with
the means of the past.
=== Psychotherapy ===
Heinz Kohut is the main introducer of the
principle of empathy in psychoanalysis.
His principle applies to the method of gathering
unconscious material.
The possibility of not applying the principle
is granted in the cure, for instance when
you must reckon with another principle, that
of reality.
In evolutionary psychology, attempts at explaining
pro-social behavior often mention the presence
of empathy in the individual as a possible
variable.
While exact motives behind complex social
behaviors are difficult to distinguish, the
"ability to put oneself in the shoes of another
person and experience events and emotions
the way that person experienced them" is the
definitive factor for truly altruistic behavior
according to Batson's empathy-altruism hypothesis.
If empathy is not felt, social exchange (what's
in it for me?) supersedes pure altruism, but
if empathy is felt, an individual will help
by actions or by word, regardless of whether
it is in their self-interest to do so and
even if the costs outweigh potential rewards.
=== Business and management ===
In the 2009 book Wired to Care, strategy consultant
Dev Patnaik argues that a major flaw in contemporary
business practice is a lack of empathy inside
large corporations.
He states that lacking any sense of empathy,
people inside companies struggle to make intuitive
decisions and often get fooled into believing
they understand their business if they have
quantitative research to rely upon.
Patnaik claims that the real opportunity for
companies doing business in the 21st century
is to create a widely held sense of empathy
for customers, pointing to Nike, Harley-Davidson,
and IBM as examples of "Open Empathy Organizations".
Such institutions, he claims, see new opportunities
more quickly than competitors, adapt to change
more easily, and create workplaces that offer
employees a greater sense of mission in their
jobs.
In the 2011 book The Empathy Factor, organizational
consultant Marie Miyashiro similarly argues
the value of bringing empathy to the workplace,
and offers Nonviolent Communication as an
effective mechanism for achieving this.
In studies by the Management Research Group,
empathy was found to be the strongest predictor
of ethical leadership behavior out of 22 competencies
in its management model, and empathy was one
of the three strongest predictors of senior
executive effectiveness.
== Measurement ==
Research into the measurement of empathy has
sought to answer a number of questions: who
should be carrying out the measurement?
What should pass for empathy and what should
be discounted?
What unit of measure (UOM) should be adopted
and to what degree should each occurrence
precisely match that UOM are also key questions
that researchers have sought to investigate.
Researchers have approached the measurement
of empathy from a number of perspectives.
Behavioral measures normally involve raters
assessing the presence or absence of certain
either predetermined or ad-hoc behaviors in
the subjects they are monitoring.
Both verbal and non-verbal behaviors have
been captured on video by experimenters such
as Truax (1967b).
Other experimenters, including Mehrabian and
Epstein (1972), have required subjects to
comment upon their own feelings and behaviors,
or those of other people involved in the experiment,
as indirect ways of signaling their level
of empathic functioning to the raters.
Physiological responses tend to be captured
by elaborate electronic equipment that has
been physically connected to the subject's
body.
Researchers then draw inferences about that
person's empathic reactions from the electronic
readings produced (e.g. Levenson and Ruef,
1992; Leslie et al., 2004).
Bodily or "somatic" measures can be looked
upon as behavioral measures at a micro level.
Their focus is upon measuring empathy through
facial and other non-verbally expressed reactions
in the empathizer.
These changes are presumably underpinned by
physiological changes brought about by some
form of "emotional contagion" or mirroring
(e.g. Levenson and Ruef, 1992*; Leslie et
al., 2004*).
It should be pointed out that these reactions,
whilst appearing to reflect the internal emotional
state of the empathizer, could also, if the
stimulus incident lasted more than the briefest
period, be reflecting the results of emotional
reactions that are based upon more pieces
of thinking through (cognitions) associated
with role-taking ("if I were him I would feel
...").
Paper-based indices involve one or more of
a variety of methods of responding.
In some experiments, subjects are required
to watch video scenarios (either staged or
authentic) and to make written responses which
are then assessed for their levels of empathy
(e.g. Geher, Warner and Brown, 2001); scenarios
are sometimes also depicted in printed form
(e.g. Mehrabian and Epstein, 1972).
Measures also frequently require subjects
to self-report upon their own ability or capacity
for empathy, using Likert-style numerical
responses to a printed questionnaire that
may have been designed to tap into the affective,
cognitive-affective or largely cognitive substrates
of empathic functioning.
Some questionnaires claim to have been able
to tap into both cognitive and affective substrates
(e.g. Davis, 1980).
More recent paper-based tools include The
Empathy Quotient (EQ) created by Baron-Cohen
and Wheelwright which comprises a self-report
questionnaire consisting of 60 items.
For the very young, picture or puppet-story
indices for empathy have been adopted to enable
even very young, pre-school subjects to respond
without needing to read questions and write
answers (e.g. Denham and Couchoud, 1990).
Dependent variables (variables that are monitored
for any change by the experimenter) for younger
subjects have included self reporting on a
7-point smiley face scale and filmed facial
reactions (Barnett, 1984).A certain amount
of confusion exists about how to measure empathy.
These may be rooted in another problem: deciding
what empathy is and what it is not.
In general, researchers have until now been
keen to pin down a singular definition of
empathy which would allow them to design a
measure to assess its presence in an exchange,
in someone's repertoire of behaviors or within
them as a latent trait.
As a result, they have been frequently forced
to ignore the richness of the empathic process
in favor of capturing surface, explicit self-report
or third-party data about whether empathy
between two people was present or not.
In most cases, instruments have unfortunately
only yielded information on whether someone
had the potential to demonstrate empathy (Geher
et al., 2001)*.
Gladstein (1987) summarizes the position noting
that empathy has been measured from the point
of view of the empathizer, the recipient for
empathy and the third-party observer.
He suggests that since the multiple measures
used have produced results that bear little
relation to one another, researchers should
refrain from making comparisons between scales
that are in fact measuring different things.
He suggests that researchers should instead
stipulate what kind of empathy they are setting
out to measure rather than simplistically
stating that they are setting out to measure
the unitary phenomenon "empathy"; a view more
recently endorsed by Duan and Hill (1996).In
the field of medicine, a measurement tool
for carers is the Jefferson Scale of Physician
Empathy, Health Professional Version (JSPE-HP).The
Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) is the
only published measurement tool to date that
accounts for a multi-dimensional assessment
of empathy.
It comprises a self-report questionnaire of
28 items, divided into four 7-item scales
covering the above subdivisions of affective
and cognitive empathy.The Empathic Experience
Scale is a 30-item questionnaire that was
developed to cover the measurement of empathy
from a phenomenological perspective on intersubjectivity,
which provides a common basis for the perceptual
experience (vicarious experience dimension)
and a basic cognitive awareness (intuitive
understanding dimension) of others' emotional
states.
== Other animals ==
Research has shown that the ability of empathy
in other species is attainable.
Many instances of empathy have been recorded
throughout many species, including (but not
limited to) canines, felines, dolphins, primates,
rats and mice.
In animals, empathy-related responding could
have an ulterior motive such as survival,
the sharing of food, companionship and pack-oriented
mentality.
It is certainly difficult to understand an
animal's intention behind an empathic response.
Many researchers maintain that applying the
term empathy in general to animal behavior
is an act of anthropomorphism.
Researchers Zanna Clay and Frans de Waal studied
the socio-emotional development of the bonobo
chimpanzee.
They focused on the interplay of numerous
skills such as empathy-related responding,
and how different rearing backgrounds of the
juvenile bonobo affected their response to
stressful events, related to themselves (loss
of a fight) and of stressful events of others.
It was found that the bonobos sought out body
contact as a coping mechanism with one another.
A finding of this study was that the bonobos
sought out more body contact after watching
a distressing event upon the other bonobos
rather than their individually experienced
stressful event.
Mother-reared bonobos as opposed to orphaned
bonobos sought out more physical contact after
a stressful event happened to another.
This finding shows the importance of mother-child
attachment and bonding, and how it may be
crucial to successful socio-emotional development,
such as empathic-like behaviors.
Empathic-like responding has been observed
in chimpanzees in various different aspects
of their natural behaviors.
For example, chimpanzees are known to spontaneously
contribute comforting behaviors to victims
of aggressive behavior in natural and unnatural
settings, a behavior recognized as consolation.
Researchers Teresa Romero and co-workers observed
these empathic and sympathetic-like behaviors
in chimpanzees at two separate outdoor housed
groups.
The act of consolation was observed in both
of the groups of chimpanzees.
This behavior is found in humans, and particularly
in human infants.
Another similarity found between chimpanzees
and humans is that empathic-like responding
was disproportionately provided to individuals
of kin.
Although comforting towards non-family chimpanzees
was also observed, as with humans, chimpanzees
showed the majority of comfort and concern
to close/loved ones.
Another similarity between chimpanzee and
human expression of empathy is that females
provided more comfort than males on average.
The only exception to this discovery was that
high-ranking males showed as much empathy-like
behavior as their female counterparts.
This is believed to be because of policing-like
behavior and the authoritative status of high-ranking
male chimpanzees.
It is thought that species that possess a
more intricate and developed prefrontal cortex
have more of an ability of experiencing empathy.
It has however been found that empathic and
altruistic responses may also be found in
sand dwelling Mediterranean ants.
Researcher Hollis studied the Cataglyphis
cursor sand dwelling Mediterranean ant and
their rescue behaviors by ensnaring ants from
a nest in nylon threads and partially buried
beneath the sand.
The ants not ensnared in the nylon thread
proceeded to attempt to rescue their nest
mates by sand digging, limb pulling, transporting
sand away from the trapped ant, and when efforts
remained unfruitful, began to attack the nylon
thread itself; biting and pulling apart the
threads.
Similar rescue behavior was found in other
sand-dwelling Mediterranean ants, but only
Cataglyphis floricola and Lasius grandis species
of ants showed the same rescue behaviors of
transporting sand away from the trapped victim
and directing attention towards the nylon
thread.
It was observed in all ant species that rescue
behavior was only directed towards nest mates.
Ants of the same species from different nests
were treated with aggression and were continually
attacked and pursued, which speaks to the
depths of ants discriminative abilities.
This study brings up the possibility that
if ants have the capacity for empathy and/or
altruism, these complex processes may be derived
from primitive and simpler mechanisms.
Canines have been hypothesized to share empathic-like
responding towards human species.
Researchers Custance and Mayer put individual
dogs in an enclosure with their owner and
a stranger.
When the participants were talking or humming,
the dog showed no behavioral changes, however
when the participants were pretending to cry,
the dogs oriented their behavior toward the
person in distress whether it be the owner
or stranger.
The dogs approached the participants when
crying in a submissive fashion, by sniffing,
licking and nuzzling the distressed person.
The dogs did not approach the participants
in the usual form of excitement, tail wagging
or panting.
Since the dogs did not direct their empathic-like
responses only towards their owner, it is
hypothesized that dogs generally seek out
humans showing distressing body behavior.
Although this could insinuate that dogs have
the cognitive capacity for empathy, this could
also mean that domesticated dogs have learned
to comfort distressed humans through generations
of being rewarded for that specific behavior.
When witnessing chicks in distress, domesticated
hens, Gallus gallus domesticus show emotional
and physiological responding.
Researchers Edgar, Paul and Nicol found that
in conditions where the chick was susceptible
to danger, the mother hens heart rate increased,
vocal alarms were sounded, personal preening
decreased and body temperature increased.
This responding happened whether or not the
chick felt as if they were in danger.
Mother hens experienced stress-induced hyperthermia
only when the chick's behavior correlated
with the perceived threat.
Animal maternal behavior may be perceived
as empathy, however, it could be guided by
the evolutionary principles of survival and
not emotionality.
== See also
