Title: The empathic brain: how, when and why?
Authors : Frederique De Vignemont, Tania Singer
Citation:
Frederique De Vignemont, Tania Singer. The empathic brain: how, when and why?. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, Elsevier, 2006, 10 (10), pp.435-441.
Notes:
Says, empathy is automatic via mirror neurons.
"we question the assumption of automatic empathy and propose several factors that might modulate when and to what extent we feel empathy." basically what will block empathy.
They are supporters of sympathy, "we suggest that empathy per se does not suffice to induce prosocial behavior but that empathy has to be turned into sympathy to motivate helping."
They say you can feel into the experience of someone (empathize), you feel something in them that make you want to stop feeling them, and want to avoid and withdraw instead of empathize more deeply.
Abstract
Recent imaging results suggest that individuals automatically share the emotions of others when exposed to their emotions. We question the assumption of the automaticity and propose a contextual approach, suggesting several modulatory factors that might influence empathic brain responses. Contextual appraisal could occur early in emotional cue evaluation, which then might or might not lead to an empathic brain response, or not until after an empathic brain response is automatically elicited.
We propose two major roles for empathy; its epistemological role is to provide information about the future actions of other people, and important environmental properties. Its social role is to serve as the origin of the motivation for cooperative and prosocial behavior, as well as help for effective social communication.
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