Gwen Dewar
"Can empathy be taught?
Animal studies and brain scan research might make us wonder if feeling empathy is a purely automatic process.
But, as noted above, empathy is really a package of abilities, and there is overwhelming evidence that empathy and empathic concern can be shaped by experience and culture.
On the negative side, experiments suggest that exposure to media violence can desensitize us, blunting the brain's response to second-hand pain (Guo et al 2013). It's also pretty clear that people downgrade the pain they perceive in victims when those victims are
strangers (Meyer et al 2013)
members of another race or outgroup (Xu et al 2009; Hein et al 2010)
or individuals marked by social stigma (Decety et al 2010)."
References:
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