A Social-Neuroscience Perspective on Empathy

By Jean Decety, Philip L. Jackson. 2006

857 citations recorded by the source corpus.

In recent years, abundant evidence from behavioral and cognitive studies and functional-imaging experiments has indicated that individuals come to understand the emotional and affective states expressed by others with the help of the neural architecture that produces such states in themselves. Such a mechanism gives rise to shared representations, which constitutes one important aspect of empathy, although not the sole one. We suggest that other components, including people's ability to monitor and regulate cognitive and emotional processes to prevent confusion between self and other, are equally necessary parts of a functional model of empathy. We discuss data from recent functional-imaging studies in support of such a model and highlight the role of specific brain regions, notably the insula, the anterior cingulate cortex, and the right temporo-parietal region. Because this model assumes that empathy relies on dissociable information-processing mechanisms, it predicts a variety of structural or functional dysfunctions, depending on which mechanism is disrupted.

Subfields: Cognitive Neuroscience, Psychiatry and Mental health, Social Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/3c6a8b9766dcb863140ac77ce9323cb77abbbd79

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Citations in the corpus

Emotional mimicry: why and when we mimic emotions (2014, background): “…with the recent research showing that specific pre-motor neurons, called mirror neurons, fire not only when an action is performed but also when the same action is observed (Decety & Jackson, 2006; Gallese & Goldman, 1998; Goldman & Sripada, 2005; Rizzolatti & Craighero, 2004; Wicker et al., 2003).”
Self-compassion, empathy, and helping intentions (2014, background): “It is often divided into three major components: ‘(1) an affective response to another person, which often entails sharing that person’s emotional state, (2) the cognitive ability to take the perspective of another person, and (3) the ability to regulate emotions’ (Decety & Jackson, 2006, p. 54).”
It’s All About the Self (2016, background): “Perspective taking—the active and intentional attempt to imagine another’s perspective—additionally represents a pivotal component in the many conceptualizations of empathy (e.g., Batson, 2009; Decety & Jackson, 2006; Zaki & Ochsner, 2012).”
Teacher Empathy: A Model of Empathy for Teaching for Student Success (2019, background): “…empathy in higher education, multiple definitions of empathy have been generated by researchers from various disciplines, including health care (Hojat et al, 2001), social-neuroscience (Decety and Jackson 2006), philosophy (Stueber 2006), psychology (Batson 2009), and social work (Segal 2011).”
Venturing for Others with Heart and Head: How Compassion Encourages Social Entrepreneurship (2012, background): “De Dreu, C. K. W. 2006. Rational self-interest and other orientation in organizational behavior: A critical appraisal and extension of Meglino and Korsgaard (2004). Journal of Applied Psychology, 91: 1245–1252.”
The QCAE: A Questionnaire of Cognitive and Affective Empathy (2009, result): “This distinction between cognitive and emotional or affective components of empathy has been endorsed by many other authors ( Decety & Jackson, 2006 ; Gini, Albiero, Benelli, & Altoe, 2007 ; Jolliffe & Farrington, 2006; Lawrence, Shaw, Baker, Baron-Cohen, & David, 2004; Rankin et al, 2005; Young, G”
The Development of Empathy : How , When , and Why (2010, background): “For example, the anterior insula and anterior cingulate cortex are activated when viewing disgust expressions, while the amygdala is activated when observing faces displaying fear or distress (Decety & Jackson 2006).”
Putting the altruism back into altruism: the evolution of empathy. (2008, background): “F or p er so na l u se o nl y. ANRV331-PS59-11 ARI 4 November 2007 20:27 (Carr et al. 2003, Decety & Chaminade 2003a, Decety & Jackson 2006, de Gelder et al. 2004, Singer et al. 2004), such as activation of the anterior ventral insula both when we are disgusted and when we see another person…”
Empathy: Gender effects in brain and behavior (2014, background): “…that includes a number of functional processes, including emotion recognition, emotional contagion, and emotion priming (for recent reviews, see Decety and Jackson, 2006; Singer, 2006; Walter, 2012), as well as the abilities to react to the internal states of others, and to distinguish…”
Transportation into a story increases empathy, prosocial behavior, and perceptual bias toward fearful expressions (2012, background): “It is generally agreed that empathy consists of affective and cognitive components (Davis, 1983; Decety & Jackson, 2006; Vingemont & Singer, 2006).”
The Many Faces of Empathy: Parsing Empathic Phenomena through a Proximate, Dynamic-Systems View of Representing the Other in the Self (2012, neutral): “…state that true empathy cannot occur when there is personal distress, and/or when the degree of self– other overlap is complete or the observer does not recognize that the caught affect originated in the target (e.g., see Batson & Shaw, 1991; Decety & Jackson, 2006; Lamm, Batson, & Decety, 2007).”
Social neuroscience evidence for dehumanised perception (2009, background): “The MPFC along with STS and precuneus also reliably activates in tasks requiring empathy (Decety & Jackson, 2004, 2006, see Figure 1).”
Basic Emotions, Natural Kinds, Emotion Schemas, and a New Paradigm (2007, background): “Knowledge of specific discrete emotions or emotion schemas is necessary for empathy, which is usually defined as the ability to respond to the unique emotion experience of another person (Decety & Jackson, 2006; Hoffman, 2000).”