Empathic neural responses are modulated by the perceived fairness of others

By Tania Singer, Ben Seymour, John P. O'Doherty, Klaas E. Stephan, R. J. Dolan, ChrisD . Frith. Nature, 2006

1,685 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The neural processes underlying empathy are a subject of intense interest within the social neurosciences. However, very little is known about how brain empathic responses are modulated by the affective link between individuals. We show here that empathic responses are modulated by learned preferences, a result consistent with economic models of social preferences. We engaged male and female volunteers in an economic game, in which two confederates played fairly or unfairly, and then measured brain activity with functional magnetic resonance imaging while these same volunteers observed the confederates receiving pain. Both sexes exhibited empathy-related activation in pain-related brain areas (fronto-insular and anterior cingulate cortices) towards fair players. However, these empathy-related responses were significantly reduced in males when observing an unfair person receiving pain. This effect was accompanied by increased activation in reward-related areas, correlated with an expressed desire for revenge. We conclude that in men (at least) empathic responses are shaped by valuation of other people's social behaviour, such that they empathize with fair opponents while favouring the physical punishment of unfair opponents, a finding that echoes recent evidence for altruistic punishment.

Subfields: Cognitive Neuroscience, Social Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a9adbab6dae28c23a205786c725a988649d155ef

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Cognitive Neuroscience

In Social Psychology

Citations in the corpus

The Direct-Perception Model of Empathy: a Critique (2011, background): “... interpretation of this finding as showing the existence of “a common mechanism for understanding the emotion in others and feeling the same emotions in ourselves.” Now, advocates of the direct-perception modelofempathymight argue thatthisfinding isevidenceinfavor of the second-personal interacti”
Politics, schadenfreude, and ingroup identification: The sometimes happy thing about a poor economy and death (2009, background): “…schadenfreude is more likely to arise when people deserve their misfortunes (Feather, 2008; Feather & Naim, 2005; Feather & Sherman, 2002; Portmann, 2000; Singer et al., 2006; van Dijk et al., 2005) and when misfortunes happen to people who are disliked (Hareli & Weiner, 2002; Heider, 1958).”
The Physiology of Moral Sentiments (2011, neutral): “For example, responses to another’s pain, and to facial expressions indicating pain, locate empathy within the observer’s pain matrix: the anterior cingulate cortex, brainstem, cerebellum, and the anterior insula (Hein and Singer, 2008; Singer et al., 2004, 2006; Decety et al., 1997).”
Are Gender Differences in Empathy Due to Differences in Emotional Reactivity (2011, result): “The gender difference in empathy toward friends and enemies found in the present study appears to be at odds with results reported by Singer et al. (2006). Using fMRI, they found that women and men showed an equally strong empathic response in pain-related areas of the brain when they saw a “fair” c”
A structural neural deficit in adolescents with conduct disorder and its association with lack of empathy (2007, background): “There is increasing evidence for a crucial involvement of anterior insula in the experience of empathy (Carr et al., 2003; Jackson et al., 2005, 2006; Singer et al., 2004, 2006; Wicker et al., 2003), but little is known about the role of this structure in aggressive behaviour.”
The Social Neuroscience of Empathy (2009, background): “…fMRI literature, which has so far demonstrated shared somatosensory activations only in secondary somatosensory cortex (e.g., Jackson et al. 2006a; Singer et al. 2006) or in parts of primary somatosensory cortex that are not somatotopically specific for the affected body part (Lamm et al. 2007b).”
Empathy constrained: Prejudice predicts reduced mental simulation of actions during observation of outgroups. (2010, background): “Perception–action-coupling, thus, is essential for a number of forms of interpersonal sensitivity, including emotional contagion, empathy, theory of mind (Singer et al., 2006; Vignemont & Singer, 2006) and action and intention 0022-1031/$ - see front matter 2010 Elsevier Inc.”
Understanding individual compassion in organizations: the role of appraisals and psychological flexibility (2011, positive): “Furthermore, in a study of confederates playing an economic game and then receiving pain, the neural responses associated with empathy for the sufferer were modulated (in men at least) by the degree to which the sufferer was appraised as being fair in the game (Singer et al., 2006).”
Social cognitive neuroscience: a review of core processes. (2007, background): “From childhood through adulthood, increasingly complex and domain-specific theories form (Reeder 1993), although this increasing sophistication does not always yield greater accuracy (Gilbert & Malone 1995).”
The neuronal basis and ontogeny of empathy and mind reading: review of literature and implications for future research. (2006, background): “In the experiments undertaken so far (Wicker et al., 2003; Keysers et al., 2004; Singer et al., 2004a, 2006; Morrison et al., 2004), subjects were neither required to make any explicit judgment about the feelings of the other person (for an exception see Avenanti et al., 2005, commented on by…”
Attention and reality constraints on the neural processes of empathy for pain (2007, background): “Because empathic activity is modulated by social relations between individuals (Singer et al., 2006), participants in the experiment of Singer et al. (2004) might pay attention to their loved ones even though no explicit tasks were assigned to their partners’ pain.”
Is emotional contagion special? An fMRI study on neural systems for affective and cognitive empathy (2008, background): “However, a recent study has suggested that at least spontaneous empathetic responses towards disliked versus liked persons are also qualitatively different in males and females (Singer et al., 2006).”
The social brain? (2007, background): “We feel less empathy, in terms of subjective report and brain activity, if someone who has just treated us unfairly receives pain, especially if we are male (Singer et al. 2006).”
The Neural Substrate of Human Empathy: Effects of Perspective-taking and Cognitive Appraisal (2007, result): “This confirms several recent fMRI studies ( Jackson et al., 2005, 2006; Singer et al., 2004, 2006; Botvinick et al., 2005; Morrison et al., 2004), which indicate that ACC and anterior insula activity during the observation of pain is related to the affective aspects of pain processing rather than…”