Empathic Response to Stress Flashcards
Define emotional empathy [ALWAYS GIVE DEFINITION BEFORE DISCUSSING EMPATHY]
Edgar 2012 - Occours when one individual (observer) detects the emotional response of another individual (demonstrator) in response to a stimulus, triggering a matching emotional response in the observer
Define cognitive empathy [ALWAYS GIVE DEFINITION BEFORE DISCUSSING EMPATHY]
Edgar 2012 - Occours when the matching emotional response results from the observers comprehending the demonstrators perspective, even if this differs from its own
Which kinds of behaviours are shown in cognitive empathy?
Helping and consolidation
Which animals have been shown to demonstrate cognitive empathy?
Great apes
Give an example of cognitive empathy. What was the flaw with this study?
De Waall 1996 - Chimpanzees subjects to serious aggression are contacted more frequently by a third party.
Stress physiology was not measured so a slightly subjective account of “serious aggression.”
What is mental state attribution?
Fully adopting anthers perspective
Requires mentalization
- Great apes may have it
What did Allport 1968 state?
The process of empathy remains a riddle in social psychology
What is the ultimate and proximate reasoning for demonstration of empathy?
Ultimate basis - enables group living, mother offspring bond - evolved because adaptive
Proximate basis - Percpetion-Action Model (PAM)
Mirror neurones
Hormones
Who proposed the Perception-Action Model (PAM) of empathy? What is it?
Preston and De Waall 2002
- Perception of an affective state in another activates the observers own neural substrates for the corresponding state
- Implies there is no one specific area of the brain responsible for “empathy”
Who discovered mirror neurones? What are they?
Rizzolatti 1990s in Macaques
- Cells in the brain fire not only when we perform an action but when we watch another perform the same action
- may have a role in empathy, theory of mind, imitation and language
When may mirror neurones be found to be dysfunctional?
Autistic people (autistic spectrum disorder ASD)
Other than primates, which animal has demonstrated similar mirror neurone function?
Swamp swallow 2008 when listening to another bird sing
How may empathy be controlled hormonally?
- Oxytocin
- Socially motivated learning
- Men given OT, empathy levels = untreated women
- Causal relationship between OT and affiliative behaviour in prairie voles and primates
- BUT conflicting results in mice - injection with OT did not ^ approach behaviour towards a conspecific in pain
(Hurlemann 2010)
What 4 features modulate empathy?
- Familiarity/similarity
- similar morphology/same sex - ^ empathy - Past experience
- humans have higher empathy to others being socked if they have been shocked previously - Learning
- Association of empathic response with a stimulus (ASD treatment?) - Cue salience
- Attention and empathy should be focused towards tumuli that require a response.
- Imparied senses may v likelihood of empathic response
How does empathic processing differ between sexes?
Schulte-Rutheris 2008
- women rely on mirror neurones during empathic response
- men rely on cognitive strategy during empathic processing
How does empathic processing differ between social and non-social species?
Not known.. even non-social come together to mate and provide parental care so may still be present
- Social and non-social voles provide potential for study
What is social buffering?
Amelioration of demonstrator distress caused by the presence of an observer
How may anecdotal accounts of animal empathy be explained?
Ulterior motives
Give 4 ways of measuring empathy
- Behavioural response
- Time budget / approach / proximity / condition suppression - Physiological response
- Stress parameters eg. HR - Pain modulation
- Exaccerbated pain responses? - Preference tests
- Do animals avoid stimuli/environments associate with stressed conspecifics?
Give a study supposedly showing empathy in rats. What are its limitations?
=Church 1959
- Conditioned suppression when a conspecific being shocked
- Greater decrease in lever pressing when individual had previously been shocked themselves
> Limitations may be due to peripheral features of shock equipment eg. Noise/smell of shock
= Rice 1962, 1964
- Rats highly motivated to press a bar to lower a conspecific that had been hoisted up (need for social contact? bored?)
- BUT no motivation to press a bar and stop electric shock - Fear response only shown
What is pro-social behaviour?
Actions intended to benefit another
What were the flaws with the 2011 pro-social behaviour in rats study?
- Rat in box not distressed
- Could be need for social contact/inquistative
- Show no signs of fear of box after demonstrator released
Give a study showing maternal response to pain and distress in rats.
Walker 2003
- Rat pups groomed more if pups were subjected to pain when removed from cage than when subjected to control
Give a study showing modulation of pain behaviour in mice
Langford 2006
- Mice showed ^ pain behaviours if injected in the presence of a CAGEMATE who had PREVIOUSLY been injected with the same pain inducing substance
- compared with in isolation and with a non-injects conspecific
Outline a study on stress in farm animals. What are the limitations?
Annil 1996, 1997
Observer animals HR monitor and catheter for stress indicators
Harnessed and witnessed a conspecific being stunned and slaughtered
- Apparently no effect on heart rate or blood parameters
> Ceiling effect? Parameters already so high cannot increase?
- Another study = are ewe affect by castration and tail docking of their lambs? - don’t know results
What did Edgar 2011 study?
Mother hens affected by distress of chicks
- Significant ^HR and ^alert an vocalising
- v Peripheral temperarure and v preening
What are the two components of emotion? Which is usually studied?
Arousal and valence
- Arousal usually studied using stress physiology etc.
Valence most important - defining feature of all states considered to be emotional or affective (Russell 2003)
What are the potentially confiding variables of empathy studies?
- observer animals restraint/invasive measurement of parameters -> distress
- Observer stressed directly by apparatus or same cause of conspecific distress
- Difficult to tell apart own distress due to testing procedure and empathic response
