Empathy

Question 1

Define empathy

Answer 1

Set of stored knowledge and beliefs. Own experience allows us to see what others are experiencing

Question 2

Define empathic accuracy

Answer 2

Certainty of knowing what others are feeling

Question 3

Explain imitation

Answer 3

Automatic component of social interaction. E.g. yawning, stretching, nodding. Some hardwired in humans

Question 4

List the 4 things mirror neurons do

Answer 4

Precise, goal-oriented, not in absence of agent, intention detector

Question 5

Describe the 2 men theoretical framework of empathy

Answer 5

Theory theorists - using intuitive theories about others to infer internal states, Simulation theorists - imagine and infer from own experience

Question 6

Define the 8 related, distinct phenomena

Answer 6

Knowing someone else’s internal state, adopting neural response, feeling as someone else feels, projection into another’s situation, imagining how others think/feel, imagining yourself in their place, feeling distress at their suffering, feeling for another’s distress

Question 7

State the 2 main concepts of empathy

Answer 7

Cognitive empathy and empathic accuracy

Question 8

Describe the main difference between feeling distress at someone else’s suffering and feeling for another’s distress

Answer 8

Main difference is where the distress is focused as 7 is distressed BY other’s suffering and 8 is distressed FOR someone else e.g. pity, compassion, sympathetic distress

Question 9

List the 3 key points regarding empathy

Answer 9

Emotional contagion, perspective taking, identification

Question 10

Is the mirror system enough to create empathy?

Answer 10

Bridge to empathy - important for simulation theory of empathy

Question 11

Describe the perception-action model of empathy

Answer 11

Mimicked representation, not activity. Empathy as a process - perception of individual’s state, activation of perceiver’s representation, activation of consequences/response

Question 12

Describe emotional synchrony

Answer 12

Lead to hysteria being spread. Adaptive value - protective or constraining to group.

Question 13

State the 4 prosocial effects of imitation

Answer 13

Rapport, empathy, social self-concept, affiliation goals

Question 14

Explain multiple determinism

Answer 14

Innate stimulus features, acquired stimulus features, simulations/mental imagery

Question 15

Describe the nature of contagion (2)

Answer 15

Individual elicits response in one or more others, similar or complementary emotions

Question 16

Provide examples of emotional contagion (6)

Answer 16

Mimicking, synchronisation, vocalisations, facial expressions, postures,movements

Question 17

How do we infer mental states?

Answer 17

Theory theory and false beliefs and development trajectory (attention in others, intentionality, false belief)

Question 18

List experimental techniques used to look at empathy (3)

Answer 18

Exaggeration/inhibition, tricked into expression, unconscious manipulation

Question 19

Describe the role of the medial prefrontal cortex in empathy

Answer 19

Activation in all mentalising tasks, social cognition, uniquely human

Question 20

The role of the temporal poles in empathy according to Frith & Frith is what?

Answer 20

Activation in language/semantic memory tasks. Generation of current socio-emotional schemes

Question 21

Name the effects of impaired empathy

Answer 21

Autism - impact on social interaction, restricted activities/interests, no clear biological markers

Question 22

The temporo-parietal junction does what?

Answer 22

Mentalizing tasks, biological motion, agents and observable actions

Question 23

Explain Decety & Jackson’s 3 part model

Answer 23

Shared representation of self and other-based on perception-action coupling. Awareness of self-other as similar, but separate. Capacity for mental flexibility - enabling shifts in perspective/self-regulation

Question 24

List the 3 things in anthropomorphism

Answer 24

Animals, objects and concepts