Lecture 23 - Empathy

Question 1

Empathy

Answer 1

The drive to identify another person’s emotions and
thoughts, and to respond to these with an appropriate
emotion” (Baron-Cohen, 2002)

• “[empathy occurs] when the observation or imagination of
affective states in another induces shared states in the
observer” (de Vignemont & Singer, 2006)

• “An affective response more appropriate to someone else’s situation than to one’s own” (Hoffman, 1987)

• i.e., empathy is an emotional reaction in an observer to the
affective state of another individual (Blair 2005)

• “Empathy subsumes a variety of dissociable
neurocognitive processes: cognitive (ToM), motor
(perception-action), and emotional empathy (Blair, 2005)

Question 2

Three components of empathy

Answer 2

(1) Mentalizing
Cognitive empathy
Perspective taking
Theory of mind

(2) Prosocial concern
Empathetic motivation
Empathetic concern

(3) Experience sharing
Affective empathy
Shared self-other representations
Emotional contagion

Question 3

(1) Emotional sharing/contagion

Answer 3

Like yawning

We often imitate others without realizing it

This starts when we are babies

Question 4

Experience sharing/neural resonance

Answer 4

Simulation theory
• we understand other’s behavior by recreating the mental process in
ourselves that, if carried out, would produce that behavior
• We use our own recreated mental states to simulate the mental
states of others
• Neural resonance
Tendency to engage overlapping neural systems when experiencing a given internal state and observing another in that state

Observation of someone else in an emotional state activates a representation off that state in an observer along with automatic and somatic processes

Question 5

Imitation & perception-action linkage

Answer 5

• Performing an act after, and by virtue of, seeing it
performed by another
• How can we account for perception-action similarity?

• Ideomotor framework
• Representation of goal state generates action designed to achieve
goal

• Sound familiar?
• Bargh’s automotive model: thinking about goal activates the action representation necessary to achieve goal—strength via experience

• E.g., Habits as knowledge structures

Like the reaction time to bike as a word following a goal prime for getting somewhere was much less in regular bikers than non regular bikers

Question 6

Experience sharing/neural resonance

Mirror neurons version

Answer 6

• Intentional guidance extends to perceptual guidance of action
• When we see someone performing an action that activates goal and associated motor plan
• May involve putative “human mirror neuron system”

Question 7

Mirror neural system

Answer 7

MNS explains how is sensory input
transformed into motor output

We see an action and the mirror neurons activate allowing us to experience something similar internally

Question 8

Experience sharing/neural resonance

Hebbian version

Answer 8

• Intentional guidance extends to perceptual guidance of action
• When we see someone performing an action that activates goal and associated motor plan
• May involve putative “human mirror neuron system”

BUT we do not need a special system for this, could just be Hebbian learning

• Hebbian association learning:

• when we perform an action, the neurons involved (i.e., seeing,
hearing, feeling) fire together at the same time

• Such learning would make many neurons excitable when we see
others perform action (Keysers; also see Heyes)

Question 9

• “Involuntary breach of individual separateness” (Langer)

Answer 9

We walk around as separate but when we see someone doing something and we experience it too (via mirror neurons or Hebbian learning) we suddenly shard their experience

This allows us to get into each other’s heads and potentially, makes us more likely to help

Question 10

II. MENTALIZING

Answer 10

Another part of empathy

Question 11

Theory of Mind

Explanation

Sally Anne task

Answer 11

• Deliberate attempts to
• Reason about (other’s) mental states
• Attribute mental states to others
• E.g., “John went (must have gone) into the kitchen because he’s hungry”
• Task stimuli based on narratives rather than affective state (e.g., pain)
• “If X believes Y, how will he/she behave in situation Z?”
• Sally-Ann task: what would Sally think/do? (vs. imitation of affect

(she puts something somewhere and leaves, someone else moves it, where does she look for it on her return)

Question 12

Reading the mind in the eyes test

Answer 12

People look at eyes

Try to recognize emotion

Are quite good at it

Question 13

Inferences about mental states

2 ways to do it

Answer 13

1. Theory-theory (rule based)
   • “we store, as explicit knowledge, a set of principles relating to
   mental states and how these states govern behavior”
   • E.g., “Sally feels (must feel) bad because the other girls laughed at
   her shoes”

This is essentially having a dictionary of events with rules about how this event must make people feel

2. Use self-knowledge to understand others (self-referential)
   • Both approaches deployed, probably depending on
   situation

Question 14

Inferences about mental states

Choosing the method

Answer 14

If you personally experienced it you will probably use self-knowledge, if not, dictionary

Question 15

Neuroanatomy

Answer 15

• MPFC, TPJ (temp parietal junct), medial parietal cortex:
• Mentalizing (put self in others shoes/compute own mental state when predicting others’ mental state)
• Projection/imagine the future
• Retrospection/imagine the past
• Spatial navigation

All of these activate the above brain regions using them to do the below process

• Functional overlap:
• “Conjure up world other than one you currently inhabit

Question 16

Challenges to accurate mentalizing

Answer 16

1. Would target respond like you?
   • How well do you know target?
   • Only works/works better if target is similar to self
2. Need to accurately predict how you would respond in that situation
   • How well do you know yourself?
   • Not well! Typically we get this wrong
3. How well can you suppress your current mental state?

If you are happy and they are sad, can you suppress your happiness? We also need to be better able to turn off overwhelming emotional contagion to better help people

Question 17

Experience sharing vs. mentalizing

Answer 17

Dissociate routes to empathy:
• Processes engage different neural systems

They use totally different regions of the brain

• Dissociate routes to empathy:
• Processes engage different neural systems
• Lesions to one system do not impact other system

• Isolated systems or interactive? We have no idea

Question 18

III. PROSOCIAL CONCERN

Answer 18

The motivational part of empathy

Question 19

Prosocial motivation

Answer 19

• Motivation to alleviate other’s suffering
• Sympathy and compassion
• Empathic concern
• Helping BEHAVIOR
• How does experiencing sharing or mentalizing predict prosocial motivation?
• Other-oriented perspective taking causes me to help
• OR, Viewing you in pain causes me to suffer and I help you (to alleviate my suffering?)

Question 20

Is empathy wholly altruistic (self-less)?

What does evidence show

Answer 20

• Am I helping to alleviate my pain or b/c of genuine
concern for your welfare?
• EC predicts truly altruistic action (Batson et al 1991,
1988…)
• Feelings of compassion, tenderness, softheartedness,
and sympathy

RESEARCH HAS SHOWN

• Empathetic concern is not not due to desire to escape:
• aversive arousal
• social disapproval
• guilt, shame or sadness or to increase vicarious joy

BUT

• Can we really distinguish self and other? (Cialdini et al 1997)
• Self-concept fluid
• Inclusion of other in self (if we incorporate others into the self and then help them, is this altruism or self-help?
• Helping other is helping self

• Kinship, friendship, similarity and familiarity increase empathic
concern
• If people locate parts of themselves in others, helping may not be truly selfless

• Three studies: effect of empathic concern on helping behavior eliminated when oneness (self-other overlap) considered

When you do not have a lot of overlap the relationship between empathetic concern and helping is weaker

• Regardless of whether empathy is truly altruistic, we appear to have evolved to be empathic creatures in that “we have an
emotional stake in the other’s welfare” (de Waal, 2008)

Question 21

Empathy not unique to higher order

primates

Answer 21

• Mice are capable of emotion contagion (Langford et al 2006)
• Recall: kinship, friendship, similarity and familiarity increase
empathic concern
• Exposure to cagemate (but not stranger) increases pain
behaviors/sensitivity (pain behavior influenced by neighbors status)
• Rats are capable of empathy too (Bartal, Decety, & Mason,
2011)…

Can they do more advanced empathy?

Rats will suppress fear to help a trapped cage mate

This suppression is a key link with higher level empathy

Question 22

WHY DOES EMPATHY
BREAKDOWN?
An can we increase empathy?

Answer 22

Good q innit

Question 23

Closeness, familiarity & similarity

Answer 23

• “Hardwired” to care more for kin/in-group
• Social closeness influence how richly we can represent
target’s internal states (Preston & De Wall)
• We have harder time projecting with dissimilar others b/c
we cannot apply self-knowledge to other’s situation (Mitchell)
• Social distance influences our desire to know other (Zaki)
• Strangers are stressful…

Question 24

Challenges to accurate mentalizing

Effort!

Answer 24

1. Would target respond like you?
   • How well do you know target?
   • Only works/works better if target is similar to self
2. Need to accurately predict how you would respond in
   that situation
   • How well do you know yourself?
   • Not well!
3. How well can you suppress your current mental state?
   Mentalizing with dissimilar others not as automatic/more
   difficult—EFFORTFUL!

Question 25

Reducing social stress elicits empathy for pain in mouse and human strangers

Answer 25

• Emotion contagion (“state-matching”) is core feature of
empathy
• Empathy (for another’s physical pain) stronger among
familiars
• What is it about familiarity that elicits contagion/state-matching?
• What is it about strangers that undermines contagion/statematching?

• H: Interacting with strangers is stressful

Question 26

Reducing social stress elicits empathy for pain in mouse and human strangers

(Mice Study)

Answer 26

G1 cage mates
G2 strangers

Individual pain experience
DV emotional pain behaviour

Lower cortisol in familiar vs strangers

Question 27

Reducing social stress elicits empathy for pain in mouse and human strangers

(Human Study)

Answer 27

Play guitar hero

G1 alone
G2 with stranger (increases familiarity)

Cold pressor test

Compared to stranger, G2 showed more contagion

Question 28

Reducing social stress elicits empathy for pain in mouse and human strangers

(Metyrapone)

Answer 28

Higher cort during 
stranger interactions
• Metyrapone blocks 
synthesis of cortisol
• Metyrapone pretreatment facilitated 
contagion in mice and 
human stranger dyads
• No effect on pain 
sensitivity per se

Blocks the stress response and therefore there is increased emotional contagion

Question 29

Autism spectrum disorders

Answer 29

• Psychiatric disorder marked by prominent impairments in
social functioning and social cognition
• Theory of mind/perspective taking, and imitation impaired, but maybe not empathy per se (or at least that’s more variable)
• Social skills training focuses on re-directing attention to
relevant social cues, e.g.,

Less mirror neurons and are worse at imitation

Question 30

Training an autist

Answer 30

1. Look at the person÷s face and 
eyes
• What are they are looking at?
• What might they be thinking? 
• What might they be feeling?
2. Ask yourself:
What would I be thinking if I was that person?
• -Use the w ord ”I‘

Focus on vocal intonation

Results of this simple intervention help

Usually ASD show no PFC activation but after this they do

Question 31

Psychopathy

Answer 31

• Lack of empathy or remorse, superficially charming,
untruthful and insincere, lacking in remorse and judgment
• 1960s-1970s maximum security Oak Ridge Division of the Mental Health Center in Ontario was site treatment program to “alter personality” so they would be less likely to commit violent acts when released

• Intensive program (80 hrs/week) to promote development of cooperation, insight, and empathy

• Measured violent recidivism rates among psychopaths
and non-psychopaths…

Among normals = good result, less recidivism

Among psychos much more

Was teaching them to be better at manipulation

Question 32

CAVEAT

Answer 32

Used transcranial stimulation

One ASD dude got divorced cos he suddenly got better at empathy and was repelled by his depressed wife

Question 33

Summary

Answer 33

• Empathy is a complex, multifaceted, psychological
construct
• Involves 1) experience sharing, 2) mentalizing, and 3) prosocial behavior
• Likely that 1 and 2 are fairly distinct but both contribute to ultimate behaviors
• Future work needed to investigate the interactions
between these two processes
• Self-other overlap and distinction also important
• Empathy can be costly but nonetheless we seem
hardwired to “have an emotional stake in the other’s welfare” (de Waal, 2008)