The social neuroscience of empathy

Journal title PSICOBIETTIVO
Author/s Tania Singer, Claus Lamm
Publishing Year 2015 Issue 2015/2
Language Italian Pages 22 P. 87-108 File size 133 KB
DOI 10.3280/PSOB2015-002005
DOI is like a bar code for intellectual property: to have more infomation click here

Below, you can see the article first page

If you want to buy this article in PDF format, you can do it, following the instructions to buy download credits

Article preview

FrancoAngeli is member of Publishers International Linking Association, Inc (PILA), a not-for-profit association which run the CrossRef service enabling links to and from online scholarly content.

The phenomenon of empathy entails the ability to share the affective experiences of others. In recent years social neuroscience made considerable progress in revealing the mechanisms that enable a person to feel what another is feeling. The present review provides an in-depth and critical discussion of these findings. Consistent evidence shows that sharing the emotions of others is associated with activation in neural structures that are also active during the first-hand experience of that emotion. Part of the neural activation shared between self- and other-related experiences seems to be rather automatically activated. However, recent studies also show that empathy is a highly flexible phenomenon, and that vicarious responses are malleable with respect to a number of factors, such as contextual appraisal, the interpersonal relationship between empathizer and other, or the perspective adopted during observation of the other. Future investigations are needed to provide more detailed insights into these factors and their neural underpinnings. Questions such as whether individual differences in empathy can be explained by stable personality traits, whether we can train ourselves to be more empathic, and how empathy relates to prosocial behavior are of utmost relevance for both science and society.

Keywords: Empathy; Social Neuroscience; Pain; fMRI; Anterior Insula (AI); Anterior Cingulate Cortex (ACC); Prosocial Behavior; Empathic Concern; Altruism; Emotion Contagion

  1. Harrison N.A., Singer T., Rotshtein P. et al. (2006) “Pupillary contagion: Central mechanisms engaged in sadness processing”, Soc. Cogn. Affect Neurosci., 1: 5-17
  2. Hatfield E., Cacioppo J.T., Rapson R.L. (1993) “Emotional contagion”, Curr. Dir. Psychol. Sci., 2: 96-99
  3. Hatfield E., Cacioppo J.T., Rapson R.L. (1994) Emotional Contagion, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK
  4. Hatfield E., Rapson R.L., Le Y.L. (2009) “Emotional contagion and empathy”, in J. Decety, W. Ickes (eds.), The Social neuroscience of Empathy, MIT, Cambridge, MA
  5. Hein G., Singer T. (2008) “I feel how you feel but not always: The empathic brain and its modulation”, Curr. Opin. Neurobiol., 18: 153-8
  6. Henson R.N., Rugg M.D. (2003) “Neural response suppression, haemodynamic repetition effects, and behavioural priming”, Neuropsychologia, 41: 263-270
  7. Hoffman M.L. (2000) Empathy and Moral Development, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK
  8. Hutchison W.D., Davis K.D., Lozano A.M. et al. (1999) “Pain-related neurons in the human cingulate cortex”, Nature Neurosci., 2: 403-405
  9. Jabbi M., Swart M., Keysers C. (2007) “Empathy for positive and negative emotions in the gustatory cortex”, NeuroImage, 34: 1744-1753
  10. Jabbi M., Bastiaansen J., Keysers C. (2008) “A common anterior insula representation of disgust observation, experience and imagination shows divergent functional connectivity pathways”, PLoS ONE, 3: e2939
  11. Jackson P., Meltzoff A., Decety J. (2005) “How do we perceive the pain of others? A window into the neural processes involved in empathy”, NeuroImage, 24: 771-779
  12. Jackson P., Brunet E., Meltzoff A. et al. (2006a) “Empathy examined through the neural mechanisms involved in imagining how I feel versus how you feel pain”, Neuropsychologia, 44: 752-761
  13. Jackson P., Rainville P., Decety J. (2006b) “To what extent do we share the pain of others? Insight from the neural bases of pain empathy”, Pain, 125: 5-9
  14. Jenkins A.C., Macrae C.N., Mitchell J.P. (2008) “Repetition suppression of ventromedial prefrontal activity during judgments of self and others”, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 105: 4507-4512 Keysers C., Gazzola V. (2006) “Towards a unifying neural theory of social cognition”, Prog. Brain Res., 156: 379-401
  15. Keysers C., Wicker B., Gazzola V. et al. (2004) “A touching sight: SII/PV activation during the observation and experience of touch”, Neuron, 42: 335-346
  16. Lakin J.L., Chartrand T.L. (2003) “Using nonconscious behavioral mimicry to create affiliation and rapport”, Psychol. Sci., 14: 334-339
  17. Lamm C., Batson C.D., Decety J. (2007a) “The neural substrate of human empathy: Effects of perspectivetaking and cognitive appraisal”, J. Cogn. Neurosci., 19: 42-58
  18. Lamm C., Meltzoff A.N., Decety J. (2009) “How do we empathize with someone who is not like us? A functional magnetic resonance imaging study”, J. Cogn. Neurosci., in press
  19. Lamm C., Nusbaum H.C., Meltzoff A.N. et al. (2007b) “What are you feeling? Using functional magnetic resonance imaging to assess the modulation of sensory and affective responses during empathy for pain”, PLoS ONE, 12: e1292
  20. Lamm C., Porges E., Cacioppo J.T. et al. (2008) “Perspective taking is associated with specific facial responses during empathy for pain”, Brain Res., 1227: 153-161
  21. Lanzetta J.T., Englis B.S. (1989) “Expectations of cooperation and competition and their effects on observers’ vicarious emotional responses”, J. Pers. Soc. Psychol., 56: 543-554
  22. Moody E.J., McIntosh D.N., Mann L.J. et al. (2007) “More than mere mimicry? The influence of emotion on rapid facial reactions to faces”, Emotion, 7: 447-457
  23. Morrison I., Downing P.E. (2007) “Organization of felt and seen pain responses in anterior cingulate cortex”, NeuroImage, 37: 642-651
  24. Morrison I., Lloyd D., di Pellegrino G. et al. (2004) “Vicarious responses to pain in anterior cingulate cortex: Is empathy a multisensory issue?”, Cogn. Affect Behav. Neurosci., 4: 270-278
  25. Niedenthal P.M., Brauer M., Halberstadt J.B. et al. (2001) “When did her smile drop? Facial mimicry and the influences of emotional state on the detection of change in emotional expression”, Cognition and Emotion, 15: 853-864
  26. Ogino Y., Nemoto H., Inui K. et al. (2007) “Inner experience of pain: Imagination of pain while viewing images showing painful events forms subjective pain representation in human brain”, Cerebral Cortex, 17(5): 1139-1146
  27. Ploghaus A., Tracey I., Gati J.S. et al. (1999) “Dissociating pain from its anticipation in the human brain”, Science, 284: 1979-1981
  28. Preston S.D., de Waal F.B.M. (2002) “Empathy: Its ultimate and proximate bases”, Behav. Brain Sci., 25: 1-72
  29. Prinz W. (2005) “Experimental approaches to action”, in J. Roessler, N. Eilan (eds.), Agency and Self-Awareness, Oxford University Press, New York, pp. 165-187
  30. Ridderinkhof K.R., Ullsperger M., Crone E.A. et al. (2004) “The role of the medial frontal cortex in cognitive control”, Science, 306: 443-447
  31. Rolls E.T. (2004) “The functions of the orbitofrontal cortex”, Brain and Cognition, 55: 11-29
  32. Ruby P., Decety J. (2004) “How would you feel versus how do you think she would feel? A neuroimaging study of perspective-taking with social emotions”, J. Cogn. Neurosci., 16: 988-999
  33. Singer T. (2006) “The neuronal basis and ontogeny of empathy and mind reading: Review of literature and implications for future research”, Neurosci. Biobehav. Rev., 30: 855-863
  34. Singer T., Seymour B., O’Doherty J.P. et al. (2004) “Empathy for pain involves the affective but not the sensory components of pain”, Science, 303: 1157-1161
  35. Singer T., Seymour B., O’Doherty J.P. et al. (2006) “Empathic neural responses are modulated by the perceived fairness of others”, Nature, 439: 466-469
  36. Singer T., Leiberg S. (2009) “Sharing the emotions of others: The neural bases of empathy”, in M.S. Gazzaniga (ed.), The Cognitive Neurosciences IV, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA
  37. Smith A. (1976) The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK (Original work published 1759)
  38. Sonnby-Borgstrom M. (2002) “Automatic mimicry reactions as related to differences in emotional empathy”, Scand. J. Psychol., 43: 433-443
  39. Stotland E. (1969) “Exploratory investigations of empathy”, in L. Berkowitz (ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, Academic, New York, pp. 271-314
  40. Stüber K. (2008) “Empathy”, in E.N. Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/empathy/), The Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, Stanford
  41. Underwood B., Moore B. (1982) “Perspective-taking and altruism”, Psychol. Bull., 91: 143-173
  42. Van Baaren R.B., Horgan T.G., Chartrand T.L. et al. (2004) “The forest, the trees, and the chameleon: Context dependence and mimicry”, J. Pers. Soc. Psychol., 86(3): 453-459
  43. van der Gaag C., Minderaa R.B., Keysers C. (2007) “Facial expressions: What the mirror neuron system can and cannot tell us”, Soc. Neurosci., 2: 179-222
  44. Wicker B., Keysers C., Plailly J. et al. (2003) “Both of us disgusted in my insula: The common neural basis of seeing and feeling disgust”, Neuron, 40: 655-664
  45. Zahn-Waxler C., Radke-Yarrow M., Wagner E. et al. (1992) “Development of concern for others”, Develop. Psych., 28: 126-136
  46. Zaki J., Ochsner K.N., Hanelin J. et al. (2007) “Different circuits for different pain: Patterns of functional connectivity reveal distinct network for processing pain in self and others”, Soc. Neurosci., 2: 276-291
  47. Aron A.R., Robbins T.W., Poldrack R.A. (2004) “Inhibition and the right inferior frontal cortex”, Trends Cogn. Sci., 8: 170-177
  48. Avenanti A., Paluello I.M., Bufalari I. et al. (2006) “Stimulus-driven modulation of motor-evoked potentials during observation of others’ pain”, NeuroImage, 32: 316-324
  49. Avenanti A., Minio-Paluello I.M., Bufalari I. et al. (2008) “The pain of a model in the personality of an onlooker: Influence of state-reactivity and personality traits on embodied empathy for pain”, NeuroImage. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2008.08.00
  50. Bargh J.A. (1994) “The Four Horsemen of automaticity: Awareness, efficiency, intention, and control in social cognition”, in R.S. Wyer, T.K. Srull (eds.), Handbook of Social Cognition, Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ, 2nd ed., pp. 1-40
  51. Batson C.D. (1991) The Altruism Question: Toward a Social Psychological Answer,
  52. Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ
  53. Batson C.D. (2009) “These things called empathy”, in J. Decety, W. Ickes (eds.), The Social Neuroscience of Empathy, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA
  54. Batson C.D., Fultz J., Schoenrade P.A. (1987) “Distress and empathy: Two qualitatively distinct vicarious emotions with different motivational consequences”, J. Personality, 55: 19-39
  55. Batson C.D., Early S., Salvarini G. (1997) “Perspective taking: Imagining how another feels versus imagining how you would feel”, Pers. Soc. Psychol. Bull., 23: 751-758
  56. Blakemore S.-J. (2008) “The social brain in adolescence”, Nature Rev. Neurosci., 9: 267-277
  57. Blakemore S.-J., Bristow D., Bird G. et al. (2005) “Somatosensory activations during the observation of touch and a case of vision-touch synaesthesia”, Brain, 128 (Pt 7): 1571-1583
  58. Bufalari I., Aprile T., Avenanti A., Di Russo F. et al. (2007) “Empathy for pain and touch in the human somatosensory cortex”, Cerebral Cortex, 17: 2553-2561
  59. Cacioppo J.T., Berntson G.G., Larsen J.T. et al. (2000) “The psychophysiology of emotion”, in R. Lewis, M. Haviland-Jones (eds.), The Handbook of Emotion, Guilford, New York, 2nd ed., pp. 173-191
  60. Carr L., Iacoboni M., Dubeau M.-C. et al. (2003) “Neural mechanisms of empathy in humans: A relay from neural systems for imitation to limbic areas”, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 100: 5497-5502
  61. Chartrand T.L., Bargh J.A. (1999) “The chameleon effect: The perception-behavior link and social interaction”, J. Pers. Soc. Psychol., 76: 893-910
  62. Cheng Y., Lin C.-P., Yang C.-Y. et al. (2008) “The perception of pain in others modulates somatosensory oscillations”, NeuroImage, 40: 1833-1840
  63. Corbetta M., Patel G., Shulman G.L. (2008) “The reorienting system of the human brain: From environment to theory of mind”, Neuron, 58: 306-324
  64. Craig A.D. (2002) “How do you feel? Interoception: The sense of the physiological condition of the body”, Nat. Rev. Neurosci., 3: 655-666
  65. Craig A.D. (2003) “Interoception: The sense of the physiological condition of the body”, Curr. Opin. Neurobiol., 13: 500-505
  66. Critchley H.D. (2005) “Neural mechanisms of autonomic, affective, and cognitive integration”, J. Comp. Neurol., 493: 154-166
  67. Critchley H.D., Wiens S., Rotshtein P. et al. (2004) “Neural systems supporting interoceptive awareness”, Nature Neurosci., 7: 189-195
  68. Damasio A.R. (1994) “Descartes’ error and the future of human life”, Sci. Am., 271: 144
  69. Davis M.H. (1994) Empathy: A Social Psychological Approach, Boulder, CO: Westview
  70. de Vignemont F., Singer T. (2006) “The empathic brain: How, when and why?”,
  71. Trends Cogn. Sci., 10: 435-441
  72. Decety J., Jackson P.L. (2004) “The functional architecture of human empathy”, Behav. Cogn. Neurosci. Rev., 3: 71-100
  73. Decety J., Grezes J. (2006) “The power of simulation: Imagining one’s own and other’s behavior”, Brain Res., 1079: 4-14
  74. Decety J., Lamm C. (2006) “Human empathy through the lens of social neuroscience”, Scientific World Journal, 6: 1146-1163
  75. Decety J., Lamm C. (2007) “The role of the right temporoparietal junction in social interaction: How low level computational processes contribute to metacognition”, Neuroscientist, 13: 580-593
  76. Decety J., Lamm C. (2009) “The biological basis of empathy”, in J.T. Cacioppo, G.G. Berntson (eds.), Handbook of Neuroscience for the Behavioral Sciences, John Wiley and Sons, New York
  77. Derbyshire S.W.G. (2000) “Exploring the pain ‘neuromatrix’”, Curr. Rev. Pain, 4: 467-477
  78. Dimberg U., Oehman A. (1996) “Behold the wrath: Psychophysiological responses to facial stimuli”, Motivation and Emotion, 20: 149-182
  79. Dinstein I., Hasson U., Rubin N. et al. (2007) “Brain areas selective for both observed and executed movements”, J. Neurophysiol., 98: 1415-1427
  80. Duncan J., Owen A.M. (2000) “Common regions of the human frontal lobe recruited by diverse cognitive demands”, Trends Neurosci., 23: 475-483
  81. Eisenberg N. (2000) “Emotion, regulation, and moral development”, Annu. Rev. Psychol., 51: 665-697
  82. Eisenberg N., Lennon R. (1983) “Sex differences in empathy and related capacities”, Psycholog. Bull., 94: 100-131
  83. Eisenberg N., Strayer J.A. (1987) Empathy and Its Development, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK
  84. Eisenberg N., Fabes R.A., Miller P.A. et al. (1989) “Relation of sympathy and personal distress to prosocial behavior: A multimethod study”, J. Pers. Soc. Psychol., 57: 55-66
  85. Englis B.G., Vaughan K.B., Lanzetta J.T. (1982) “Conditioning of counterempathetic responses”, J. Exp. Soc. Psychol., 18: 375-391
  86. Fan Y., Han S. (2008) “Temporal dynamic of neural mechanisms involved in empathy for pain: An event-related brain potential study”, Neuropsychologia, 46: 160-173
  87. Gallese V. (2003a) “The manifold nature of interpersonal relations: The quest for a common mechanism”, Philos. Trans. R Soc. Lond. B Biol. Sci., 358: 517-
  88. 528 Gallese V. (2003b) “The roots of empathy: The shared manifold hypothesis and the neural basis of intersubjectivity”, Psychopathol., 36: 171-180
  89. Goldman A. (2006) The Simulating Mind, Oxford University Press, NewYork
  90. Grill-Spector K., Malach R. (2001) “fMR-adaptation: A tool for studying the functional properties of human cortical neurons”, Acta Psychol. (Amst.), 107: 293-321
  91. Gu X., Han S. (2007) “Attention and reality constraints on the neural processes of empathy for pain”, NeuroImage, 36: 256-267
  92. Han S., Fan Y., Mao L. (2008) “Gender difference in empathy for pain: An electrophysiological investigation”, Brain Res., 1196: 85-93

  • Empathy Vincenzo Auriemma, pp.89 (ISBN:978-3-031-38859-0)

Tania Singer, Claus Lamm, La neuroscienza sociale dell’empatia in "PSICOBIETTIVO" 2/2015, pp 87-108, DOI: 10.3280/PSOB2015-002005