Why do we have empathy

There are a number of benefits of being able to experience empathy:. Not everyone experiences empathy in every situation. Some people may be more naturally empathetic in general, but people also tend to feel more empathetic towards some people and less so towards others. Some of the different factors that play a role in this tendency include:. Research has found that there are gender differences in the experience and expression of empathy, although these findings are somewhat mixed.

Women score higher on empathy tests, and studies suggest that women tend to feel more cognitive empathy than men. At the most basic level, there appear to be two main factors that contribute to the ability to experience empathy: genetics and socialization.

Essentially, it boils down the age-old relative contributions of nature and nurture. Parents pass down genes that contribute to overall personality, including the propensity toward sympathy, empathy, and compassion. On the other hand, people are also socialized by their parents, peers, communities, and society. How people treat others as well as how they feel about others is often a reflection of the beliefs and values that were instilled at a very young age.

A few reasons why people sometimes lack empathy include cognitive biases, dehumanization, and victim-blaming. Sometimes the way people perceive the world around them is influenced by a number of cognitive biases. For example, people often attribute other people's failures to internal characteristics, while blaming their own shortcomings on external factors.

These biases can make it difficult to see all the factors that contribute to a situation and make it less likely that people will be able to see a situation from the perspective of another. Many also fall victim to the trap of thinking that people who are different from them also don't feel and behave the same as they do.

This is particularly common in cases when other people are physically distant. For example, when they watch reports of a disaster or conflict in a foreign land, people might be less likely to feel empathy if they think that those who are suffering are fundamentally different from themselves. Sometimes when another person has suffered a terrible experience, people make the mistake of blaming the victim for their circumstances.

This is the reason why victims of crimes are often asked what they might have done differently to prevent the crime. This tendency stems from the need to believe that the world is a fair and just place. People want to believe that people get what they deserve and deserve what they get—it fools them into thinking that such terrible things could never happen to them. The term empathy was first introduced in by psychologist Edward B. Several different theories have been proposed to explain empathy.

Studies have shown that specific areas of the brain play a role in how empathy is experienced. More recent approaches focus on the cognitive and neurological processes that lie behind empathy. Researchers have found that different regions of the brain play an important role in empathy, including the anterior cingulate cortex and the anterior insula. Research suggests that there are important neurobiological components to the experience of empathy.

Functional MRI research also indicates that an area of the brain known as the inferior frontal gyrus IFG plays a critical role in the experience of empathy. Some of the earliest explorations into the topic of empathy centered on feeling what others feel allows people to have a variety of emotional experiences. The philosopher Adam Smith suggested that sympathy allows us to experience things that we might never otherwise be able to fully feel. This can involve feeling empathy for both real people and imaginary characters.

Experiencing empathy for fictional characters, for example, allows people to have a range of emotional experiences that might otherwise be impossible. Sociologist Herbert Spencer proposed that sympathy served an adaptive function and aided in the survival of the species. Empathy leads to helping behavior, which benefits social relationships.

Humans are naturally social creatures. Claus Lamm, University of Vienna, investigates the processes that regulate firsthand pain and those that cause empathy for pain through numerous studies on the influence of painkillers. On the neural level, Lamm said, fMRI scans showed that people in the placebo group displayed lower levels of brain activity in the anterior insula and mid cingulate cortex in both cases.

These results were further confirmed in another study that compared participants who received only the painkiller placebo with those who received both the placebo and naltrexone, an opioid antagonist that prevents the brain from regulating pain.

To do so, participants were presented with visuo-tactile stimulation that was either congruent or incongruent with that of a partner under fMRI. In an incongruent pair, for example, one participant might be presented with an image of a rose and be touched with something that felt like a rose, while the other was shown a slug and touched with a slimy substance.

Researchers are working to unite neuroscientific and psychological perspectives on feelings, empathy, and identity, says Piotr Winkielman. Rebecca Saxe Massachusetts Institute of Technology said her work with developmental psychology confirms this trend.

Furthermore, Saxe and her colleagues found that while these networks were more distinct in children who were able to pass an explicit-false-belief task e. There does appear to be some functional organization of social process, Saxe said, with gradually increasing specialization as the child ages.

Brian D. On the surface, neuroforecasting sounds like a concept that would be right at home in the world of Philip K. Knutson Stanford University , but someday it could play a very real role in the future of economics. Before participants chose to buy a product, increased activity in the NAcc and mPFC was paired with a decrease in the insula, while the reverse was true of trials in which participants chose not to make a purchase.

Knutson said he accepted this challenge by applying his neuroanaylsis to large-scale online markets such as Kiva and Kickstarter. Knutson asked 30 participants to rate the appeal and neediness of loan requests on Kiva and found that posts with photos of people displaying a positive affect were most likely to trigger the increased NAcc activity that caused them to make a purchase — or in this case, a loan.

Two similar studies involving Kickstarter campaigns also suggested a link between NAcc activity and aggregate market activity. People have been found to show greater activation in the amygdala when viewing fearful faces of their own race, for example, and less activation in the ACC when watching a needle prick the face of someone of a different race. The cultural mixing that accompanies globalization can heighten these responses, Hong added. In one study, she and her colleagues found that melding cultural symbols e.

These responses can also be modulated by cultural practices, Hong said. Further research into this empathy gap should consider not just the causal relationship between neural activation and behavior, she said, but the societal context in which they take place.

There is some fantastic research going on in empathy. Empathy is a competency not a motivation. Empathy can be used for both benevolent but also malevolent motives. And psychopaths have a competency for empathy but what they lack is mammalian caring motivation. Insofar as part of the reproductive strategy of the psychopath is to exploit others and even threaten them then having a brain that turns off distress to the suffering they cause would be an advantage to them.

Psychopaths are much more likely to be prepared to harm others to get what they want. Mammalian caring motivation, when guided by higher cognitive processes and human empathy gives rise to compassion. Without empathy compassion would be tricky but without compassion you can still have empathic competencies. Gilbert, P. Compassion as a social mentality: An evolutionary approach.

In: P. Gilbert ed. Compassion: Concepts, Research and Applications. A: Affect or emotions. Learning to identify what another is feeling and naming it can help us better understand their behavior or the message behind their words.

T: Tone. She suggests matching the volume and tone of the person you are talking to and, generally, using a soothing tone to make someone feel heard. However, when a person is communicating outrage, moderating your tone—rather than matching theirs—is more appropriate. H: Hearing. Y: Your response. We could help them to build on those skills through role modeling and giving them opportunities to flex their empathy muscles.

Of course, as children grow, other relationships become important, too. They can also directly teach empathy through literature, simulations, and other techniques. Riess describes other instances where empathy is crucial—for example, when we encounter people who are different from us, when we ourselves have made a mistake and need self-empathy, in our workplaces, and even within government. Still, the importance of empathy in everyday life cannot be oversold.

By understanding how it works and can be augmented in ourselves and our children, we have one of the key tools to cultural transformation, Riess believes. Jill Suttie, Psy. She received her doctorate of psychology from the University of San Francisco in and was a psychologist in private practice before coming to Greater Good.