Empathy is the recognition and understanding of the states of mind, beliefs, desires, and, particularly, emotions of others. It is often characterized as the ability to "put oneself into another one's shoes", or experiencing the outlook or emotions of another being within oneself; a sort of emotional resonance. Belief is assent to a proposition. ... Desire can refer to: Desire (album), a Bob Dylan album. ... Emotions are essentially impulses that move an organism to action, originating automatic reaction behavior which has been adapted through evolution as a survival need. ...

Background

While the ability to imagine oneself as another person is a sophisticated imaginative process that only fully develops later on in life, the roots of this ability are probably innate. Human capacity to recognize the emotions of others is related to our imitative capacities, and seems to be grounded in the innate capacity to associate the bodily movements and facial expressions we see with the proprioceptive feelings of those same movements or expressions. Humans also make the same immediate connection between tone of voice and inner feeling. Hence, by looking at the facial expressions or bodily movements of others, or hearing their tone of voice, we are able to get an immediate sense of how they feel on the inside. We experience this as anything from understanding, to directly experiencing or feeling their emotion (say, sadness or anger), rather than just noting the behavioral symptoms of that emotion. Proprioception (from Latin proprius, meaning ones own and perception) is the sense of the position of parts of the body, relative to other neighbouring parts of the body. ...

More fully developed empathy requires more than simply recognizing another's emotional state. Since emotions are typically directed towards objects or states of affairs (either real or imaginary), the empathiser first requires some idea of what that object might be. Next, the empathiser must determine how the emotional feeling will significantly affect the way in which s/he perceives the object. In other words, the empathizer must determine the aspects of the object upon which to focus. Hence s/he must not only recognize the object toward which the other is directed, but also then recognize the bodily feeling, and then add these components together. The empathiser has to somehow find a way into the loop where perception of the object generates feeling, and feeling affects the perception of the object. This process occurs before taking in account the character of the other person as well as their wider non-psychological context (such as being short or being a lawyer).

In general two methods of empathy are possible: either I simulate the pretend beliefs, desires, character traits and context of the other and see what emotional feelings this leads to; or I start by simulating the emotional feeling I directly perceive and then look around for a suitable reason for this to fit to. Either way, full empathetic engagement is supposed to help me understand and anticipate the behavior of the other. Additionally, other subtle methods may be available, depending on the purpose of the empathic act.

Empathy may be painful: seeing the pain of others, especially as broadcasted by mass media, can cause temporary or permanent clinical depression; a phenomenon which is sometimes called weltschmerz. Mass media is a term used to denote, as a class, that section of the media specifically conceived and designed to reach a very large audience (typically at least as large as the whole population of a nation state). ... Clinical depression is state of sadness or melancholia that has advanced to the point of being disruptive to an individuals social functioning and/or activities of daily living. ... Weltschmerz (from the German language meaning world-pain or world-weariness, see wiktionary entry) is a term coined by the German author Jean Paul and denotes the kind of feeling experienced by someone who understands that the physical reality can never satisfy the demands of the mind. ...

Contrasting empathy to other phenomena

One must be careful not to confuse empathy with either sympathy, emotional contagion or mind reading. Sympathy is the feeling of compassion for another, the wish to see them better or happier, often described as "feeling sorry" for someone. Emotional contagion is when a person (especially a child or a person in a mob) identifies with strong emotions others are showing and becomes subject to the same emotions themselves. Mind reading is a controversial paranormal phenomenon, which differs in that empathy is based (so far as is presently known) not upon the paranormal but upon sophisticated processing of what is seen and heard in the usual way. ... Emotional contagion is the tendency for individuals to express and feel emotions that are similar to and influenced by those of others. ... Mind reading has several meanings: A paranormal practice of telepathy An emerging field in neuroscience where thought processes are monitored using brain imaging An interpersonal communication term that refers to a particular level in a relationship where one person thinks he or she knows the other well enough to be... The term MOB (all caps) may have several meanings, depending on context: Rice Universitys Marching Owl Band (The MOB) Man over board of a ship or boat Money Over Bitches, the group MOB, made up of Techniec and Eastwood who are both signed as solo artists to The Black... Anomalous phenomena are phenomena which are observed and for which there are no suitable explanations in the context of a specific body of scientific knowledge, e. ...

Psychological perspectives

Some experts (psychologists, psychiatrists, and other scientists) believe that not all humans have an ability to feel empathy or perceive the emotions of others. For instance, Autism and related conditions such as Asperger's syndrome are often (but not always) characterized by an apparent reduced ability to empathize with others. The interaction between empathy and autism spectrum disorders is a complex and ongoing field of research, and is discussed in detail below. A psychologist is a scientist who studies psychology, the systematic investigation of the human behaviour and mental processes. ... Psychiatry is a branch of medicine that studies and treats mental and emotional disorders (see mental illness). ... A scientist is a man who is an expert in at least one area of science and who uses the scientific method to do research. ... Autism is classified as a neurodevelopmental disorder that manifests itself in markedly abnormal social interaction, communication ability, patterns of interests, and patterns of behavior. ... Asperger described his patients as little professors. Aspergers syndrome (AS, or the more common shorthand Aspergers), is characterized as one of the five pervasive developmental disorders, and is commonly referred to as a form of high functioning autism. ...

According to one hypothesis, this absence might be related to an absence of theory of mind (i.e., the ability to model another's world view using either a theory-like analogy between oneself and others, or the ability to simulate pretend mental states and then apply the consequences of these simulations to others). The phrase theory of mind is used in several related ways. ... An abstract model (or conceptual model) is a theoretical construct that represents physical, biological or social processes, with a set of variables and a set of logical and quantitative relationships between them. ...

In contrast, psychopaths are seemingly able to demonstrate the appearance of sensing the emotions of others with such a theory of mind, often demonstrating care and friendship in a convincing manner, and can use this ability to charm or manipulate, but they crucially lack the sympathy or compassion that empathy often leads to. Empathy certainly does not guarantee benevolence. The same ability may underlie schadenfreude (sadism), the malicious enjoyment of another's pain. Flogging demonstration at Folsom Street Fair 2004. ...

Moreover, some research suggests that people are more able and willing to empathize with those most similar to themselves. In particular, empathy increases with similarities in culture and living conditions. We are also more likely to empathize with those we interact more frequently (See Levenson and Reuf 1997 and Hoffman 2000: 62).

Even more, people can empathize with animals. As such, empathy is thought to be a driving psychological force behind the animal rights movement (an example of sympathy), whether or not using empathy is justified by any real similarity between the emotional experiences of animals and humans. The Great Ape Project is campaigning for a Declaration on Great Apes. ...

Empathy and Autism Spectrum Disorders

A common source of confusion in analyzing the interactions between empathy and ASD is that the apparent lack of empathy may mask at least two other underlying causes:

• Excessive sensitivity or "overwhelm," may be a cause of early learned suppression.
• Failure to demonstrate empathy can arise from inability (or not knowing how) to express empathy to others, as opposed to difficulty feeling it internally [1].

The former of these is cited by Phoebe Caldwell, an author on ASD, who writes:

What is clear is that, while people on the spectrum may not respond easily to external gestures/sounds, they do respond most readily if the initiative they witness is already part of their repertoire. This points to the selective use of incoming information rather than absence of recognition. It would appear that people with autism are actually rather good at recognition and imitation if the action they perceive is one that has meaning and significance for their brains.

As regards the failure of empathetic response, it would appear that at least some people with autism are oversensitive to the feelings of others rather than immune to them, but cannot handle the painful feed-back that this initiates in the body, and have therefore learnt to suppress this facility. ("Letters", London Times, Dec 30 2005)

In this context, a higher level of empathy is sometimes reported by individuals with mild or high functioning Asperger's syndrome, especially to animals and to other deeply held emotions in people - anecdotally this may more often be so with "high-functioning" individuals, or possibly, the strength of negative empathic feelings with people might itself have been a contributing cause of retreat into self. Self might refer to various different things: Look up self on Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

Empathy in animals

Some students of animal behavior claim that empathy is not restricted to humans as the definition implies. Examples include dolphins saving humans from drowning or from shark attacks, and a multitude of behaviors observed in primates, both in captivity and in the wild. See, for instance, the popular book The Ape and the Sushi Master by Frans de Waal. Ethology is the scientific study of animal behavior considered as a branch of zoology. ... Genera See article below. ... gay ... [[{{{diversity_link}}}|Diversity]] {{{diversity}}} Binomial name {{{binomial}}} Trinomial name {{{trinomial}}} Type Species {{{type_species}}} Families * 15, See classification [[Image:{{{range_map}}}|{{{range_map_width}}}|]] Synonyms {{{synonyms}}} A primate is any member of the biological order Primates, the group that contains all lemurs, monkeys, apes, and humans. ... Popular science book The Ape and the Sushi Master, by Frans de Waal, is an overview of animal behavior and psychology, with emphasis on primates. ... Primatologist Frans de Waal is the C.H. Chandler professor of Primate Behavior in the Emory University psychology department and Director of the Living Links Center. ...

Organic basis

Research in recent years has focused on possible brain processes as concomitant with empathy.

Functional imaging has recently been employed to investigate the functional anatomy of empathy: Farrow et al (Neuroreport 2001; 12:2433-2438) found that empathic judgments activated left superior frontal gyrus, orbitofrontal gyrus, precuneus, left anterior middle temporal gyrus and inferior frontal gyrus. Components of this circuit may be dysfunctional in psychopathy (Tunstall N., Fahy T. and McGuire P. in: Guide to Neuroimaging in Psychiatry, Eds. Fu C et al, Martin Dunitz: London 2003). Furthermore, the discovery of mirror neurons in monkeys that fire both when the creature watches another perform an action as well as when they themselves perform it presents a possible neural mechanism for mapping others' feelings onto one's own nervous system. A mirror neuron is a neuron which fires both when performing an action and when observing the same action performed by another (possibly conspecific) creature. ...

In Bower (2005) the function of these mirror cells was further investigated. They may be related to awareness of the goal-directedness of actions. These neurons "may be responsible for understanding the intention of action in other people," Kiyoshi Nakahara and Yasushi Miyashita, both of the University of Tokyo School of Medicine said in a note which accompanies the Bower action.

Development of empathy

By the age of 2, children normally begin to display the fundamental behaviors of empathy by having an emotional response that corresponds with another person. Sometimes, toddlers will comfort others or show concern for them as early as 24 months of age. Also during the second year, toddlers will play games of falsehood or "pretend" in an effort to fool others, and this requires that the child know what others believe before he or she can manipulate those beliefs (Feldman, 1997). A male toddler A female toddler A toddler is a child between the ages of one and three years old, although some may consider a toddler to be between two and five. ...

Other aspects

In addition to the above use, the term empathy is also used by some people to signify their heightened or higher sensitivity to the emotions and state of others. This, reportedly, can lead to both positive aspects such as a more skilled instinct for what is "behind the scenes" with people, but also to difficulties such as rapid over-stimulation, overwhelm or stress caused by an inability to protect oneself from this so-called 'pick-up'. Such people may for example find crowds stressful simply due to picking up what is often described as "white noise" or multiple emotions as they pass through it, a phenomenon not to be confused with agoraphobia and sometimes informally known as crowd-sickness. Stimulation is the irritating action of various agents (stimuli) on muscles, nerves, or a sensory end organ, by which activity is evoked; especially, the nervous impulse produced by various agents on nerves, or a sensory end organ, by which the part connected with the nerve is thrown into a state... Stress (roughly the opposite of relaxation) is a medical term for a wide range of strong external stimuli, both physiological and psychological, which can cause a physiological response called the general adaptation syndrome, first described in 1936 by Hans Selye in the journal Nature. ... A crowd is a group of people, also known (especially in the United States) as a mob. ... Agoraphobia is a form of anxiety disorder. ... A crowd is a group of people, also known (especially in the United States) as a mob. ...

Empathy in this sense is ascribed by such people to various mechanisms. These include simply more sophisticated subconscious processing of sensory cues or stronger emotional feedback than the norm, (i.e. the normal human experience but more so), and therefore fit within present models. Some people, perhaps due to synesthesia, believe it instead to be a direct emotional sense or a feel for others' "energy". For other uses, including Audio feedback, see Feedback (disambiguation) In cybernetics and control theory, feedback is a process whereby some proportion or in general, function, of the output signal of a system is passed (fed back) to the input. ... An abstract model (or conceptual model) is a theoretical construct that represents physical, biological or social processes, with a set of variables and a set of logical and quantitative relationships between them. ... Note: there is also an industrial music band called Synæsthesia. ...

This aspect of empathy is not usually clinically recognized, however anecdotally is reported to be not uncommon. Such people often call themselves empaths, although unlike fictional uses of the word, no supernatural meaning is usually implied.

A recurrent theme of discussion on such websites relates to the impact upon individuals, and therefore also methods (including mental practices, emotional processes and ritual) which anecdotally can help reduce the intensity of empathic reactions to others' feelings to a more bearable level (informally called 'shielding' or emotional detachment). There are a number of uses for the word shield: A shield is a protective device, meant to intercept attacks. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ...

Fiction

The empathic process is exploited to a certain extent in all kinds of fiction, thus we may identify deeply with characters appearing in books, plays or films (see especially Currie 2004). The Three Graces, here in a painting by Sandro Botticelli, were the goddesses of charm, beauty, nature, human creativity and fertility in Greek mythology. ...

In some works of science fiction and fantasy, empathy is understood to be a paranormal or psychic ability to sense the emotions of others, as opposed to telepathy, which allows one to perceive thoughts as well. A person who has that ability is called an "empath" or "telempath." Science fiction is a form of speculative fiction principally dealing with the impact of imagined science and technology, or both, upon society and persons as individuals. ... Fantasy is a genre of art, literature, film, television, and music that uses magic and other supernatural forms as a primary element of either plot, theme, setting, or all three. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Parapsychology is the study of the evidence of mental awareness or influence of external objects without interaction from known physical means. ... Telepathy, from the Greek τηλε, tele, distant, and πάθεια, patheia, feeling, is the claimed innate ability of humans and other creatures to communicate information from one mind to another, without the use of extra tools such as speech or body language. ...

Examples of this in television and motion pictures include the character Deanna Troi from Star Trek: The Next Generation, and the demon Lorne of the American television show Angel. Also, as well as a race of magical creatures on Charmed, main characters Prue (temporarily) and Phoebe Halliwell also become empaths. Due to the Charmed universe's effect of emotions on magic, this trait allows Pheobe to 'rebound' a creature's magic against them. In Superman, Lex Luthor's younger sister is also an empath. The character of Vincent in Beauty and the Beast is constantly empathically connected with his love, Catherine, and is considered by many fans to have at least a partial empathic sensing of others around him, fading with distance. Film refers to the celluloid media on which movies are printed. ... Commander Deanna Troi is a fictional character in the Star Trek universe, played by the actress Marina Sirtis in the series Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG), Star Trek: Voyager, Star Trek: Enterprise (the latter two only in guest appearances), and in several Star Trek films. ... Charmed is a U.S. television series by Aaron Spelling about three sisters who are powerful good witches known throughout the supernatural community as The Charmed Ones. ... Superman, aka the Man of Steel, is a fictional character and superhero who first appeared in Action Comics #1 in 1938, and has for several decades been one of the most popular and well-known comic book icons. ... Lex Luthor is a fictional character, a DC Comics supervillain and archenemy of Superman. ... Beauty and the Beast is an American television series, originally broadcast in 1987, centered around the relationship between Catherine (Linda Hamilton), an attorney who lived in New York City, and Vincent (Ron Perlman), a gentle, but lion-faced beast who belongs to a society of misfits and outcasts dwelling in...

In printed fiction, several characters in the book To Ride Pegasus by Anne McCaffrey are telempathic, and are also able to broadcast chosen emotions. The book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick (on which the film Blade Runner was based) directly explores a number of issues surrounding empathy and the emotions, most notably a test which distinguishes humans from androids based on involuntary empathic reactions; but also a religion based on collective experience and empathy for animals, as well as the 'mood organ' (a device which arouses any chosen emotion). At the 63rd World Science Fiction Convention in Glasgow, August 2005 Anne Inez McCaffrey (born April 1, 1926) is an American science fiction author best known for her Dragonriders of Pern series. ... Cover of the 1977 Grenada edition of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is a 1968 science fiction novel by Philip K. Dick. ... Philip K. Dick Philip Kindred Dick (December 16, 1928 — March 2, 1982), often known by his initials PKD, was an American science fiction writer and novelist who changed the genre profoundly. ... Blade Runner is a 1982 science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott, which depicts a dystopic Los Angeles in November 2019. ...

See also

• Sympathy
• Pity
• Introjection
• Psychology
• Antisocial personality disorder
• Folk psychology
• Theory of mind
• Emotional intelligence
• Emotional intelligence tests
• John D. Mayer
• Peter Salovey
• Daniel Goleman
• Machiavellian intelligence
• Replicant (Fiction)

... Pity is an emotion, usually resulting from an encounter with an unfortunate, injured, or pathetic person or creature. ... Introjection is a psychological process where the subject replicates in itself behaviors, attributes or other fragments of the surrounding world, especially of other subjects. ... Psychology (ancient Greek: psyche = soul or mind, logos/-ology = study of) is an academic and applied field involving the study of mind and behavior. ... It has been suggested that Psychopathy be merged into this article or section. ... Folk psychology (sometimes called naïve psychology) is the psychological theory implicit in our everyday ascriptions of others actions, and includes concepts such as belief (he thinks that Peter is wise), desire (she wants that piece of cake), fear (Alex is afraid of spiders) and hope (she hopes that he... The phrase theory of mind is used in several related ways. ... Emotional Intelligence, also called EI or EQ, describes an ability, capacity, or skill to (beg) perceive, assess, and manage the emotions of ones self, of others, and of groups. ... This page is dealing especially about emotional intelligence tests done on paper or on a computer. ... John D. Mayer is a psychologist at the University of New Hampshire. ... Peter Salovey is a psychologist currently working at Yale University. ... Daniel Goleman (born 1946, Stockton, California) is the best-selling author of several books that describe Emotional Intelligence. ... In cognitive science and evolutionary psychology, Machiavellian intelligence (political intelligence or social intelligence), is the capacity of an entity in successful political engagement with social groups. ... A replicant is a bioengineered or biorobotic being created in the film Blade Runner. ...

External links

• Dictionary of the History of Ideas: Empathy
• Empathy: the spirituality of counseling by Judy Harrow
• On Empathy, essay on empathy as the outcome of socialization
• Empathy as a basic brain function (New Scientist, 2004)
• To hear a definition of empathy given by Marshall Rosenberg (Nonviolent communication), through a parallel between empathy and surf.
• The Empathy Symbol Just like the peace symbol, there is now an empathy symbol.

Nonviolent Communication (NVC) is a concept developed by Marshall Rosenberg that seeks to allow people to communicate with others effectively and with compassion. ...

Bibliography

• Corazza, Eros (2004). "Empathy, Imagination, and Reports". Chapter 7 in Reflecting the Mind - Indexicality and Quasi-Indexicality. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
• B. Bower "Goal-oriented brain cells: neurons may track action as a prelude to empathy" in Science News, April 30, 2005
• Currie, Greg (2004). "Anne Brontë and the uses of imagination". Chapter 9 in Arts and Minds. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
• Feldman, R.S. (1997). Development across the life span. Uppersaddle river, NJ: Prentice Hall.
• Goldie, Peter (2000). The Emotions, A Philosophical Exploration. Clarendon Press, Oxford.
• Hoffman, M. L. (1978), "Empathy, Its Development and Prosocial Implications", in C. B. Keasey (ed.), Nebraska Symposium on Motivation, 25: 169-218.
• Hoffman, M. L. (2000), Empathy and Moral Development (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
• Levenson, R. W. and Reuf, A. M. (1997), "Physiological Aspects of Emotional Knowledge and Rapport", in W. Ickes (ed.), Empathic Accuracy (New York: Guilford), 44-72.