2012 -
The Roots of Empathy Found in Rats
A collaboration by University of Chicago neuroscientists Inbal Bartal,
Jean Decety, and Peggy
Mason has produced groundbreaking findings on empathy and helping
behavior. Published in
Science, the paper, entitled Empathy and Pro-Social Behavior in Rats,
finds that rats repeatedly
work to free their trapped cagemates, motivated by empathy for their
distress.
Class:
The Social Brain and Empathy
The experience of empathy is a powerful interpersonal phenomenon and a
necessary means of everyday social communication. It facilitates
parental care of offspring. It enables us to live in groups and
socialize. It paves the way for the development of moral reasoning and
motivates prosocial behavior. Empathy is an essential cornerstone of the
patient-doctor relationship. It is associated with better outcomes and
fewer malpractice claims. For a very long time, empathy has been a focus
of speculation in philosophy. But in the past decade, empathy research
has blossomed into a vibrant and multidisciplinary field of study, which
includes developmental psychology, evolutionary biology, social
psychology, and affective social neuroscience.
A leading University of Chicago researcher on empathy is
launching a project to understand psychopathy by studying criminals in
prisons. Jean Decety, the Irving B. Harris Professor in Psychology and
Psychiatry, has received a $1.6 million grant from the National
Institute of Mental Health to use fMRI technology to examine the neural
circuitry of criminal psychopaths.
