Culture of Empathy Builder: Sylvia Morelli


Sylvia Morelli and Edwin Rutsch: How to Build a Culture of Empathy with Science
		Sylvia Morelli is a Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford Social Neuroscience Lab at Stanford University. In her current research, she examines the neural and behavioral basis of empathy and perspective-taking, as well as the neural responses associated with feeling understood by others. We held a wide ranging discussion about the nature of empathy, and her work on researching it. In a recent study and paper, Sylvia explored the neural and behavioral consequences of feeling understood.
Sylvia says, when we are understood, or empathized with, the pleasure centers of the brain light up. In other words, feeling empathized with feels good. "Behavioral research has demonstrated that feeling understood by others enhances social closeness and intimacy, as well as subjective well-being. In contrast, feeling misunderstood can be harmful to social relationships, leading to loneliness and isolation. However, it is still unclear why and how felt understanding exerts such a powerful impact on both interpersonal and intrapersonal well-being" Sub Conference: Science: Neuroscience

April 2013 - The role of automaticity and attention in neural processes underlying empathy for happiness, sadness, and anxiety. Sylvia A. Morelli and Matthew D. Lieberman
"Although many studies have examined the neural basis of experiencing empathy, relatively little is known about how empathic processes are affected by different attentional conditions. Thus, we examined whether instructions to empathize might amplify responses in empathy-related regions and whether cognitive load would diminish the involvement of these regions.
Thirty-two participants completed a functional magnetic resonance imaging session assessing empathic responses to individuals experiencing happy, sad, and anxious ..."

"Past research suggests that empathy may occur instantaneously and automatically when we recognize another’s emotional state (Preston and De Waal, 2002), even if we are cognitively busy. However, other research suggests that empathy is disrupted when we are distracted and cognitively occupied (Gu and Han, 2007)."

"Despite empathy's importance for promoting social interactions, neuroimaging research has largely overlooked empathy during social experiences. Here, we examined neural activity during empathy for social exclusion and assessed how empathy-related neural processes might relate to subsequent prosocial behavior toward the excluded victim. During an fMRI scan, participants observed one person being excluded by two others, and afterwards sent emails to each of these 'people.'Later, a group of raters assessed how prosocial (eg, ..."