Download or read book Evolution and Empathy written by Milton E. Brener and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2008-05-23 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book applies new scientific research in the fields of biology and genetics to an empirical study of the Greco-Roman civilizations and the European Renaissance. These two periods were remarkable in part because of the dominance of empathy and humanism in the philosophical thought of each era. Both periods were preceded by the influx of many populations and genetic lines, a circumstance this book treats as not coincidental but probably causative. The author cites the expression of new genetic combinations in these periods as evidence that genetic evolution can play a large part in the development of new philosophical concepts, as manifested in these two periods. The author explains that humanistic traits seem to rise and fall in lockstep throughout human history, directly or indirectly correlating with changing genetic underpinnings.
Download or read book Empathy written by Jean Decety and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recent work on empathy theory, research, and applications, by scholars from disciplines ranging from neuroscience to psychoanalysis. There are many reasons for scholars to investigate empathy. Empathy plays a crucial role in human social interaction at all stages of life; it is thought to help motivate positive social behavior, inhibit aggression, and provide the affective and motivational bases for moral development; it is a necessary component of psychotherapy and patient-physician interactions. This volume covers a wide range of topics in empathy theory, research, and applications, helping to integrate perspectives as varied as anthropology and neuroscience. The contributors discuss the evolution of empathy within the mammalian brain and the development of empathy in infants and children; the relationships among empathy, social behavior, compassion, and altruism; the neural underpinnings of empathy; cognitive versus emotional empathy in clinical practice; and the cost of empathy. Taken together, the contributions significantly broaden the interdisciplinary scope of empathy studies, reporting on current knowledge of the evolutionary, social, developmental, cognitive, and neurobiological aspects of empathy and linking this capacity to human communication, including in clinical practice and medical education.
Download or read book The Age of Empathy written by Frans de Waal and published by Crown. This book was released on 2009-09-22 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this thought-provoking book, the acclaimed author of Our Inner Ape examines how empathy comes naturally to a great variety of animals, including humans. Are we our brothers' keepers? Do we have an instinct for compassion? Or are we, as is often assumed, only on earth to serve our own survival and interests? By studying social behaviors in animals, such as bonding, the herd instinct, the forming of trusting alliances, expressions of consolation, and conflict resolution, Frans de Waal demonstrates that animals–and humans–are "preprogrammed to reach out." He has found that chimpanzees care for mates that are wounded by leopards, elephants offer "reassuring rumbles" to youngsters in distress, and dolphins support sick companions near the water's surface to prevent them from drowning. From day one humans have innate sensitivities to faces, bodies, and voices; we've been designed to feel for one another. De Waal's theory runs counter to the assumption that humans are inherently selfish, which can be seen in the fields of politics, law, and finance. But he cites the public's outrage at the U.S. government's lack of empathy in the wake of Hurricane Katrina as a significant shift in perspective–one that helped Barack Obama become elected and ushered in what perhaps could become an Age of Empathy. Through a better understanding of empathy's survival value in evolution, de Waal suggests, we can work together toward a more just society based on a more generous and accurate view of human nature. Written in layman's prose with a wealth of anecdotes, wry humor, and incisive intelligence, The Age of Empathy is essential reading for our embattled times. "An important and timely message about the biological roots of human kindness."—Desmond Morris, author of The Naked Ape
Download or read book Empathy written by Susan Lanzoni and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2018-09-25 with total page 409 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A surprising, sweeping, and deeply researched history of empathy—from late-nineteenth-century German aesthetics to mirror neurons†‹ Empathy: A History tells the fascinating and largely unknown story of the first appearance of “empathy” in 1908 and tracks its shifting meanings over the following century. Despite empathy’s ubiquity today, few realize that it began as a translation of Einfühlung or “in-feeling” in German psychological aesthetics that described how spectators projected their own feelings and movements into objects of art and nature. Remarkably, this early conception of empathy transformed into its opposite over the ensuing decades. Social scientists and clinical psychologists refashioned empathy to require the deliberate putting aside of one’s feelings to more accurately understand another’s. By the end of World War II, interpersonal empathy entered the mainstream, appearing in advice columns, popular radio and TV, and later in public forums on civil rights. Even as neuroscientists continue to map the brain correlates of empathy, its many dimensions still elude strict scientific description. This meticulously researched book uncovers empathy’s historical layers, offering a rich portrait of the tension between the reach of one’s own imagination and the realities of others’ experiences.
Download or read book The Development of Empathy written by Larysa Zhuravlova and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-06-28 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This thought-provoking volume offers psychological perspectives on the formation of empathy and how this determines both antisocial and prosocial behaviors in individuals. It offers a theoretically grounded and empirically proven integrated approach, helping readers gain a holistic understanding of human nature and the need for empathic interaction between people. Larysa Zhuravlova and Oleksiy Chebykin study the evolution of empathy, peculiarities from birth to old age, and its role in the moral and spiritual development of a person. Key sections explore theoretical and methodological principles of empathy research, the genesis and development of human empathy, the phylogenetic preconditions for empathy, the psychological features of the ontogenesis of empathy, the key factors in personality development, and the experimental study of empathy. Considering a vision of a society based on empathic relationships, which could deter discrimination, help resolve environmental issues, harmonize interpersonal relationships, and resolve conflict, this new text is for advanced students of developmental and educational psychology. It will have broad appeal across academic and applied discipines in social and developmental psychology, education, the helping professions, and human development.
Download or read book The Bonobo and the Atheist In Search of Humanism Among the Primates written by Henry Cabot Lodge (Jr.) and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2013-03-25 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Moral behavior does not begin and end with religion but is in fact a product of evolution.
Download or read book Evolution and Empathy written by Milton E. Brener and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2015-05-12 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book applies new scientific research in the fields of biology and genetics to an empirical study of the Greco-Roman civilizations and the European Renaissance. These two periods were remarkable in part because of the dominance of empathy and humanism in the philosophical thought of each era. Both periods were preceded by the influx of many populations and genetic lines, a circumstance this book treats as not coincidental but probably causative. The author cites the expression of new genetic combinations in these periods as evidence that genetic evolution can play a large part in the development of new philosophical concepts, as manifested in these two periods. The author explains that humanistic traits seem to rise and fall in lockstep throughout human history, directly or indirectly correlating with changing genetic underpinnings.
Download or read book The War for Kindness written by Jamil Zaki and published by Crown Publishing Group (NY). This book was released on 2019 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A Stanford psychologist offers a bold new understanding of empathy, revealing it to be a skill, not a fixed trait, and showing, through science and stories, how we can all become more empathetic"--
Download or read book Empathy and Its Development written by Nancy Eisenberg and published by CUP Archive. This book was released on 1990-08-31 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A study of empathy from developmental, biological, clinical, social and historical perspectives, covering topics such as developmental changes and gender differences in empathy, the role of cognition in empathy, the socialization of empathy, its role in child abuse and the measurement of empathy.
Download or read book In the Light of Evolution written by National Academy of Sciences and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2014-05-19 with total page 632 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Humans possess certain unique mental traits. Self-reflection, as well as ethic and aesthetic values, is among them, constituting an essential part of what we call the human condition. The human mental machinery led our species to have a self-awareness but, at the same time, a sense of justice, willing to punish unfair actions even if the consequences of such outrages harm our own interests. Also, we appreciate searching for novelties, listening to music, viewing beautiful pictures, or living in well-designed houses. But why is this so? What is the meaning of our tendency, among other particularities, to defend and share values, to evaluate the rectitude of our actions and the beauty of our surroundings? What brain mechanisms correlate with the human capacity to maintain inner speech, or to carry out judgments of value? To what extent are they different from other primates' equivalent behaviors? In the Light of Evolution Volume VII aims to survey what has been learned about the human "mental machinery." This book is a collection of colloquium papers from the Arthur M. Sackler Colloquium "The Human Mental Machinery," which was sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences on January 11-12, 2013. The colloquium brought together leading scientists who have worked on brain and mental traits. Their 16 contributions focus the objective of better understanding human brain processes, their evolution, and their eventual shared mechanisms with other animals. The articles are grouped into three primary sections: current study of the mind-brain relationships; the primate evolutionary continuity; and the human difference: from ethics to aesthetics. This book offers fresh perspectives coming from interdisciplinary approaches that open new research fields and constitute the state of the art in some important aspects of the mind-brain relationships.
Download or read book Undeniable written by Bill Nye and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2014-11-04 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the host of "Bill Nye the Science Guy" comes an impassioned explanation of how the science of our origins is fundamental to our understanding of the nature of science
Download or read book Empathy written by Sarah Schulman and published by arsenal pulp press. This book was released on 2011-01-15 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Little Sister's Classic: Sarah Schulman's beautiful, subtly transgressive novel about identity, sexual politics, and self-esteem.
Download or read book Mama s Last Hug Animal Emotions and What They Tell Us about Ourselves written by Frans de Waal and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2019-03-12 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times best-selling author and primatologist Frans de Waal explores the fascinating world of animal and human emotions. Frans de Waal has spent four decades at the forefront of animal research. Following up on the best-selling Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?, which investigated animal intelligence, Mama’s Last Hug delivers a fascinating exploration of the rich emotional lives of animals. Mama’s Last Hug begins with the death of Mama, a chimpanzee matriarch who formed a deep bond with biologist Jan van Hooff. When Mama was dying, van Hooff took the unusual step of visiting her in her night cage for a last hug. Their goodbyes were filmed and went viral. Millions of people were deeply moved by the way Mama embraced the professor, welcoming him with a big smile while reassuring him by patting his neck, in a gesture often considered typically human but that is in fact common to all primates. This story and others like it form the core of de Waal’s argument, showing that humans are not the only species with the capacity for love, hate, fear, shame, guilt, joy, disgust, and empathy. De Waal discusses facial expressions, the emotions behind human politics, the illusion of free will, animal sentience, and, of course, Mama’s life and death. The message is one of continuity between us and other species, such as the radical proposal that emotions are like organs: we don’t have a single organ that other animals don’t have, and the same is true for our emotions. Mama’s Last Hug opens our hearts and minds to the many ways in which humans and other animals are connected, transforming how we view the living world around us.
Download or read book Psychology and Neurobiology of Empathy written by Douglas F. Watt and published by Nova Science Publishers. This book was released on 2016 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The scientific study of empathy has exploded in the past decade. Practically all of the relevant sciences from various neuroscientific, psychological and sociological perspectives are now vigorously participating in the emerging conversations about the nature of this essential, pro-social process. Empathy is also emerging as a critical topic in medical education and practice, in terms of its essential relevance for not only the patient physician relationship and bed-side practice, but also for diverse psychiatric problems and syndromes that demonstrate a fundamental disordering of empathy, particularly conduct disorder/sociopathy and autistic spectrum disorders. Consistent with these multidisciplinary trends and interests, this volume reflects contributions from many disciplines and summarises the impact of diverse empathy studies. It also discusses the perspectives of individuals participating in the scientific discussion and scholarship about this critical frontier topic. Contributions in the present volume range from detailed neuroscientific reviews of empathy concepts and processes, to a diversity of evolutionary and developmental perspectives looking at empathy in both phylogeny and ontogeny. Likewise, an examination of how helping and medical disciplines are impacted by such issues are included a wide ranging and comprehensive list of topics that are typically not covered elsewhere in a single volume. In summary, this book covers diverse but related approaches to understanding empathy from evolutionary, developmental, sociological and clinical viewpoints across the life cycle. Various contributors from around the world merge scientific and practical viewpoints in depth to provide readers a comprehensive picture of this emerging field, ranging from basic scientific knowledge to practical medical perspectives. This book should be a valuable resource to those interested in the diverse facets of empathy, from advanced students in psychology and related fields, to educators, to various medical and healthcare professionals. It may appeal to anyone interested not only in scientific studies of empathy, but also those curious about how a deeper understanding of empathy might inform and illuminate problems related to our daily human social interactions and their vicissitudes.
Download or read book The Neuroscience of Empathy Compassion and Self Compassion written by Larry Charles Stevens and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2018-06-19 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Neuroscience of Empathy, Compassion, and Self-Compassion provides contemporary perspectives on the three related domains of empathy, compassion and self-compassion (ECS). It informs current research, stimulates further research endeavors, and encourages continued and creative philosophical and scientific inquiry into the critical societal constructs of ECS. Examining the growing number of electrocortical (EEG Power Spectral, Coherence, Evoked Potential, etc.) studies and the sizeable body of exciting neuroendocrine research (e.g., oxytocin, dopamine, etc.) that have accumulated over decades, this reference is a unique and comprehensive approach to empathy, compassion and self-compassion. Provides perspectives on empathy, compassion and self-compassion (ECS), including discussions of cruelty, torture, killings, homicides, suicides, terrorism and other examples of empathy/compassion erosion Addresses autonomic nervous system (vagal) reflections of ECS Discusses recent findings and understanding of ECS from mirror neuron research Covers neuroendocrine manifestations of ECS and self-compassion and the neuroendocrine enhancement Examines the neuroscience research on the enhancement of ECS Includes directed-meditations (mindfulness, mantra, Metta, etc.) and their effects on ECS and the brain
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Compassion Science written by Emma M. Seppälä and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-09-26 with total page 557 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How do we define compassion? Is it an emotional state, a motivation, a dispositional trait, or a cultivated attitude? How does it compare to altruism and empathy? Chapters in this Handbook present critical scientific evidence about compassion in numerous conceptions. All of these approaches to thinking about compassion are valid and contribute importantly to understanding how we respond to others who are suffering. Covering multiple levels of our lives and self-concept, from the individual, to the group, to the organization and culture, The Oxford Handbook of Compassion Science gathers evidence and models of compassion that treat the subject of compassion science with careful scientific scrutiny and concern. It explores the motivators of compassion, the effect on physiology, the co-occurrence of wellbeing, and compassion training interventions. Sectioned by thematic approaches, it pulls together basic and clinical research ranging across neurobiological, developmental, evolutionary, social, clinical, and applied areas in psychology such as business and education. In this sense, it comprises one of the first multidisciplinary and systematic approaches to examining compassion from multiple perspectives and frames of reference. With contributions from well-established scholars as well as young rising stars in the field, this Handbook bridges a wide variety of diverse perspectives, research methodologies, and theory, and provides a foundation for this new and rapidly growing field. It should be of great value to the new generation of basic and applied researchers examining compassion, and serve as a catalyst for academic researchers and students to support and develop the modern world.
Download or read book The Social Neuroscience of Empathy written by Jean Decety and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2011-01-21 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cross-disciplinary, cutting-edge work on human empathy from the perspectives of social, cognitive, developmental and clinical psychology and cognitive/affective neuroscience. In recent decades, empathy research has blossomed into a vibrant and multidisciplinary field of study. The social neuroscience approach to the subject is premised on the idea that studying empathy at multiple levels (biological, cognitive, and social) will lead to a more comprehensive understanding of how other people's thoughts and feelings can affect our own thoughts, feelings, and behavior. In these cutting-edge contributions, leading advocates of the multilevel approach view empathy from the perspectives of social, cognitive, developmental and clinical psychology and cognitive/affective neuroscience. Chapters include a critical examination of the various definitions of the empathy construct; surveys of major research traditions based on these differing views (including empathy as emotional contagion, as the projection of one's own thoughts and feelings, and as a fundamental aspect of social development); clinical and applied perspectives, including psychotherapy and the study of empathy for other people's pain; various neuroscience perspectives; and discussions of empathy's evolutionary and neuroanatomical histories, with a special focus on neuroanatomical continuities and differences across the phylogenetic spectrum. The new discipline of social neuroscience bridges disciplines and levels of analysis. In this volume, the contributors' state-of-the-art investigations of empathy from a social neuroscience perspective vividly illustrate the potential benefits of such cross-disciplinary integration. Contributors C. Daniel Batson, James Blair, Karina Blair, Jerold D. Bozarth, Anne Buysse, Susan F. Butler, Michael Carlin, C. Sue Carter, Kenneth D. Craig, Mirella Dapretto, Jean Decety, Mathias Dekeyser, Ap Dijksterhuis, Robert Elliott, Natalie D. Eggum, Nancy Eisenberg, Norma Deitch Feshbach, Seymour Feshbach, Liesbet Goubert, Leslie S. Greenberg, Elaine Hatfield, James Harris, William Ickes, Claus Lamm, Yen-Chi Le, Mia Leijssen, Abigail Marsh, Raymond S. Nickerson, Jennifer H. Pfeifer, Stephen W. Porges, Richard L. Rapson, Simone G. Shamay-Tsoory, Rick B. van Baaren, Matthijs L. van Leeuwen, Andries van der Leij, Jeanne C. Watson
