Empathy or ability to understand and share emotions

The empathy to understand the joys and pain of others, is a mechanism that involves the nervous system and can explain many of the attitudes of people. Even those who did not develop the problems of relationship, so a good education a child can play an important role in the acquisition of this ability. 

Jean Decety, Professor in the Department of Psychology, University of Chicago in the area of Social Cognitive Neuroscience, led a series of investigations to understand how human beings react when seeing another suffer and thus better able to understand the mechanism of empathy, ie the condition of individual "to the place of another." 

Decety results presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science that was held in Chicago on 12 and February 16 last. "Empathy is a natural process, a mechanism with which to share both positive and negative emotions, "said Jean Decety a search for the reunion in Chicago. 

According to the expert and could see his team at the University of Chicago, where an individual is faced with a person suffering from pain, the neural circuits involved in the process of personal suffering in the viewer activates the situation. 

He stressed that the body's response is key to understanding empathy, shows that since humans are able to share anxiety. However, this condition means to share and understand the thoughts of others in relation to oneself, ie able to differentiate between itself and the pain of others. Is the ability to assess the emotional state and needs of others in reference to the personal. 

Therefore, according Decety, healthy individuals manage "a sense of similarity in feelings of self with others, without confusion between who is who." 

• Experiences. Scientists at the University of Chicago designed a study in which the participants were 96 photographs of hands and feet in painful situations and unpleasant, like a hand caught in a door. 

The researchers analyzed how these people were able to understand the pain of another and, further, to imagine themselves suffering. Decety said to take a view of things is a step towards human empathy, so the goal was to see what happens in the brain when an individual imagines what might be feeling another. 

The perspective, being able to feel the pain of others as their own, such as understanding the other who suffers, were associated with the activation of an area of the nervous system is involved in the sentence. Imagine themselves experiencing pain scored highest peaks in the matrix of pain and a response in less time, while understanding the suffering of others was associated with an increase in the same area of the brain but not immediately. 

This mechanism activates similar brain regions but the sites of activation are different. There is a contrast between imagining and imagining another in a painful situation. 

Decety concluded that the results helped to distinguish between personal distress and empathic responses to others. Have empathy for others does not engage fully, so the activities in the nervous system were different. 

Empathy increases only when thinking about the other, so the thoughts and feelings reduce it, it is argued in the study. 

By contrast, experience the pain of another as if it were itself gives rise to an exalted empathy in which the focus becomes the stress and feelings and not the suffering of others, said Decety. 

• Children. Since early man developed the ability to understand the other, but also to differentiate, to know, first, what he needs and, secondly, what you need to sort. 

Marcia Press, teaching area of Evolutionary Psychology Department of Psychology at the University of the Republic, explained to Find that "empathy is inherent and basic to human communication." 

In the mother, father, baby, you must have a "tuned" to understand the basic needs of the child (such as lack of sleep, food and hygiene) and initiatives such as the baby's game, which enhances the illusion and creativity. A healthy relationship also implies that the small sitting interpreted, he added. 

"It's not about talent or impulse is to give meaning to the word or other manifestations of which are translated into requirements," said Press, and highlighted the importance of "giving them significant markets." 

The psychologist further recalled that when a child plays with another must learn to tolerate frustrations and share toys, a situation that seems common, but that requires little to understand the need for the other to play with the same objects, wait turn and yield. 

"We must get out of that 'me first and me only' and interact with another," said Press. Moreover, empathy also involves understanding people beyond being agreed or disagreed with them. It was "emotionally capture the full range of emotions including anger and rage," stressed the teacher. 

The role of the family, institutions, teachers and peer groups are agents that transmit values. Help your child succeed in sharing emotions, understanding others and contribute to their socialization. Press stressed the importance of the small can achieve connection to the other, but also differentiate the personal emotions of a third party. 

• Response. Empathy motivates actions that are not always voluntary and conscious, said Press. The answers can also be found in an unconscious way. According to Decety, pain generates a signal that motivates certain behaviors, such as help. 

However, one need not feel pain from the sensory aspect to understand the difficult situation of another person. With only imagine the anguish of an individual is sufficient enough to arouse feelings of concern. Decety stressed the difference between sympathy, which involves assessing the person, and empathy is simply to share feelings. 

• psychopathic and violent. He studied the behavior of U.S. adolescents with behavioral disorders and psychopaths, and identified differences in responses of the nervous system of these individuals. 

The results of a study completed in June 2008 revealed that adolescents with behavior problems such as bullying, lying and stealing, that adults are more likely to develop antisocial behavior, activate different areas of the cerebral cortex as temporal lobe of the brain with images of pain and pleasure. 

These people enjoyed seeing others suffer. "Empathy should be seen as a factor which motivates the pro-social behavior and not anti social," said Decety. In his view, it is possible that aggressive behavior originates in an abnormal processing of affective information and clearly define this in a science experiment to fear, empathy and guilt. The investigator said he will continue to check with studios. 

"That does not mean that if someone has ca empathy is going to be good with people because you can share feelings, because empathy is a sadist and used to manipulate the other," said Decety, who is currently studying the behavior of psychopathic individuals incapable to share feelings and to feel sympathy and empathy.